[HN Gopher] We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon
___________________________________________________________________
We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon
Author : 500and4
Score : 342 points
Date : 2022-06-07 08:39 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.beaconcrm.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.beaconcrm.org)
| dnndev wrote:
| Is this better than a results oriented work week? And figure out
| your own schedule as individual or team.
| eweise wrote:
| What is a results oriented work week? How do you measure? If
| its "I said I would get X done" then yes, a four day work week
| is much better.
| digitallyfree wrote:
| In theory it's like how a school project is scheduled - you
| have milestones and a deadline but you can work flexibly as
| long as you hit your targets. So if you want to get it all
| done on the first day, crunch on the last, or spread it out,
| it's up to you and no one cares as long as it's complete with
| sufficient quality.
|
| Likely this doesn't work well on a team, or for more open-
| ended work. Never seen any organisation aside from private
| contractors who actually do this though.
| eweise wrote:
| Right. I used to fix bid contracts and assumed the risk, so
| I would charge more than contracting by the hour. I imagine
| employees would give longer estimates to reduce their risk
| of working overtime.
| dnndev wrote:
| Sounds to me like someone does not trust employees to manage
| themselves and meet deadlines, and thats ok. I was coming
| into this thread from a highly skilled, well paid workers
| perspective.
|
| Completely agree, if you need to micro-manage then workday
| oriented results are easier.
| eweise wrote:
| Well, if you ever get the chance to work with highly
| skilled, well paid workers I think you'll be surprised to
| find that even we have a hard time estimating the effort
| needed to complete tasks since we are usually doing unique
| and complex things that have unknowns. I also suggest
| studying agile methodologies which assume workers are
| working at 100% and instead of guaranteeing work gets
| completed according to estimates it tracks work completed
| and adjusts accordingly.
| dnndev wrote:
| estimate and result oriented work are two different
| things.
|
| Result oriented work is: Here is how much I did this
| week. I either met, exceeded or fell short of some
| expectation. The person then decides if this is the place
| they want to be and the employer decides if they are a
| good fit.
|
| Agile in most places is a managers whip. I will go so far
| to say I have never seen it implemented in a way that is
| beneficial to devs. (possibly by design)
|
| Estimates are even worse... you cant estimate software at
| scale. spending dollars to pickup dimes as the saying
| goes.
| eweise wrote:
| The problem I see is that without defined boundaries,
| employees tend to overwork instead of underwork. I see
| managers praising engineers that work nights or weekends
| and Managers not encouraging their reports to take enough
| vacation under 'unlimited vacation' policies. Mgmt is
| still going to rate you based on your performance but at
| least having a time off policy prevents a complete race
| to bottom in the name of productivity.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Sincere question: is this 4-day work week mostly an inflation
| hedge?
|
| Anticipating huge real CPI cost increases, weighed against net
| productivity of people working from home, is the bet that you can
| net the same amount of value and productivity from existing
| employees in a 20% shorter period, and compensate for inflation
| by giving them time "off" instead of spending cash on a raise?
|
| Not cynical, just a very wise hedge. I will probably ask this on
| other 4-day threads, as it seems like a very economical way to
| retain staff at the same net productivity without paying out cost
| of living increases. If the economy ever finds a new equillibrium
| and your company is still profitable, it becomes a tempting
| private equity target, as they could buy it and simply remove the
| 4-day week compensation and reap easy growth benefits.
| ComradePhil wrote:
| I believe that a company that does 6-day work week for 25% higher
| pay would completely put competitors out of business... and
| considering the world economy, NOW is the time to do THAT.
|
| Changing to 4-day work week at this time just shows how out of
| touch some people are. It's only a matter of time before reality
| catches up to them.
