Dit is een uitgeschreven betoog over hoe het beter is voor je productiviteit als je ook tussendoor vrije tijd hebt. Het is compleet in het engels en is gebaseerd op de methode van Alquin. het is een betoog maar je kan het ook gebruiken als indeling
Engels – mondeling Alquin
Inleiding
Today I’m going to talk about how taking more time off for a holiday can affect your
productivity in a positive way. My topic is based on the alquin article: Believe me: less is
more. Where it’s stated that non-stop activity isn’t the best way of being productive.
Working a 14-hour day sounds productive and it sounds like you could get a lot done in that
time, but that doesn’t mean it’s the most efficient and productive way of working. Research
shows that if you do do that it can make you feel physically sick, or even make you think that
there’s no purpose to life.
In this article the concept ‘karoshi’ comes up. This is Japanese for death by
overwork. This trend of working for hours without a break can lead to earlier deaths
or health problems. This is also described in one of the articles that I’ve chosen
called: ‘The young Japanese working themselves to death’. The article is pretty
straight to the point, but it is very interesting to read about the Japanese culture.
Just like it is said in the article ‘Believe me less is more’, how taking breaks
increases your productivity, the article that I have chosen ‘Working Fewer Hours
Makes You More Efficient. Here’s the Proof’ has proof of this theory.
I thought it would be useful to divide my presentation into three sections. I’m going to
talk about; the problem of working too much overtime in different countries, then the term
‘karoshi’ of the Japanese overtime culture and at last how to increase your productivity.
Middenstuk
1.I'd like you to look at this graph. From this graph we can conclude that not all countries
are as efficient and productive.
In some of those countries the government does experiments on how to increase the
productivity.
In Sweden for example, the government allowed workers at a retirement home to work six
hour days. The results are positive. The employees have claimed to live an improved quality
of life with less stress, and they have more time to spend with their families. But there was
also a downside to this test. The experiment was rather expensive because the government
had to hire extra employees to make up for the hours.
Also these 6 hour days can’t be realized because of shift workers such as nurses, security
guards or care workers, for them a continual presence is needed. So if they would be able to
work six hour days they would often need to find someone to cover for them.
Then I’d like to draw your attention to the second graph, whereas you can see, the energy,
focus and motivation of an employee are not at their best through the entire day. From this
we can conclude that there is no point in working 15 hours in a row because your productivity
will decrease. Non-stop activity isn’t the best way of being productive. For example, in the
article: believe me less is more it is said to think of mental work as doing pushups. If you
want to do 10.000 pushups you would think the most efficient way to do the is all at once
without a break. But we know we can’t do that, so it would be better to stretch them out over
, weeks. This supports my argument that Pushing ourselves to work without a break is not
efficient and you will not be more productive.
2. This is a common problem in Japan. Therefore Japan will be my next subject.
In japan there is this concept called overtime culture. Japan has the longest working hours in
the world and especially the japanese youth are literally working themselves to death. This
has happened a lot in the past century that’s why the japanese now call it karoshi witch
literally translates to death by overwork. Around a undred employees die of heart attacks,
strokes or suicide each year due to karoshi.
I would like to draw your attention to the picture of this japanese woman. This is Matsuri
Takahashi. She was 24 when she killed herself. In the months before her death she had
worked more that 100 hours in overtime. She is just one example of this culture but this
happens to a lot of japanese young employees.
Now I would like to draw your attention to this report. These japanese men are working so
long that they miss the last train or are too tired to drive or walk themselves to their houses
because they have worked so many hours, that they will just sleep in the street. A japanese
reporter decided to make a report of this by putting a white line around them as if they are
dead to draw attention to karoshi.
Japan is just another example of how working more hours doesn’t increase your productivity
and it is definitely not better for your mental health. That’s why the government has decided
to take action to avoid karoshi. For example they turn out the lights in the office around 7 pm
forcing the eployees to stop working.
3. Finally, I would like to discuss the solution to this problem. How do you increase your
productivity?
It is proven that shorter working days will make the employee way more productive. But most
people can’t do that because we need an income. But to increase your productivity you can
also take more breaks or go on longer holidays. Taking breaks help you concentrate
afterwards. So therefore it will increase your productivity.
Another interesting point is that It is proven that if you take a short break every view hours
and just do nothing or do something where you don’t have to concentrate, it will make you
more productive once you get back to work. Also if you go on longer holidays and take them
more often, it will increase your concentration and therefore your productivity once you go
back to your work.
In brief, we have looked at these 3 aspects. I have discussed the problem in the
workplace of working too much overtime in different countries, the term ‘karoshi’ of the
Japanese overtime culture and how to increase your productivity. I talked about the
productivity in the workplace and a possible solution to increase someone’s concentration
and productivity. Thank you for your attention. If you have any comments or questions,
I'll be happy to hear them.
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