I was with the author up until I saw the "..for a 25% lower salary" part.<p>At my startup, I'm paying people a regular (8-hour) salary for working a 6-hour day. The company gets value out of mental focus, not in having an ass in a chair-- so, if people are more focused and motivated with an extra two hours available for other activities (family, friends, what have you) then it is a net gain for the company.
For some jobs (e.g., assembly-line work, or being a receptionist), every hour that the employee is on the clock adds value to the company. For all other jobs, I don't think <i>any</i> rule of "you are expected to work X hours per day", whether X is 8 or 6, is really useful.<p>At the end of the day, er, performance-review period, either you've created value for your employer that justifies the salary they paid you, or you haven't. If you did, why should the employer care whether you did the job in 6, 8, or 10 hours per day? If you didn't, then some kind of remedial action needs to be taken, and the action is <i>not necessarily</i> "do what you were doing before, but for more hours". And if the employer can't gauge the value of an employee's contribution without referring to how many hours per week the employee showed up, then the employer has bigger problems.
How about a workspace without set hours. You have a task to complete by a certain deadline. Do it or risk being fired.<p>This will add overhead by always keeping everyone on track with specific tasks, but it's definitely worth it (think Scrum/Agile).<p>Doesn't Best Buy do this?
humans value the power to control what other people do. few businesses will give up the power to tell you that you have to be at your desk from xAM to xPM.