Human productivity is not linear - I would not be surprised if 32 hours of work is roughly equivalent to 40 hours of work. In a similar vein, I would imagine 80 hours of work is actually less work than 40 hours, especially if repeated.
So why not cut it down to 1 day per week then? I agree with you in a way that there is a certain amount of diminishment in each additional unit of output, especially if you piss off the workers and make them half ass it. But I think we both know that your objections are ill-founded.
Because it's not linear but there's still an equation. It's not arbitrary. Meaning, 1 day of work is obviously less productive than 4. But 4 might not be less productive than 5.
It's also not about half-assing. If you work someone 80 hours a week, and they work as hard as they possibly can, they will still likely be less productive than if they just worked 40 hours. Because they start making mistakes, which they then have to fix, and make more mistakes while they fix those mistakes...
After a certain point, your productivity might be negative. Meaning, no employee at all might be more productive than an employee working 100 hours a week.
