This post may sound a bit philosophical or probably stupid, but I wanted to put across this to readers to get your views.
Why do stock exchanges have to work only from morning till evening? Are they doing anything physically in the evening to sign off the day? I agree, there is lot of mental stuffs going into it, but read on you’ll know what I mean to say…
Let me ask you in this way – why government institutions, offices have to work only from 8 to 5 pm? Why not in night shifts?
You are probably thinking – why am I asking such stupid questions. You think for yourself, what’s holding us from working 24/7? The basic question is since when did we start working during day time? The logic goes somewhat like this…
In the olden days, when there was no electricity, all the countries used to run administration during the day light. Every thing used to come to a grinding halt, once night fell.
The only socializing that went on was people gathering near temples, or meeting places, or in palaces where naach and gaana went on till late in the evening. Basically it was only for relaxing after hard days work.
Even today in villages, once night falls, everything becomes quite after 8 pm.
Now, we have electricity, communication system working 24/7. Then why we are limiting to 8 to 5 pm system? Is it just because our fathers and forefathers did so?
At the moment only industrial units work 24 / 7. Why not offices, government, stock markets?
Let’s take the case of working of stock markets. The market fluctuations in the price of a particular stock keep varying from the minute market opens till it closes. Does that mean that the prices are dependent only on the events that happened during day time?
Take, for example, after closure of Indian stock market for the day some earth quake happens in Korea and Samsung is wiped out off the ground. Does that mean do we have to wait till next day to see its shares (Samsung is not listed in India, its just an example) crash on Indian markets?
What I am trying to say is a natural disaster (wars / earth quakes / tsunamis / plant collapses in other regions of the world) wont wait till your stock market opens. They keep happening 24 / 7. So the markets have to reflect the event in prices every minute. That means it has to operate 24 / 7.
You can as, how is it possible? The answer is simple. Work on 3 shifts of 8 hrs a day. Assume there is a terminal operated by a particular employee of the equity broker. The employee comes to work at 6 am and works till 2 pm and hands over the terminal to his reliever and goes home. The second shift works 2 pm to 10 pm and third shift from 10 pm to 6 am. I mean to say what’s wrong in it? It’s not some unbelievable scene. In power plants the same cycle of schedule happens with utility operators.
Same way our pathetic government services!! Official timings are 9 am to 5 pm. But they work only from 10 to 4. Have you ever seen a single government employee in his place of work for full 8 hours? Most of the time you get to hear,
“Saab bahar gaye hai. Aap baithiye, shayad aate hi honge“
The balance service which government has to render to its civilians keeps increasing. If they use 3 shifts, the productivity increases 300%. Take the case of court cases. There are millions of cases pending. Why don’t they run courts in 3 shifts?
The most important factor to consider over here is that nobody has to invest more on infrastructure. It’s already there. All you do is utilize the available infrastructure for 24 hours, instead of keeping it idle for remaining 16 hours.
Same way no additional infrastructure required for stock markets.
THE BENIFITS:
Already the country is struggling with setting up infrastructure. Without adding to the additional infrastructure, we can increase productivity by 300% in certain fields. (Of course this can not be possible in all places. For example we can not have three prime ministers working in shifts. Ha ha ha… very funny!)
Also, with the available infrastructure we can provide 200% more jobs without adding any investment. Imagine that!! In fact, we may fall short of people and have to import expats, like in the case of gulf countries.
Now, can you start from the beginning? To my question, is it a stupid idea still??
Unless you think out of the box, you can’t see targets. Unless you see targets, you can’t work out of the way. Unless you can’t work out the way, you remain stagnant.
As they say, you must dream then only you struggle to make it happen!
I am sure many of you may think, what a stupid idea, if it was possible, it would have surely happened, but think about it for a second…Looking forward for your views.
Related posts:
Tags on » Working 8 am to 5 pm ? How about Non-Stop? post
PDF 
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s actually a good idea, if not 3 shifts we can start two shifts for government organizations, given that now a lot of our urban population is focused on jobs. A dual shift in govt offices will not only provide better service ie people can come to get their work done after office hours. But also it would generate a huge employment opportunity, I think govt should catch the idea immidiately.
Take the case of our schools and colleges. The compitition to get admissions to children is so intense. we can use the buildings during idle hours. We can create employment to equal no. of teachers who work now.
Take the case of courts, we can solve 3 times more cases if the process is running round the clock.
Take the case of Offices. You can achieve 3 times productivity if run round the clock. Ofcourse employment generation potential is tremandous.
One more invisible positive effect will be reduction of rush hour traffic.
We have seen rush hour in cities during morning and evening. With people spread over the 24 hrs of the day, the traffic is equally spread and no jams.
Another side effect of less traffic jams is less burning of fuel at traffic lights which reduce dependence on oil use.
We can go on and on and on in discussing positives.
