E U R O P E A T W O R K

A VISION ON #2
working time JANUARY 08

Legal diversity of working time appears to be

one of the most critical issues for European
HR managers. Good or bad news? According
to renowned experts, most of the answers
will be found well beyond statistics: within
companies… and households!

Gerhard Bosch Lionel Prud’homme Chris Brewster

Professor of Sociology and
Director of the Institute
for Work and Skills at the
University of Duisburg-Essen
"Working time distribution
at the household level is
a key factor"
Page 2
EMEA Human Resources Vice-President
at Carlson Wagonlit Travel
"Go out into the field and
behave like workplace
ethnologists!"
Page 4
Professor of International HR Management,
University of Reading and School of
Leadership, Change and HR Management
(Henley). Director of Henley’s
HR Centre of Excellence
"I’m not at all sure we can
trust the statistics"
Page 6
Jours

Facts and
figures
p. 8-9

An ADP publication

Heures
WORKING TIME
Gerhard Bosch
Working time distribution
at the household level is a key factor
Gerhard Bosch, Professor of Sociology and
Director of the Institute for Work and Skills at the University
of Duisburg-Essen, focuses on households and the
distribution of working time between men and women and
asks whether we are moving from the male breadwinner
model to a more egalitarian two part-time jobs model.
Europe at work: You say that
observing couples gives a better
idea of local working time practices
across Europe than reading
European directives. Are you being
serious?
Gerhard Bosch: Let’s take three
couples. The first in Oslo, the
second in London and the third
in Madrid. We’ll ask them
all the same question: who
should be the breadwinner?
“Both spouses equally”, the
Scandinavians reply. “Both
spouses”, the Brits also reply.
But the husband will earn
more than his wife. The
difference between the sexes
becomes more pronounced
south of the Pyrenees and
the Alps, where the wife
traditionally stays at home.
How much does economic
development contribute to working
time practices?
The economic factor is decisive,
but it interacts with institutions
and culture. In Portugal, for
instance, economic constraints
resulting from the colonial wars of
the 1970s pushed women into the
workforce. The fact that women’s
pay is lower in Great Britain is
another reason why husbands
work more than their wives.
Can social policies reverse
the trends?
They play a decisive role. There
are far more women working
full-time in France and Belgium
than in Germany because they
can put their children in nursery
schools and crèches – full-
time. Many German women
stay at home, and many who
choose to work give up on the
idea of having children; this is
undoubtedly one reason why
Germany’s birth rate is falling.
Local working time legislation
still differs widely in spite of
European directives. How do we
make heads or tails of it all?
By looking at three factors:
2
working time, room given to
part-time work and flexibility.
These three factors combine
in a number of different ways
across Europe. When you look
at how things are done from
north to south and from west to
east, you find as many models
as there are points on the
compass, plus an intermediate
model represented by Germany,
France, Belgium and the
Netherlands.
The Scandinavian model, which
I think is the most interesting,
encourages full-time work for
everyone and distributes the
“
work between men and women.
I don’t think we
will harmonise
“
social practices
by decree
Gerhard Bosch,
Professor of Sociology
and Director of the
Institute for Work and
Skills at the University
of Duisburg-Essen
Working hours are reasonable
and employees are rarely forced
to do overtime and go home
late. But full-time work can
be adapted to suit individual
circumstances. When there are
children – or elderly parents –
to be taken care of, workers go
part-time or even stop working
for as long as needed. This
practice is becoming more and
more common among men as
well as women.
The southern model is the
opposite. Being the family’s sole
breadwinner, the husband will
often do small undeclared jobs
on top of his already long official
working hours. If his wife also
works, she will often do likewise.
There is little room for part-time
work in the south; even less room
for flexibility.
Between these two extremes, the
continental model seems to be
faced with contradictions. The
working week is short and people
retire early, but what seems to
have been forgotten is services
for families, in Germany in
particular. As for flexibility… it’s
harder to reduce one’s hours and
go back to full-time work later
in Düsseldorf and Lyons than in
Copenhagen and Oslo! Whereas
the Scandinavians have opted for
flexibility throughout their lives,
the “continentals” have gambled
on work-sharing of weekly hours
and ended up with the highest
unemployment rates in Europe!
What should we make of the
British and Irish models in this
context?
These two countries are much
more open to women working
than the southern countries. But
men’s salaries are higher and a
third of men earn even more by
doing overtime, working up to
48 or 49 hours per week. In
this system, part-time work
of women is the corollary of
overtime of men.
Lastly, of course, there are
the eastern countries that
recently joined the EU. This
“transition” model comprises
both a long working week
and early retirement, which
was widespread following the
collapse of the communist
system. But from the communist
period this model has retained
the equal sharing of full-time
work between men and women,
high flexibility and extensive
childcare facilities. In spite of
their economic tribulations,
these transition countries are
currently closest to the
Scandinavian model.
All these models have their
limits. Each of the categories you
describe allows exceptions…
Of course. These models
constitute frameworks that must
not overshadow other specific
