Work-life balance
Why the Danes will work out earlier and are still more productive
Denmark lives the work-life balance dream. At 9 a.m. to work and at 4 p.m. home – without productivity. Our author tried the Danish model.
This piece was first published in September 2024. Our author worked as an exchange journalist in Copenhagen.
“So!”, My colleague calls and bravely rises from his swivel chair. “I’ll break up and go to enjoy the nice weather!”
It is shortly before 4 p.m.
“Already?” I think perplexed. “It is far from 6 p.m.!” The German in me resists, on the other hand, to drop the pen that time. I look around. The desks at which journalists were still working hard – they are now almost all orphaned.
“Rune, you also stop, yes?” Asks my colleague, half in the hallway. “Sure, I just want to write two emails, then I go,” I flunker.
My almost bourgeois German working morale and my sense of duty let me work until long after 5 p.m. I am an exception in the editorial team. Silence between black monitors. Almost all colleagues are gone.
Source: Stern