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| ag56 wrote:
| So if this becomes the new 'standard' work week, which day
| becomes part of the weekend? Friday?
|
| I see these stories all the time. I'm pro the idea. But it's not
| going to work if one industry works Tue-Fri and another Mon-Thu
| and their customers are taking off Wednesday. That standard work
| week being _standard_ is a feature.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Negotiating schedules is already an issue in most workplaces,
| as everyone is essentially close to overbooked. And the outcome
| of almost every meeting is the same whether it happens on a
| Friday or a Monday.
| truthwhisperer wrote:
| giorgioz wrote:
| At https://www.waiterio.com we are fully remote and we introduced
| 32 hours work weeks except for customer support which still does
| 40 hours a week. We track hours with hubstaff.com which takes a
| random screenshot every 10 minutes. It's been a mixed bag. Half
| of the team kept productivity up and logged those 32 hours
| stably. Another half of the team, when left unchecked went down
| to 14 hours a week and very low output. I have still a lot to
| learn and I'm far from a great manager. I know perfectly well I
| might be the reason why a part of my team is underperforming and
| not working while I don't watch. I too have dreamt of giving
| autonomy and see the team reach great goals on their own. Those
| dreams seem naive now given the much harsher reality I've faced
| so far. Given how all this announcement of reduce hours look more
| like self-advertisement rather than a justly curious trial in
| something new that might or might not work, I'm a bit skeptic the
| others are getting things done with the same budget and
| efficiency that I do. What if the others have a larger budget and
| hiring more senior team-mates? What if their efficiency is
| actually lower than mine? What if they have already fired all the
| employees that were not absolute workaholics? Frankly I'm not so
| confident of my ways. I'll keep hustling and crawling my way up
| in the mud though. At least I know I'm not sugar-coating it.
| twh270 wrote:
| Some people don't have a strong enough work ethic to be
| productive when left without direct supervision, but there's
| hardly a more obvious and intrusive way to say "We don't trust
| you" than to take a screenshot every 10 minutes. That would
| absolutely demolish my desire to work.
| triyambakam wrote:
| Measuring exact hours and performing surveillance is
| unbelievably immature.
| reneherse wrote:
| You'll probably do better once you can retain people who reject
| employer surveillance.
| giorgioz wrote:
| No-one ever quit from our company so that's not it.
| lolinder wrote:
| How many got wind of your surveillance policies and never
| bothered to apply? How many sensed your attitude towards
| your employees in the interview and took a different offer?
| How many spoke to one of your employees after the interview
| and then ghosted you?
|
| You can't measure the potentially wide-ranging negative
| impacts of your attitude and policies.
| giorgioz wrote:
| You assume everyone is self-oriented and wants to be
| autonomous and have a great work ethics and care about their
| privacy. There are people like that. There are also people
| that want a lot of guidance. There are also people that just
| wants to be paid and don't really care much about the current
| job goals. There are also people that will do the bare-
| minumum they can to keep the job. Understanding who is who
| requires good management and a good number of managers. How
| big is your company? What's the ratio of managers vs doers?
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| Taking ten minute screenshots is not a good practice. Why
| not just measure on output or have regular meetings?
|
| What kind of job requires ten minute screenshots?
| Definitely not a software development job.
| twh270 wrote:
| Another sign of a low-trust organization: lots of managers
| to "keep an eye on" employees.
| lolinder wrote:
| > You assume everyone is self-oriented and wants to be
| autonomous and have a great work ethics and care about
| their privacy.
|
| No, they assume that people who are self-oriented and want
| to be autonomous and have a great work ethic are the people
| that you want to have working for you. You don't need to
| employ "everyone", you just need enough for your workload,
| and you will need _fewer_ people if you optimize your
| company 's structure for high performers rather than
| deadweights.
|
| Your employee surveillance policies are beyond the pale
| (screenshots every ten minutes... really?!) and treat all
| your employees are completely inept, lazy, or both. With
| policies like that, you shouldn't be surprised when the
| only employees you manage to hire and retain _are_ that
| way.
| mmaunder wrote:
| Any large profitable public companies doing this? These guys
| raised $56M less than a year ago. Just curious who has proved the
| concept is sustainable without burning VC money.
| xutopia wrote:
| France tried to limit work week to 35 hours thinking that all
| hours are equal and it would lead to reduced productivity and a
| need to hire more workers. It failed to have the intended effect
| except for factory workers. We are starting to have plenty of
| signals saying that 4 day work week is good for morale, happiness
| and not at all detrimental to productivity.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I work a four-day week (80% time, not imagining 4-10s) as a
| software engineer at a non-profit academic organization. For a
| paycut basically, I make 80% of what I think of as my "actual"
| salary.