factors. Childcare facilities and
school hours vary extremely
widely between France and
Germany, for example. Even
though these two countries have
enough in common to belong to
the same model, their inhabitants
have different mentalities. We saw
this in a recent study of women
working part-time in superstores.
This study, conducted in Great
Britain, Germany and France,
revealed a French exception: the
controversial notion of only being
allowed to work part-time is
purely French. Another example
is Portugal, where the southern
cultural models predominate and
yet work is shared between men
and women, just like in Finland!
Social Europe has been set in
motion. Will Brussels’ directives
and regulations succeed in
harmonising our working time
practices?
I don’t think we will harmonise
social practices by decree. This
will happen slowly as people’s
mentalities and outlooks on
life gradually converge and
as institutions like childcare
develop. The male full-time/
female part-time combination is
a transitional form between the
single male breadwinner model
and more egalitarian modes.
And the two full-time jobs model
could evolve towards one in
which both spouses have
part-time jobs.
3
>>
Gerhard Bosch is Professor
of Sociology and since 2007,
is also Director of the Institute
for Work and Skills at the
University of Duisburg-Essen.
He is specialized in labour
market policy, working time,
employment policy and training.
He has written many books,
articles and is often invited to
radio broadcasts. Gerhard Bosch
is currently working on dynamics
of national employment models
as well as european comparison
of "low-skill" jobs.
Some of his publications…
G. Bosch: "European employment
models under pressure to change", 28th
Conference of the International Working
Party on Labour Market Segmentation
IWPLMS / LEST, University of Marseilles,
Aix-en-Provence, France , 04.07.2007
G. Bosch, "Working time and
the standard employment relationship"
in Decent working time: new trends,
new issues, J.-Y. Boulin, M. Lallement,
J.-C. Messenger, F. Michon, (eds.), Geneva:
Internat. Labour Office, p. 41-64, 2006
G. Bosch, H. Bielenski, A. Wagner,
"Working time preferences in sixteen
European countries", Europ. Foundation
for the Improvement of Living and
Working Conditions, Dublin, 2002
G. Bosch, S. Lehndorff, "Working-time
reduction and employment: experiences
in Europe and economic policy
recommendations" in Cambridge journal
of economics 25, p. 209-243, 2001
G. Bosch, "Working time: from
redistribution to modernization"
in Changing labour markets in Europe:
the role of institutions and policies,
P. Auer (ed.), 2001, p. 55-115
EXPERT
WORKING TIME
C
ould it be that statutory working
hours are more important in an
ideological debate than in HRMs’
everyday experience? When Lionel
Prud’homme, EMEA HR VP at Carlson
Wagonlit Travel, decides to build a
productivity model, he aligns the ten
countries in which his 11,000 European
employees work on a “single grid”, a median
Full Time Equivalent, that makes differences
vanish. So the question is no longer whether
people work longer in the UK, France or
Germany, but how many transactions
staff members complete in a given time.
“You simply need to travel abroad to see
that national practices do not necessarily
follow the letter of the law ”, notes the
expert. “There are obvious signs, in business
districts and on the street, which contradict
the official figures. We see in particular
that French executives work longer hours
than most of their European counterparts.”
So the business model of the company
is built by measuring everyone using the
same yardstick. The main aim is for the
service sector to catch up with industry in
terms of value analysis. And to do so Lionel
Prud’homme had no hesitation in making use
of a powerful tool, HR Intelligence, extracting
HR data from payroll systems.
But the analysis is economic rather than
managerial. Certainly, CWT will be able
to compare productivity in different countries
and see whether an Italian signs more
contracts per hour than a Spaniard or a
Latvian. CWT will be able to set up its new
“business centres” in the most favourable
regions, because its activity is increasingly
scattered and decentralised. It will even
be able to rank the performance of these
centres, which employ 30 to 200 people in
small teams of five or six providing services
to clients. But what measures can be based
on these data with regard to management?
“Everything except technocratic measures ”,
explains Lionel Prud’homme, who
understands that statistics cannot be
corrected by issuing decrees. “The key to
corporate success lies in reaching the best
compromise between targeting profits and
caring for the staff.”
Working hours at Carlson Wagonl
The advantage of sma
arrangements
When the wage bill represents the main cost compon
do statutory working hours significantly affect profit
centre productivity? With agencies in 22 European
countries and nearly 1,034 "business centres" staffe
by 30 to 200 people, Carlson Wagonlit Travel is analy
its business model. "Performance is not driven by na
legislation, claims Lionel Prud’homme, EMEA HR VP,
"but rather by best management practices.
“
Local m
act as
in the n
corpora
Lionel Pru
EMEA Hum
Vice-Presi
Wagonlit T
Like workplace ethnologists
Lionel Prud’homme’s advice to CWT’s
local HRDs is to “go out into the field and
behave like workplace ethnologists ”. Team
efficiency on a daily basis stems more
from arrangements between individuals
than from following rules to the letter. The
mainly female workforce is not unfamiliar
with this adaptable, inventive, empirical
approach, which is more conducive to
finding solutions than creating conflicts and
productive rather than complicated. “I have
observed different types of people ”, notes
our ethnologist HR VP. “Women who arrive
at 8 o’clock, women who arrive at 8:30, and
so on until 10 o’clock. These habits stem
4
 lit Travel
all-scale

