How to Measure Employee Productivity (Without Micromanaging): Why the 8-Hour Workday Is the Wrong Metric

The8-hour workdayhas a specific birthday: 1817, when Welsh labor reformer Robert Owen campaigned for "eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest." It was an industrial-era framework designed to protect factory workers from 16-hour shifts running machinery on assembly lines. Henry Ford later standardized the 40-hour workweek in 1926 after finding it maximized industrial output.