back to article Nice job, technology. Now we have to work FIVE TIMES HARDER

Researchers have claimed that modern technology has made workers almost five times more tired productive than they were in the '70s. A business report painted this as entirely good news, hailing the fact that workers are now chained to their smartphones or fondleslabs and can work around the clock. In a paper called the " …

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  1. magrathea

    Land price (the price of individual liberty) rises with production. You can't get around this relationship by increasing production. Like a mouse trapped in a wheel

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We might be more 'productive'.

    But the useful output is the same. In recent years I've spent more time having my life ruined by shitty cms's attempting to report what I'm doing than doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

    Of course this extra detail that we report to the customers is always a hidden cost; if they knew how much it costed they wouldn't bother asking. Invariably it usually goes to some manager who is that far removed from the project they might as well be on the fucking moon, so they just glance at it and go 'yeah, alright'.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I disagree. Just because we have the technology for constant communication doesn't mean its being used as such. If anything, I find that people using these toys are very poor at communicating and hender the job at hand. It should not take 30 minutes for everyone involved pecking away to move forward. 5 minutes of face time gets a hell of a lot more accomplished.

  4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Boffin

    What about the friggig OFF switch?

    Take your company device home either switch it off or put it in airplane mode. Unless you paid to work 24/7/52 which is illegal by the way just switch the bloody thing off. All it takes is a little bit of willpower.

    As for BYOD, just use a totally differen set of accounts for Work stuff. Log out after finishing work and don't log in again until ready to start working again.

    It ain't rocket science you know.

  5. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    It's not "research", it is industry "product placement"...

    Researchers from the Centre for Economic and Business Research, sponsored by O2 Business (mobile tech and network supplier) - in writing their "Individual Productivity Report" were hardly going to reach the conclusion that "modern technology has made workers almost five times less productive than they were in the '70s." were they.

  6. Turtle

    Producing....

    "The world of work has changed enormously since the '70s. Nowadays, 43 per cent of Britain's economy is fuelled by office work, compared to 24 per cent in 1972, the report claimed."

    Other than paperwork for each other, what are they actually producing?

  7. bigtimehustler

    What they don't seem to take account of is that most people, including me, do not answer calls or check emails out of office hours, regardless of whether we can. I only have my personal phone, no work phone and no way do i configure it to receive work emails, that would just be crazy. If anyone ever asks me why I haven't picked an email up out of hours then i just tell them i don't check my email out of work hours. Companies are quite willing to lean towards you doing it, but if you never give an inch, they tend to realise early on your not going to do it and stop expecting it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      My boss seems to have a habit of coming in early and going late. What he doesn't realise is that sending me emails moaning about trivial things that are in my inbox for when I arrive merely make sure I'm in a bad mood before I've even thought about starting work.

      As does sending meeting requests at 4:55 for 9:30 for a status update.

  8. Gordon 11

    a 480 per cent rise in "ICT-related labour productivity"

    Does that mean that there is now ~6 times as much done using ICT (hardly surprising, given how much has moved to using ICT) or that an ICT task that used to take x time now takes ~0.17x time?

    Given that a lot of "ICT-related" tasks are writing documents (with the bizarrely named "productivity suites") and reading them I can't see how that can have been speeded up, given that the rate-limiting factor in both is the human.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Coat

      Yeah, but you see, the really important thing is that it is those 480% that are keeping us from drowning in the multiple trillions of losses due to piracy reported by RIAA/MPAA.

  9. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

    Or more

    like the fact that although productivity has risen by using computers/robots etc, individual productivity has actually dropped because the remaining employees have to cover for the 2 or 3 missing people who were sacked due to buying computers and robots, which eats into their time they used to use for doing their own job and not 3 or 4 other ones too

  10. Martin Budden Silver badge

    You will never get rich working for someone else.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "You will never get rich working for someone else."

      being rich will never make you happy either! If you think life is money, you have alot to learn.

  11. cortland

    It's hard to

    It's hard to work from home if one is a hardware engineer; hardware doesn't take well to file compression, one runs out of files and it takes you-will-not-BELIEVE-how-long to put the hardware back together. Not to mention the bandwidth to send it.

    The best trick is to be a RETIRED hardware engineer, called in when the new folks can't tell which end of a 'scope probe is which, where the near field is far enough away, how to snarg a degusticator or set up a dithyrambic synthesizer.

    Note to self: Include Simpson 260 in "go" kit.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The difference today is that we live in an 'always on' society where lines between work and leisure have become blurred by communications technology."

    Stop being so self important! When I "clock off" I switch off. If you want me to work out of hours, pay me for it! or adjust my working hours to suit business need. Seems to me only the individual is to blame!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So what happens when your boss demands you to be on call or you lose your job, then you find that, for your given skill set, ALL the bosses demand the same?

      Because that's what's happening in most parts of the job market. Flexibility is becoming a prerequisite, meaning it's part of the base pay.

      1. Swarthy

        "Because that's what's happening in most parts of the job market. Flexibility is becoming a prerequisite, meaning it's part of the base pay."

        I am flexible, I can bend and contort to meet the needs of the job.. but my definition of flexibility does not include the ability to grab my ankles and call out "Hello Sailor".

        1. Charles 9

          Then you'll soon be expendable. Eventually, being able to reach the ankles and call out, "Hello Sailor" will become a job requirement. That's what happens with a race to the bottom. Eventually, someone desperate enough will step forward, leaving you and all the like-minded behind.

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