>Unless there's an implication that they'd need to hire more people
I think you hit the nail on the head. IF the company needs a someone M-F for 40 hours of Bug-fixed/widgets/ect, they will have to hire to fill the gap.
If the last 20% of the worker's time is truly non-productive, then the company is already over paying and the worker is wasting their time.
> If the last 20% of the worker's time is truly non-productive, then the company is already over paying and the worker is wasting their time.
I think it's a misconception about worker productivity: you need to optimize the overall system, which will require having slack in some places that are not a bottleneck. "The Goal" by Goldratt is a good explanation on why that's the case. Any attempt to locally optimize to keep everyone busy sooner or later kills the overall productivity of the system.
How this slack is used by the workers is a different question, but if someone wants to use it to improve the system, to improve themselves, or simply to recharge, I think it's up to the worker. The goal is not to keep everyone busy; the goal is to provide optimal results using available resources.
I think you hit the nail on the head. IF the company needs a someone M-F for 40 hours of Bug-fixed/widgets/ect, they will have to hire to fill the gap.
If the last 20% of the worker's time is truly non-productive, then the company is already over paying and the worker is wasting their time.