Basically we should stop thinking that we can work only when the Sun is in the sky. We have to think why cant we work when Sun is not there in the sky?
My thumbs up to you.
Good Thought. Imagining something is not bad.
But, who will care to work in shifts and that too in night shifts? And why should public servants work when public is sleeping at their homes? Yes, there are some areas of Government offices where shift working is possible and can be done. But, again sync of work is a problem and also our officers will transfer their work to their successive shift officers, they will have another reason to postpone public works! :)
utilities can work with this model. Infact most mandatory services such as utilities, hospitals, law enforcement already do. Sweepers sweep the city throughout the night in Mumbai. However, the cost of doing this for a regular company may be far more than the returns.
It is also about the natural cycle of the body and of nature. Work in Day and sleep at night. Humans, by composition are not nocturnal.
Good idea but will probably follow be an evolution in our nature.
How cares to work in shifts?? Come on!! Have you seen the unemployed outside the recruitments? Imagine opening a govt office at night and ask those legions of unemployed “who cares to work in shifts” you get the answer.
I mean when workign during night is not illegal, unethical, unsocial. Once you start doing it (we already started as said in above comment) we get used to it. May be our kids get used to it.
Once that guy invented steam engine in 19th century, we are already on the irrevercible evalutionary path. We cant go back.
Sounds good in theory but will not be practical. Let’s take your example of court. Suppose you run them at night and let’s say you get a time at 2:00 AM in the morning. You would definitely won’t like it. I think to increase productivity you should try and get current people to work for full time instead of hiring 3 times more.
Hats off!!! Good thinking perspective again….
Amazing Thoughts! Practically Not Feasible
First of all,…Congo for the hatke thinking!!! :)
May be tht does not fits into the biological clock as of now…………but heck………we homo sapiens can adapt!!!
Sounds good……….can work very well………
many key benefits as already mentioned………..& counting!!!!
BTW, thats very unreasonable from the point of view of George Bernard Shaw:- “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man [and woman].”
Hello Friends,
Thanks for your appreciating comments as well as for those of debatable views too.
From the above comments, it struck me that it may not be possible to implement this format in 3 shifts for all type of jobs and businesses. However, it could as well be just 2 shifts, if not 3 shifts.
As Abhilash pointed out in one of the comments above that, how can one expect a court to take up a hearing mid-night when whole world is sleeping? And rightly so. For such instances, instead of 3 shifts, one can go for 2 shifts where the proceesding end before mid-night at 12.
One another sensible point discussed in the commments section is we should first work about extracting full productivity from the employees during their sole shifts, only than think about multiple shift jobs.
Nice food for thought.. It works..But getting our lazy people to adjust to irregular time schedule is tough. Our people are addicted to routine… little try and it will work.
It is not a bargaining topic. Whether to have 2 shifts or 3 shifts. The point is the concept. Is it good or not. If we think at the range of governments, first of all they see the logic. They set the macro decisions. Once the go ahead is given at top, there are many beurocrats taking fat salaries they will look into micros (minor issues like timing of courts etc)
I agree to your points, but if you see today, most of the works (specially Private Sector) are connected to Internet, whether its weeding, shopping, consultation, news almost every thing is available 24X7 through net, but as little bit of human interface is still required that’s the reason, people try to shut down their offices in evening as they can’t visit clients or customers at night. Hope you understand.
Now so far as Government sector is concerned they were the same, they are the same and hope they’ll remain the same.
The idea is simply stupid.It revealas the author’s lack of indepth knowledge in the subjects he mentions.Time alone is not the main factor.There are a lot of preparations to be done beyond the working hours.Physical presense of decision making authority is a must.A lot more to add.But why should I waste my time replying to these idiots?
nice article viral,i totally agree with you,
but we are indians and agnostic to innovation !
why do you use this in terms of govt —they are in kumbhkarni sleep mode!
who want to work? see another article in tark.in ——indian 7th in something……….
on more thing “jaisa chal raha hai chalne do” chinta kise hai?
Varun,
Ha ha.. Jaise chal raha hai waise chalne do. ‘Don’t disturb us’ attitude. Though, government has improved long time from that attitude, but nothing of landmark of sorts.
one more thing “the cooperation between various dept of govt.”
imagine if someone is defaulter in terms of tax etc.
whats the procedure of govt. you know very well
than you can not expect more from govt.
one more idea can we Moderate corruption by those three pm (prime ministers) in india.one from “majority ?(alliance)” one from minority & one from direct voting?
“to my mind one can not protect his nation from corruption by any innovative or any type of other idea!”
coz someone fall in love(corruption) when they get a “chance”
People who are passionate about there work are already working 24X7 :)
I appreciate your out of box thinking. I would love to hear one day government institutions are working 24X7.
Regards
Amit Patekar
{ 1 trackback }