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DKP-5-WORK-CYCLE-001

Version: 1.0 · Status: Freeze

Work Cycle & Recovery Rhythm Protocol

0. Preamble

DKP-5-WORK-CYCLE-001 defines the normative structure of work and recovery within Dikenocracy.

This protocol treats work cycles as a physical, cognitive, and safety-critical infrastructure, not as a cultural habit, moral expectation, or legacy industrial convention. Human fatigue, error accumulation, and burnout are considered systemic risks, not individual failures.

Accordingly, the protocol abandons the culturally inherited 7-day week as a core unit and replaces it with a physically neutral, mathematically exact, and biologically sustainable cycle, fully compatible with DTI timekeeping.

1. Purpose

The purpose of DKP-5-WORK-CYCLE-001 is to:

  • establish a deterministic, culture-neutral work/rest cycle,
  • guarantee mandatory intra-day recovery,
  • reduce systemic error, injury, and burnout risk,
  • ensure compatibility with 24/7 critical infrastructure,
  • decouple productivity from continuous human exhaustion,
  • provide measurable constraints for workforce planning and simulation.

2. Scope

This protocol applies to:

  • all standard labor arrangements under DKP,
  • public services and private enterprises,
  • critical and non-critical sectors.

Sector-specific adaptations are permitted only if all invariants defined herein are preserved.

3. Definitions

  • DTI-Day

    • A physical day indexed under DKP-0-TIME-001.

  • Cycle6

    • A 6-day overlay cycle defined as: CycleDay = DTI-Day mod 6

  • Workday (W)

    • A day containing a mandatory productive work obligation.

  • Restday (R)

    • A day containing no productive work obligation.

  • Presence Window

    • The total time a worker is scheduled to be available on a workday.

  • Productive Work Time

    • Time spent on direct labor tasks.

  • Recovery Block

    • Mandatory non-working time within a workday dedicated to recovery.

4. Standard Work Cycle

4.1 Cycle Structure

The normative default cycle is a 6-day cycle:

[W, W, R, W, W, R]

Meaning:

  • two consecutive workdays,
  • one restday,
  • two consecutive workdays,
  • one restday.

4.2 Properties

  • Maximum consecutive workdays: 2
  • Rest frequency: every ≤ 3 days
  • Full compatibility with a 360-day DTI year:

    • * 360 / 6 = 60 exact cycles per year

The 7-day week is explicitly non-normative and may exist only as a local cultural overlay without legal or computational authority.

5. Daily Workday Structure

5.1 Normative Time Allocation (Workday)

Each workday SHALL be structured as follows:

  • Total Presence Window: 10 hours
  • Productive Work Time: 8 hours
  • Mandatory Recovery Block: 2 hours

Formally:

Presence = 10h Work = 8h Recovery = 2h

A recommended (but not mandatory) structure:

  • 4 hours productive work
  • 2 hours recovery
  • 4 hours productive work

5.3 Recovery Block Rules

  • The recovery block:

    • is not counted as work time, cannot be removed, reduced, or monetized, * does not require justification.

  • Permitted recovery activities include:

    • meals, sleep or rest, personal or family needs, non-work mobility.

The recovery block is considered system-required, not discretionary.

6. Cycle Accounting

Per 6-day cycle:

  • Workdays: 4
  • Restdays: 2
  • Productive work: 32 hours
  • Presence: 40 hours
  • Recovery: 8 hours

Per DTI-Year (360 days):

  • Workdays: 240
  • Productive work: 1,920 hours
  • Presence: 2,400 hours
  • Mandatory recovery: 480 hours

7. Recovery Invariant (Hard Constraint)

Under no circumstances may a system-approved schedule violate the following invariant:

  • No worker may be assigned more than 2 consecutive workdays without a restday

    • OR

  • An equivalent, demonstrably safe recovery compensation must be provided.

Violation of this invariant constitutes a system planning failure, not individual misconduct.

8. 24/7 and High-Intensity Environments

8.1 Shift-Based Continuity

Continuous operation (e.g., hospitals, emergency services, infrastructure control) SHALL be achieved through:

  • multiple shifts,
  • workforce scaling,
  • shift overlap,
  • capacity buffering.

Continuous service SHALL NOT be achieved through exhaustion of individual workers.

8.2 Shift Requirements

Each shift SHALL preserve:

  • a 10-hour presence window,
  • 8 hours productive work,
  • minimum 2 hours recovery per shift.

For high-intensity environments:

  • 3–4 hours recovery per shift is recommended, potentially fragmented.

8.3 Overlaps and Peak Load

  • Overlapping shifts during peak hours are:

    • explicitly permitted, treated as capacity design, not inefficiency.

  • Simultaneous multi-shift presence during peaks is considered normal and encouraged.

9. Monitoring & KPIs (Minimum Set)

Implementations SHALL monitor at least:

  • error and incident rates,
  • sick leave frequency,
  • staff attrition,
  • output per productive hour,
  • recovery compliance rate.

Persistent degradation in these metrics SHALL trigger mandatory schedule review.

10. Exceptions

Exceptions are permitted only:

  • in clearly defined crisis scopes,
  • for limited duration,
  • with mandatory recovery compensation,
  • and with full traceability under DKP crisis protocols.

No exception may establish precedent.

11. Architectural Principle

This protocol establishes a three-layer human time model:

  1. Productive Work
  2. Mandatory Recovery
  3. Full Rest

Human recovery is treated as infrastructure, not as a personal optimization problem.

12. Summary Statement

DKP-5-WORK-CYCLE-001 replaces legacy industrial work rhythms with a mathematically exact, biologically sustainable, and governance-compatible cycle.

It ensures that:

  • time is counted deterministically,
  • recovery is guaranteed by design,
  • productivity is stabilized through prevention of systemic harm,
  • and continuous services are achieved through planning, not sacrifice.