Businesses need to stop caring about if you're on facebook 8 hours a day. If you're getting your work done at the end of the week that's all that really matters.
The idea that the business owns your ass for a minimum of precisely 40 hours a week where you must be solely focused on the outcome of the business is both toxic and nonproductive.
I think that would be a great - but we also employ by the hour not by the task which I also think is great. Sometimes I get tickets marked with three story points and think "Ha, let me just push up a quick patch" and other times I discover a dark dark hole at the bottom of assumptions that eats away at days.
It's really hard to generally evaluate employees on productivity - especially in CS - and so our compromise is that we all lie a bit and say "We're paying you for 40 hours a week" and we reply "Yes - my compensation is tied purely to the fact that I am here for forty hours".
I think it's a much longer road to better employee respect.
Every place I've worked as an FTE, the focus was on the job, not the hours. In fact, I've had many bosses say as much, usually implying that after hours work might be necessary and they'd expect me to take it uncomplainingly.
And I have, though it's always tempered by two things, namely, A. If the job routinely requires > 40 hours a week, then the job is poorly defined and we need to modify expectations, and B. That if I'm working to the job and not the hours, it doesn't matter if I only put in 30 hours one week, if the work is being done (and, likewise, if THAT is routine, the job is also poorly defined, and I need to ask for more things to do).
For me pay by the hour means:
- if the task will take much more work, company will still pay you and they will take the loses
- if the task is done faster, you'll just get more work and company will take the profits
I think this is European approach, trying to eliminate the luck factor out of ones success.
That's not how this works - even if you get your currently assigned amount of work done your manager will always wonder: "how much more this guy could accomplish if he wasn't constantly distracted by Facebook?" Which is a legitimate concern.
The idea that the business owns your ass for a minimum of precisely 40 hours a week where you must be solely focused on the outcome of the business is both toxic and nonproductive.