Is a five-hour workday feasible? Rockpool accused of ‘egregious’ time-sheet tampering, and more top news

The news Australian professionals are talking about now, curated by LinkedIn’s editors. Join the conversation in the comments below.

Is a five-hour workday the future? As flexibility becomes more important to today’s workforce, a consulting firm is experimenting with cutting the workweek to 25 hours to find out. At Rheingans Digital Enabler, employees are discouraged from distractions such as social media, small talk and excessive checking of email, and in turn produce the same level of output in much shorter days, according to boss Lasse Rheingans. The secret? Happy employees deliver better work, he says. Here’s what people are saying. 

A Fair Work Ombudsman complaint alleges the Neil Perry-founded Rockpool restaurant chain swindled workers out of more than $10 million by “tampering with time sheets,” The Australian says. The upscale eatery chain is accused of devising a scheme to ensure workers inadvertently relinquished overtime pay. Management allegedly meddled with time-sheet software to constrain staff to 38 hours’ pay a week – even though fingerprint scanners track staff when they clock on and off and workers claim they accumulated up to 100 hours a week. Here’s what people are saying.

The Federal Court has ruled that Myer misled its investors when it declined to admit it would miss profit forecasts in 2015, The AFR reports. The court’s “landmark decision” is the first time it has ruled in a shareholder class action. Nonetheless, the court found that the deception “did not cause any loss to shareholders,” because analysts didn’t believe Myer could deliver a profit that surpassed the $98.5 million it posted in 2014. Legal experts say the findings will likely “encourage litigation funders and plaintiff law firms to pursue more class actions.” Here’s what people are saying. 

In coming years, robots aren’t going to wipe out workers, but they may make their jobs worse. That’s according to a study from the University of Illinois, which found that warehouse automation increased pressure for employees to work harder, faster and under more scrutiny. While technology can help reduce monotonous and physically strenuous activities, it can also negatively affect health, safety, morale and attrition, ReCode reports. “The next decade is a story not about job loss, but more so about changes in job quality,” said a co-author of the study. Here’s what people are saying.

Interrogation techniques typically utilised by the Federal Bureau of Investigation are permeating into the world of investment funds, reports Bloomberg. Rhett Kessler, senior fund manager of multi-billion dollar Pengana Australian Equities Fund, employs psychological interview styles to gauge the trustworthiness and competence of CEOs. From analysing their responses on successes and failures to asking questions he already knows the answers to, Kessler has been able to deliver steady returns for more than a decade. Despite a shift towards passive investing, Kessler’s methods prove “human judgement is still paramount” for substantial returns. Here’s what people are saying.

Idea of the Day: Without trust, there is no assurance, says author and digital analyst Brian Solis.

“Trust is a critical pillar in any relationship, in every transaction and action, in every capacity of our lives.”

What's your take on today’s stories? Share your thoughts in the comments.

— Andrew Murfett