|
| I have managed to do this at a succession of several jobs now.
| When I briefly tried to go back to 5 days, it was really hard. It
| seems insane to me now that anyone works 5 days a week. (And I do
| know plenty of people work even more, and I am very lucky).
|
| Fridays are for doctor's appointments and car repair and grocery
| shopping and errands. Which probably does mean I'm away from
| "work hours" for these things less than I would be full-time, I
| just schedule such things for Fridays where possible. In general,
| I am pretty convinced that I'm at least 90% as productive on 80%
| time as I would be on 100%, maybe more.
|
| Working at non-profit academic, I'm definitely not making my
| "market" salary. I could be making a lot more than I am now, even
| at 80% of a salary, at various more typical organizations. But
| I'm not sure how viable the 4-day week is with potential
| employers -- even if I'm willing to take a paycut to 80% of
| salary, which I am! Unlike the OP which is giving everyone a
| 4-day week at full salary? My impression is that most high-paying
| software engineering jobs/organizations are not going to let you
| do 4-days a week? Which is crazy when they could get me for 80%
| of the cost with most of the productivity -- but I guess the
| high-paying organizations aren't exactly trying to save money on
| salary.
|
| I really don't think I'd go back to 40-hour-a-week-standard
| unless I had to.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| To clarify to a since flagged (by someone else) comment:
|
| When i say "I'm at least 90% as productive" -- I mean I am more
| productive per hour worked. Not that I end up working 90% hours
| but only getting paid for 80%.
|
| I really do work 80% hours, only four days a week, Monday to
| Thursday. I am not expected to and don't work on Fridays,
| Saturdays, or Sundays.
|
| I just get done I think 90% or more of what I would get done in
| five days, in four days. As seems to be commonly reported by
| people in this situation.
|
| Some people have also said "Yeah, but in my remote software dev
| job, I work _even less_ than 80% of my expected hours, I just
| don 't tell them, and I get paid a full salary."
|
| I'm not gonna say much about the ethics of that, I guess I
| think it depends on the specific situation. But regardless, I'd
| myself just be stressed out if I had to be less than honest
| about my work. And my 80% schedule is clear -- I really don't
| work on Friday, nobody expects to be able to reach me on Friday
| (any better than they could on a Sunday or at 4am, unless I'm
| on-call), I don't check my email or look at my work calendar, I
| am really not working. And that's the whole benefit to me --
| it's a different thing than using lots of hours for personal
| social media or something (which, sure, I do to some extent too
| whether 4 or 5 days a week.
| schrodinger wrote:
| Personally I don't find an ethics violation. If you're
| meeting your output expectations who cares how many hours you
| work. I certainly don't as a manager at a large public
| company. I fully expect most ppl are getting some amount of
| personal stuff done during the day, or power napping between
| meetings. Just don't be a dick and make the rest of the team
| pick up your slack.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Oh, I think it's expected that we get some amount of
| personal stuff done during the day, and don't feel the need
| to hide this from my coworkers or even boss. At the lower
| end, there are few "white collar" desk jobs where you
| can't, say, take a phone call from a family member during
| the work day, or take coffee breaks whenever you want, or
| have to hide any of this from your boss.
|
| If it got to the point where I felt like I had to hide the
| amount of time I was spending "working"/"not working" from
| my boss, then even if it were ethical (I still think it
| depends on the situation), I would just find it too
| stressful and unpleasant an experience, to be routinely
| hiding or lying about what I did with my day.
|
| To me, doing 'some amount' of personal stuff during the day
| (which should be acceptable at any job), is still an
| entirely different thing than "I don't work Fridays, don't
| expect to see me online". Qualitatively, not just
| quantitatively.
