The age old wisdom says that more holidays means workers are less productive and work does not get done. Sri Lanka is, according to some, the land of holidays.
Corporate leaders in Sri Lanka often lament that the sheer number of holidays makes productivity gains really difficult. They regularly compare Sri Lanka with less public holiday countries like the United States, China, Singapore and UK as examples of highly developed or developing at a breakneck speed. They confidently state that a lot of public and bank holidays is the reason for Sri Lanka to lag in worker productivity.
There is some truth in this. For an example, we have this illogical system of public and bank holidays Vs. mercantile holidays where commercial establishments are working but banks do not. How can businesses have a productive day when the vital banking system is shut down?
While the lack of political courage (or sheer apathy) prevents governments from addressing this illogical holiday system, is there any real truth in more holidays = less productivity? Conventional wisdom says yes, but what about real data?
Yesterday, while I was on one of my frequent visits to Twitter, trolling for interesting sci-tech and business news, I stumbled upon a really interesting article by the venerable TIME magazine's online edition.
It was citing productivity data from OECD countries. Most OECD members are high-income economies with a very high Human Development Index (HDI) and are regarded as developed countries and at present there are 35 member states. The data compared the GDP of ALL 35 OECD member countries with number of productive workers (employed population), GDP per hour worked and average work week in hours.
Technically, we all should work 40 hours a week, but guess what?
According to the data, the most productive OECD countries such as Luxembourg, Ireland, Norway and Belgium, people on average worked far less than the standard 40 hour work week. Yet they are impressively productive. (See the chart below, courtesy, TIME Inc). Interestingly, the country, Mexico, where workers on average worked more that 40 hours was the least productive of the 35 states of OECD.
How could this be?
I did my own analysis, where I used the above data to plot a bar chart which compared per employed worker GDP to the number of hours worked per week in these countries. The data speaks for itself. See the bar chart below.
As you can see, countries where people worked less (at least in OECD states), their productivity was higher. The TIME article did not delve into possible reasons, but here are my educated guesses as to why OECD workers work less and their countries are more productive vs in Sri Lanka which is not so.
1. When people work less hours either due to more holidays or due to government stipulated controls, people have less stress, are happier, spend more time with family and kids and would probably put in really focused output when they are at work. This is what HR specialists call "work life balance".
Nobody in Sri Lanka, except may be a few blue-chips really worry about work life balance of their workers. What work life balance? Don't they have enough holidays already? seems to be the attitude of most corporate leaders and business managers.
However, work life balance does matter. People need to have a happy, relaxed private and personal life, if they are to be focused, engaged and productive workers at work. It is as simple as that. So a mercantile holiday here and a poya day there isn't going to hurt anyone.
2. The workers in those countries have technological and systemic support to get more work done during the time they are at work. Office productivity IT systems, family support such as day care for kids and elderly, a school system where you could put your kid to the nearby school rather than "a good one" 20km away from your home. Most OECD countries score well on these things.
If the office copier does not work, the internet is not there when you want it, the crappy computers in the office crash or the IT system that you depend on crash often etc etc can really suck life out of any workers productive day. In Sri Lanka, IT systems are not that bad but social support and school system is a bad as it gets.
If working parents such as Sri Lankan working parents who constantly have to worry about the safety of their children who are at the mercy of van drivers and three-wheeler drivers to get them to school and back the work day is not going to be productive.
Same way, productivity goes out of the window if mom and dad has to worry about what happens when the kids are back at home after school. Will the maid look after them well or is she romancing with the bass-unnahe building the neighbor's house? Would the people at the day-care really look after their precious child or are they watching TV while the child might end up in an accident? These factors prevents workers from really focusing on their work. And as any working Sri Lankan parent would know so well, these are facts of the daily grind in this country.
3. The third factor that contributes to worker productivity is the public transport system. Many OECD countries have really good transport systems finely tuned to get workers (and school kids) to their respective destinations and back as fast as possible.
In Sri Lanka, getting to work is so hard and tiring. For many people living in suberbia, the daily commute can be anything from 15km (like from Malabe) or 30-35km (from Negambo or Homagama). It usually takes 1.5 to 2.5 sweltering hours in an overcrowded bus for an average daily worker to get to office. Sometimes it take one or two transits like to Fort or Borella and from there to office.
By the time the person gets to work, he/she is tired, angry and for the ladies, the commute can often be a disgusting experience due to sexed up jack-a-roos in the bus. How can any a worker who was stuck in a crawling bus for two hours or more be productive the moment he/she sits down to work? In my humble opinion, nothing ruins the productivity of the Sri Lankan workers than the daily commute in crappy private bus.
Something has to be done, and no one seems to be doing anything except some corporate who have wisely provided office transport to their workers so that they get to work in a "working condition".
Conclusion
OECD data proves that less working hours does not mean less productive workers. In fact it is the opposite.
How to improve Sri Lankan worker productivity?
1] Fix public transport. This has to be done.
2] Fix the crazy Colombo school or popular school mentality (of course the all governments have done much to improve provincial schools and this has to be appreciated).
Also to be appreciated are the much maligned "international schools" which regardless of the popular belief, are doing good work. (disclosure: the author has been an international school teacher and a department head) They need to be regulated and monitored, but the country needs them.
3] Create a government monitored daycare system to look after children after school so that parents can focus on work, rather than worrying about their kids after 1.30pm.
About the author;
Terence Kahapola Arachchi, Dean / Faculty of Management, Horizon Campus, Malabe.
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