nent, from both the age of their children and
the sequential nature of our processes.
The women who arrive later take over
from the others.”
ed Is this freedom to make small arrangements
ysing self-regulating, without any risk of affecting
productivity or fairness? Of course not! Local
ational managers keep a watchful eye on a number
of general limits and act as mediators in
the name of corporate values. The vital issue
of part-time working falls within this limited
margin for manoeuvre. “For example, it
would be impossible to conduct our business
if nobody worked on Wednesdays.” The
managers
“
mediators
name of
rule is binding for everyone and guarantees
equality for all. But requests are handled on a
case-by-case basis, with always the intension
of seeking solutions to difficult situations.
“Our role as HRM is to mediate unstintingly,”
ate values stresses Lionel Prud’homme. “By doing so,
we are able to show the managers what we
expect of them, and strike the right balance
between our duty to sustain our economic
ud’homme, performance and fulfil our social role.”
man Resources
ident at Carlson Annualised hours and no time clock?
Travel An issue of much more general importance
to everyone, annualised hours, will provide
a subject for discussion between social
partners. The business travel market
obviously goes through slack periods and
busy periods. So why not vary working
hours accordingly over the year? Obviously
the first obstacle is childcare, which is more
developed in some countries than in others
(see interview with Gerhard Bosch page 2),
and families are rarely able to find a flexible
solution. “If I have to, I’ll set up a legal advice
hotline to accompany the annualisation of
nannies’ working hours! ” suggests Lionel
Prud’homme. He fully meant his suggestion,
but it wasn’t taken seriously…
of them that time clocks should be
reintroduced. “Worst of all ”, objects the
HR VP, picking up on Chris Brewster’s idea
without quoting it (see interview page 6).
“With time clocks your value-added no longer
matters; all that’s counted is your hours.”
Simpler and based more on trust, declarative
solutions seem to be better...
Hence, in the privacy of each company,
away from the debates and statistics,
working hours are the result of a certain
way of doing business together. And what
the workplace ethnologist discovers at
Carlson Wagonlit Travel is a culture of travel
and the universally accepted rule that a
client must never be left stuck at an airport.
Of course, HR Intelligence will soon help
defining productivity standards. But the HRM
will examine managers’ profiles rather than
national legislation to explain differences
between two business platforms.
Carlson Wagonlit Travel
With over 40 million on and offline
transactions annually, Carlson Wagonlit
Travel is the second largest travel manage-
ment company in the world and is number one
in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and Latin
America. CWT is specialized in business
travel management and employs more
than 22,000 people in almost
150 countries. In 2007, CWT wholly-
owned operations and joint ventures
generated USD20.5 billion in annual sales.