|
| "meeting output expectations" is tricky, I think, because
| what _is_ the amount of "output" expected from "a person
| week"? It obviously varies for different people, at
| different times in their career, different skills, and just
| from week to week different things going on their
| lives/stress level. Knowing that I am not "cheating" my
| week is part of what makes me feel justified and honest in
| pushing back if a workplace does try to assign more work
| than is possible. Barring emergencies (and "your failure to
| plan is not my emergency") -- we should not be expected to
| work extra hours to get more work done. We get done in a
| week what we get done in a week, and then we come back the
| next week and do more -- to some extent, as engineers, the
| amount we can get done in a week is simply defined by what
| we _do_ get done in a week.
|
| But still, my real point is that even using this humane
| "you get done what you get done" approach, in our line of
| work, most organizations would find, I predict, that people
| working only 4 days a week (80% time), get done 90% or more
| of what people working five days a week do.
| herpderperator wrote:
| What is 4-10s?
| draw_down wrote:
| yrgulation wrote:
| Strange how many orgs discover that working less hours or remote
| increases productivity for most people. It's almost as if
| unstressed "workers" produce better quality work. There was an
| experiment whereby cows were shown to give more milk if not
| stressed. Certainly the same applies to humans. When will
| companies learn that milking their "workforce" of their energy
| doesnt yield the expected results but quite the opposite.
| tschellenbach wrote:
| If this approach works startups will leverage it to gain an
| upper hand. We've seen this with remote work. Startups
| identified this gap and used it to outcompete other larger
| companies.
|
| Personally I believe in remote and that it will get even better
| as tech to facilitate it improves.
|
| I don't believe in working 4 days for engineering specifically.
| The field changes rapidly, there is a large learning curve and
| it takes a lot of hours to really master it. There is also some
| fixed overhead in communicating with other departments which
| stays the same even if you work less hours. So you remove more
| than 20% of your productive hours with this approach. You also
| reduce the time you spend learning. This further hampers your
| productivity. I think it will be a niche thing only done by
| some startups that care about this, have no other way to
| attract talent and aren't very ambitious.
|
| That being said, for some people it will work well. It's pretty
| common for some roles in the netherlands for instance.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| Business hierarchies are wired to advance those who sacrifice
| more and more of their life for the business. Those people then
| perpetuate the status quo by promoting those who are like them
| in that regard.
|
| This is regarded as a feature, not a bug.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Strange how many orgs discover that working less hours or
| remote increases productivity for most people.
|
| I've worked remote and managed remote teams for many years.
|
| Working remote _definitely_ doesn 't not make "most people"
| more productive. Some people are more productive remote, but
| the average person gets less done even if they work more hours
| when remote. It takes a lot of training, mentoring, and
| performance management to get them back to in-office baseline.
| prometheus76 wrote:
| It was the fatal shift from "personnel" to "human resources".
| xcambar wrote:
| I hate this term with a passion.
|
| Also, it is always fun to confront HR people in a
| conversation about the origins and meaning of the name of
| their very own job.
| fpl67 wrote:
| Fun for who? You? The people around you getting off on it?
| The HR employee who didn't elect the name of the
| organization and who is just trying to get through a day
| like you are, and apparently has to put up with meme
| confrontations in the workplace?
|
| There is not much that is more cringe than overhearing
| someone do this within earshot; it's almost as bad as a
| joke everyone has heard and can predict while someone
| loudly stumbles through it a few cubes over. As described,
| you're not funny, you're just an asshole.
|
| What form does this confrontation take, exactly? That might
| help clarify.
|
| (I'm not in HR)
| xcambar wrote:
| Every position has a storytelling. That of HR is about
| building a double standard: on the one hand, a discourse
| that emphasizes on the employees' best interests, while
| on the other hand, take actions that are on the
| employer's sole interest.
|
| Is it expected? Yes of course, I stopped being naive on
| the topic long ago.
|
| Where this is pervasive is that even some HR people tend
| to buy it. Also the tech industry should consider happy
| to at least have some reassuring (yet false) speech.
|
| Sure, in the tech industry, people may be considered a
| bit better, but I've seen and met people in blue collar
| industries where people were not worth so much more than
| the paper clips holding their contracts together.
