A 24/7 365 Economy?

[Big Don]

With 24 hour mini marts, Wal Marts and KMarts, Internet shops you can order from anytime of the day or night, isn't it time we did away with the 8-5 Monday through Friday concept of "Business Hours" and "Business Days"?

Those companies that don't find it helps their business to be accessible to their customers on weekends or in the dead of night, shouldn't be required to stay open, but, the terms "Business Hours" and "Business Days" should be retired.
After all, the reason Business days don't include the weekend is so people could worship, and to keep the sabbath holy. With so many not religious, why keep them from working on Saturdays and Sundays just because it's been that way for years? A good employer will work with his/her employees to schedule their shifts to meet their requirements, just as a good employee will be ready and willing to work when needed. I don't know of any religion that bans worship at anytime...


Discuss

 

[CoryKS]

It wouldn't be practical. One of the reason so many businesses keep regular 9-5 weekday hours is that having common hours helps them to work with other businesses. If my company decided to do away with regular weekday hours, it would be very difficult to work with our clients. We see some of this now with the outsourcing of some of our programming work overseas. It's hard to converse in real time with someone in Thailand with the time zone difference.

And though there is generally less observance of religious services in our society, it's still nice to be able to coordinate time off with friends and family. I used to work the night shift at a former job, and it sucks to get off work and want to go get a beer when all your friends are just waking to go in.

 

[Andrew Green]

I'd say we already do. Businesses are open when it best benefits them to be open. A martial arts school that tried to do 9-5 hours certainely wouldn't last long.

Speaking for myself I like having weekends off, everyone else is off so its easy to arrange time with friends / family. I prefer working durring the day and getting evenings off for similar reasons.

If given two identical offers, except for hours of work, one had me working 9-5 and the other evenings or weekends, I'd take the 9-5 without hesitation. It would take a pretty big increase in something else to get me to go the other way, not neccessarily pay, type of work, working conditions, holidays, etc all play a part)

I imagine most people would think like me on that matter, the result being the companies that keep the best hours for their employees would get the best employees.

"Business hours" are more about giving people common hours then anything else IMO, trying to do away with them wouldn't make much difference, employees would still want them.

But back to your idea, I do think there are some other advantages as well. Eliminating or decreasing "rush hour" would likely save money on fuel for everyone, as well as time. Having different people at different hours would reduce space requirements for businesses (as well as energy costs).

I would suspect that a more likely route would be to see more businesses allowing employees flexible hours, and the ability to work from home. Networking and communications are at the point that for a lot of peoples jobs where they work doesn't make a lot of difference. Of course home has distractions that might decrease productivity, but that depends on the person. You also get a lack of face to face contact, even if communication actually increases that could be bad for morale.

 

[Nolerama]

I agree. I think we should do away with the concept of "business hours" and "business days." But it does raise some questions.

Say everyone that works just gets paid a flat salary. Could that mess with a business' tax numbers and profits? Would that adversely affect an individual employee? How would that affect a part-time employee? What about factory employees trying to meed a quota?

How would banks feel about that? There's already a colloquialism pertaining to "banker's hours," alluding to a service not being there when you need it.

Actually, I think it would work as long as problems/questions like those were addressed. We live in a service-based society, where the services of all kinds are offered at appropriate times to maximize profit. I'm just saying that if that concept were thrown out tomorrow, some questions would be raised.

 

[Darksoul]

-In 9 years of working security, which obviously runs 24/7, 365 days a year, I've only had one position, for one year, that was Monday thru Friday. Of course, the hours were 1:30pm til 9:30pm. Feel like I always work on Saturdays and Sundays. I think the traditional business hours model is probably on its way out, simply because of the growing needs to be global, international, and competition. I think a company can have main business hours, where most of the work is done, but thru company websites run by a skeleton crew on the graveyard shift, some business can continue at the off-hours. Guess it really depends on the type of business.

-A similar point to this being the hours employees work. Flexible schedules are a great idea. A friend of mine who works for ADT Security has 4-10hour night shifts, then a 3-day weekend. It works for her, though may not work for others. Myself, I work 2-8 hour shifts, then 2-12 hour shifts, which blows. My sleep shedule is all messed up right now. I too, have a 3 day weekend although it doesn't feel like it. I think more people are willing to work even a variety of schedules, if they can plan their lives around it. Free time is so important, and we often feel like we never have enough.

Andrew