Second obstacle, the trade unions doubt the

company’s ability to clock time fairly, hence
the surprising recommendation from some PRACTICES
5

WORKING TIME
Chris Brewster
Working time and productivity:
beyond the figures!
After having conducted extensive international HRM
evidence is that the United
research, worked closely with many organisations States is not a highly productive
country on a per hour basis, but
in all sectors, and published some twenty books because they work longer hours
and over a hundred articles, Chris Brewster now takes time than we do in Europe, they
make up for that.
to stand back. Looking beyond the figures and studies, he
Are corporate cultures more
shares his realistic vision on working time with us. influential than local ones?
HR managers manage the
Europe at work: The ADP HR countries, people generally are in people within their company,
Atlas shows wide differences in the office a lot longer than they and far away from the
local working times across Europe. think they are. I think probably national averages! As well
Are they reflected in productivity? what you’ve got is a much more as the national culture, there
Chris Brewster: I am not at all accurate recording of time in the is an organisational culture
sure we can trust the evidence north of Europe, and a rather overlay here. For example,
that we’ve got. For example, most more casual recording of time in Sweden people are very
European studies show that the in the south of Europe, which mature about their working
British working time is longer tends to emphasize the one and hours arrangements; if they
than anywhere else in Europe. underplay the other. have promised to be home at

“
“
Countries that do
longer hours are
less productive

Chris Brewster,
Professor of International
Human Resource
Management and Director
of Henley’s HR Centre of
Excellence

But anybody who has already
worked in Southern Europe could
have observed that people work
extremely long hours, very late
into the evening. OK, they may
take quite long lunch breaks,
but often those breaks are spent
with colleagues, discussing
work issues anyway. In all sorts
of organisations in all sorts of
Do the less productive countries
work less?
Absolutely not! The countries
that work longer hours are the
less productive countries. So, in
a sense, they are making up for
lower productivity per hour by
just doing more hours. That
applies, incidentally, to the
United States as well. The
6 o’clock, then they make sure
they are home at 6 o’clock.
But even in Sweden, there are
organisations where people
work extremely long hours.
Thus, HR Managers have to
understand the national culture
but be much more aware of
their immediate organisational
culture.