|
| And since HR, as a support function of a company, does
| not differ much from one indistry to another, the culture
| of HR, really, fundamentally, is to treat people as you'd
| do with your trucks or machines or chairs or paperclips,
| and that is, treat them as resources. Hence the very apt
| name of the function: human resources.
|
| And this is the kind of perspective I have on HR and the
| kind of points I could (but not always do) raise if we
| touch on the societal aspects of our jobs.
|
| Note that as a manager myself, I have my fair share of
| cognitive dissonance to bear as well, and critics are
| always welcome :)
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| At my company they aren't hiring "people" anymore but
| "resources". Even when looking for somebody internally to
| help out with a project, managers try to "find a resource",
| not "finding somebody".
| [deleted]
| justin_oaks wrote:
| Does anyone know the origin of this terminology in
| businesses?
|
| Or why people keep using it?
|
| I refuse to refer to people as resources. I won't willfully
| dehumanize people by treating them as raw materials or as
| machines.
| xcambar wrote:
| We're still working like (eg.) coal miners, inherited from the
| first industrial revolution.
|
| More people, more hours: more coal extracted.
|
| Interestingly, farmers in the middle ages are a much more
| balanced model (catastrophes aside): the land they had was
| mostly manageable by a small group of people, and there's only
| only so much you can optimize, given the patch of land that you
| have. So you do what you have to do and when you're done, well,
| you're done.
| shadowtree wrote:
| This is escalating like the Gilette wars (3 blades, 4 blades...12
| blades).
|
| Soon you'll only stand out by announcing the 3 day work week.
|
| ...and get killed by a team that just outworks you. How many pro-
| sports teams have switched to less and less training :)
|
| I do hope all our competitors switch to 0 day workweeks...
| krnlpnc wrote:
| Says a person currently on HN instead of working...
| [deleted]
| maltyr wrote:
| For me, the common usage of the terms "training" and "working"
| are not the same. In most jobs, we perform a lot of "working,"
| or applying known patterns, and very little "training," or
| learning new patterns.
|
| Pro sports is flipped, and often each week the athletes are
| learning new tactics/counter-tactics based on their opponent,
| or adjusting their existing patterns to perfection, or grinding
| out exercise routines to be able to demand more from their
| body. Drills are required to "train" their body into being able
| to do these routines reliably on-demand, and new exercise
| routines are often the best at forcing your body to adapt and
| grow.
|
| That said, even pro-athletes have rest periods once the season
| is over. Also, many of them incorporate rest into training
| routines as well. An NFL player usually will rest after game
| day for 1 or 2 days.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| In other words, another management team fails to understand that
| many of the best software engineers work most effectively in
| silence, and on their own for large periods of time, and that
| this is best done at home.
|
| The obstinacy, arrogance, and stupidity of managers from these
| guys to Musk and Sandberg is incredibly disappointing.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Lol, what a scam, 4 day work week but you have to be in the
| office.
|
| I live close to Shoreditch but preparation time and travel both
| ways is easily 2 hours a day (for some of my colleagues that
| would be 3+ hours a day).
|
| If you went from working from home 100% 5 days a week to working
| from the office 100% 4 days a week results in the exact same
| amount of time, except you remove all the monetary savings from
| working from home (~100GBP in travel alone).
|
| No thank you.
| kristiandupont wrote:
| The fact that this wouldn't be favorable to you given your
| particular situation does not make it a "scam".
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| It does.
|
| They claim 80% of time but it's not true at all as I
| explained before. Not only that but the cost for the
| individuals is huge when going back to the office.
|
| You must not live in London to comment that.
| willbw wrote:
| I think its farcical to claim that a 4 day week is a 'scam'
| because you find it offensive for whatever reason. Its
| still an improvement on the 5 day week and something
| atypical. I am not sure what you think a 'scam' is but we
| have different definitions.
|
| The number of people who are working from home will not be
| 100% nor will the number of companies working from home
| exclusively be 100%.
|
| Given we have had limited time to run this experiment,
| perhaps it would be good if we didn't just jump to
| conclusions that working from home is the be all and end
| all. The office has had a pretty good run of productivity
| over the last century.
