5 Simple Office Policies That Make Danish Workers Way More Happy Than Americans

From FastCompany


5 Simple Office Policies That Make Danish Workers Way More Happy Than Americans
Americans think it's normal to hate their jobs. Let us introduce you to the Danish concept of arbejdsglæde. It means happiness at work. Here's how Danish offices make sure it's happening.

WRITTEN BY Alexander Kjerulf

You will often see Denmark listed in surveys as the “happiest country on the planet." Interestingly Danes are not only happy at home, they're also happy at work. According to most studies of worker satisfaction among nations, the happiest employees in the world are in Denmark. The U.S.? Not so much. Here's just one data point: a recent Gallup poll found that 18% of American workers are actively disengaged, meaning they are “emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and less likely to be productive.” The same number for Danish workers is only 10%.

But why are Danish workers so happy compared to their American counterparts? Here are five fundamental differences.

1: REASONABLE WORKING HOURS

I once talked to an American who had gotten a job as a manager at a Danish company. Wanting to prove his worth, he did what he had always done and put in 60 to 70 hours a week. After a month, his manager invited him to a meeting. He was fully expecting to be praised for his hard work, but instead he was asked “Why do you work so much? Is something wrong? Do you have a problem delegating? What can we do to fix this?”

Some non-Danes wonder if Danes ever work. Not only do Danes tend to leave work at a reasonable hour most days, but they also get five to six weeks of vacation per year, several national holidays and up to a year of paid maternity/paternity leave. While the average American works 1,790 hours per year, the average Dane only works 1,540, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) statistics. Danes also have more leisure hours than any other OECD workers and the link between sufficient leisure and happiness is well established in the research.

The difference in the U.S. is stark, and many American companies celebrate overwork as a sign of commitment. “You have to put in the hours” is the message in the mistaken belief that the more hours you work, the more work you get done. We call this “The Cult of Overwork.” Danish companies, on the other hand, recognize that employees also have a life outside of work and that working 80 hours a week is bad for both employees and the bottom line.

2: LOW POWER DISTANCE

In the U.S., if your boss gives you an order, you pretty much do what you're told. In a Danish workplace, extremely few direct orders are ever given and employees are more likely to view them as suggestions.

Dutch sociologist Geert Hofstede has quantified the business culture in more than 100 countries on several parameters, one of which is "power distance." A high power distance means that bosses are undisputed kings whose every word is law. U.S. workplaces have a power distance of 40 while Danish workplaces--with a score of 18--have the lowest power distance in the world.

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Negative Real Interest Rates Are Just Income Redistribution Disguised As Monetary Policy

From Forbes

Negative Real Interest Rates Are Just Income Redistribution Disguised As Monetary Policy

Jeffrey Dorfman  |  Contributor  8/28/2014

As Keynesian economists and Democrats continue to fret about the imagined lack of demand in the economy, describing our current situation as “secular stagnation,” many are calling for even more extraordinary monetary policies. We already have negative real interest rates at the short end of the yield curve, but some want to consider even negative nominal rates. However, such policies will not stimulate the economy, but are just a backdoor way to accomplish even more income redistribution.

Interest rates have been pushed down to historic lows by the Federal Reserve. Nominal interest rates are economic jargon for the actual interest rates people face. For short term deposits and bonds, they are already approximately equal to zero. Real interest rates are economist-speak for interest rates minus the inflation rate. Most savers have been stuck with negative real interest rates on their CDs, savings, money market, and checking accounts for five years now and even many short and medium-term bonds are paying negative real interest rates.

What negative real interest rates do is steal wealth from people who are savers. People with money in the banks or bonds paying them negative real interest rates are really losing money over time in terms of the purchasing power of their savings. In contrast, negative real interest rates essentially provide borrowers with partial loan forgiveness. They are paying back a loan with less money (in purchasing power) than they originally borrowed.

These historically low interest rates are not stimulating the economy because while they may encourage people and businesses to borrow money, they discourage those same people and businesses from saving money. Money can only be borrowed after somebody saves it, and low interest rates encourage spending, not saving. While savers around the world are sending their money to the U.S. for safety, offsetting the negative effect of low interest rates on saving, all that foreign money and more would have come to the U.S. if interest rates had been higher.

The federal government currently redistributes seven dollars for every three it spends. Income redistribution is now the main purpose of our federal government, not the provision of public goods and promotion of the general welfare. Negative real interest rates are just another way to expand the amount of income redistribution. It is creative in that it won’t show up in any budget document and no politicians have to cast a vote on the matter.

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