6
 What is best for a company: long
hours with low productivity or…
From a managerial point of
view, in many ways it’s actually
cheaper to get people to work
long hours than to invest in
new technologies. But more or
less the same amount of work
gets done in each organisation!
A few years ago, one of my
doctoral students did a research
project on productivity, with
matched groups of organisations
as different as engineering
companies and police forces.
Some of these organisations
were working more efficiently
for a shorter number of hours,
whereas others were working
less efficiently, but for longer
hours. And we saw very similar
things in France, incidentally,
when the 35-hour week was
introduced there.
Part-time work is a good way to
decrease working time. Is it also a
good way to increase productivity?
Employees like it, but
employers also like it.
We know there is now some
fairly serious research that says
part-time workers tend to be
more productive. If you’re only
in the office for four hours
a day, you spend less time
having coffee and talking to
your friends and it’s much
easier to concentrate and get
on with your work. That’s
particularly the case where jobs
are repetitive. So with part-time
work, you get people who are at
their fast early pace.
Is it always useful to check the
working time?
Productivity and working
time can be unrelated. You
have to differentiate between
organisations and, within
organisations, you have to
differentiate between tasks.
There will be some tasks
for which working time is
extremely important. If you’re
serving customers in a shop,
productivity is less of an issue
than just making sure a shop
opens at the right time.
But it does not really matter
when people do the work if they
are manufacturing something
or creating an advertising
campaign. The people at the
receiving end really don’t care
when you did it.
From a Human Resource
Management point of view, the
difficulty there is to make each
of those people feel that they are
being treated in a fair and
equitable manner. So, when I go
into companies, what I find is
rules on working time being
applied to people for whom
working hours are actually
much less important than
productivity and what they
produce. Nobody gains very
much from that process. For
these people, it is seen as a kind
of dictatorial imposition on their
freedom to come and go and
get the job done as they wish.
And, particularly for some of
the people. the issue is: “Are we
being paid for the number of
customers we can get in or are
we paid just to turn up and
sit here? ”
What is the main issue today for
European HR Managers?
Most HRMs want to standardise
everything around the world
because they don’t want to be
running everything on a kind
of free-for-all basis, where
everybody is reinventing the
wheel every time. But they now
also have to be sensitive to local
legislations, local cultures, and
local business requirements. In
all sorts of areas of International
Human Resource Management
that’s a key issue for working
time management in particular.
7
>>
Chris Brewster is Professor
of International Human Resource
Management at the University of
Reading and at the School
of Leadership, Change and
HR Management of Henley
(UK) and Director of Henley’s
HR Centre of Excellence. He
has conducted numerous
research projects in the field of
international and comparative
HRM. He also founded and
is a special advisor to the
international and ongoing
Cranet, conducting researches
now in over 40 countries.
Chris Brewster published
some twenty books and over a
hundred articles. Currently, he
is notably undertaking work on
convergence of HR practices
across countries.
Some of his publications…
C. Brewster and O. Tregaskis,
"Converging or diverging?
A comparative analysis of trends in
contingent employment practice in Europe
over a decade", Journal of International
Business Studies 37, (Forthcoming)
C. Brewster, "Comparative HRM: European
views and perspectives", International
Journal of Human Resource Management,
18:5, May 2007, p. 769-787
C. Brewster, P. Sparrow and
G. Vernon, International Human Resource
Management, 2nd edition, 2007, London,
UK, Chartered Institute of Personal
Development, p. 230
C. Brewster, "A European perspective on
HRM", European Journal of International
Management, Volume 1, Number 3, 2007,
p. 239-259
EXPERT

facts & figures

Actual working time: average annual hours worked per person

FI
1,666

NO
1,360

SE
1,587

DK
1,551 Annual hours
worked per person
< 1,500 hrs
IE 1,500 - 1,600
1,638 NL
UK 1,367 PL 1,600 - 1,700
1,672 1,994
DE 1,700 - 1,800
BE 1,435 1,900 - 2,000
1,534 CZ
LU 2,200 > 2,000 hrs
1,557 SK
Not available
1,791
AT
HU No country in the range
FR 1,636 1,800 - 1,900
1,535 1,994
Source: OECD 2006 – Annual hours per
person 2004, 2005 (11)
IT
1,791

PT ES
1,685 GR
1,775 2,053

Did you know?

• 2005 annual working time in: • The maximum weekly working time (including
United States: 1,809 hours overtime) of 48 hours, as set by the EU, is the
basic rule in many countries – such as Denmark,
Japan: 1,802 hours
France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg,
Canada: 1,737 hours. Norway and the UK.

8

facts & figures

Actual working time: usual hours worked per week, full time
Heures

Source: European Communities Eurostat 2006 – Usual hours per week 2005 (2)

Collectively agreed working time: days off and annual hours

Jours

Jours de congés
Jours fériés
Congé annuel

Temps de travail annuel contractuel

Heures
Source: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions 2006 – Collectively agreed working time 2005 (17)

9
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