| alarmingfox wrote:
| They have marketed this by saying they will be working
| 80% of the hours they use to work yet they want their
| employees to travel to the office? Surely the hours
| they've cut for their employees will now be lost
| travelling to the office and back instead?
|
| I'd rather work a 5 day week if I could work from home
| then a 4 day work week and have to travel to the office
| [deleted]
| drclau wrote:
| Scam is a bit strong. But I can see leadership wanting everyone
| back to office for whatever reasons, and out of fear of people
| leaving if they are forced to return to office, they came up
| with this 4 day work week thing to make it attractive enough
| for people to stay.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Scam is strong?
|
| They tell people they will spend 20% less time to work-
| related activities which as I said is a lie.
|
| Not only will they spend just as much time for work, it will
| be more unpleasant and more costly than working from home.
| realharo wrote:
| Calling it a scam is completely inaccurate, scams rely on
| people not being aware (on some level) of what they're
| signing up for, and on people making promises they don't
| intend to keep. Here it is perfectly clear what everyone's
| getting.
|
| Tons of people would prefer a 4-day in-office work week
| over a 5-day remote work week. You may not, but there are
| many who do.
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| TrackerFF wrote:
| My "commute" is 5 mins each way. Would love to try out a 4-day
| week.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| Quick refresher on productivity in economic terms: decreasing
| inputs = decreasing outputs UNLESS tech or technique improves.
| During supply and/or debt driven inflationary periods (eg. now),
| increased productivity = increased supply and/or decreased debt.
|
| What do these maxims of economics mean for a 4 day work week?
|
| At Beacon, nothing*. But implement this at Tyson Foods, Lockheed
| Martin, Boeing, Waste Management, the FX trading desk at JP
| Morgan Chase, etc. and you get 2-6% productivity declines & some
| amount of increased supply-driven inflation unless you offset
| with new technology (eg. software, robotics) or techniques.
|
| Celebrate work from home, 4 day weeks, flex-time, etc.... but
| understand that as these benefits carry costs in important (not
| all) industries. Also, the migration to jobs having these
| benefits, from those important jobs that do not, drives inflation
| and/or illegal immigration and so-called "white collar" top-heavy
| joblessness risk during recession.
|
| No free lunch, even on Fridays.
|
| ** Note: UK small business situation is concerning, even if it
| doesn't apply to Beacon: "Office for National Statistics (ONS)
| data, showing that 2 million (or about 40%) of the UK's small
| businesses had less than three months of cash in reserves to
| support operations. He noted that 10% (or 200,000) were in grave
| danger, and 300,000 only had a few weeks of cash left."
| dtech wrote:
| > implement this at [...] and you get 2-6% productivity
| declines
|
| This is the assertion this whole argument hangs on. I'd
| challenge it. At a farm or assembly line probably, I highly
| doubt it in knowledge work.
| karaterobot wrote:
| That's too simple a view of economics. What we've suspected for
| a long time is true: that humans don't act like robots or heat
| engines all the time.
| aisengard wrote:
| Factories don't shut down on the weekends, they just have
| different groups of people come in for different shifts. A
| 4-day work week would just mean that they have to hire more
| people to fill the hours. Productivity wouldn't fall, unless
| they wanted it to fall.
| christophilus wrote:
| There's a balance somewhere. I guarantee my 8/4 workers will
| outperform your 24/7 workers. Your workers will be worthless 20
| hours into their eternal shift, and dead from sleep exhaustion
| after a few days.
|
| It's obvious that the relationship is not as simple as one
| input, one output.
|
| If you work your employees 8/5, and I do the same, but with a
| gym break with a company-provided trainer, my employees will
| work fewer hours than yours, but I'd bet my productivity will
| win in the long run.
|
| This 4 hour work week experiment is along these lines. It's not
| obvious to most of us how it will end or what impact it will
| have on productivity.
| Rayhem wrote:
| > It's obvious that the relationship is not as simple as one
| input, one output.
|
| Yes. It's easy to say "if we assume everything is linear...".
| _Justifying_ that assumption and demonstrating that it 's
| valid is another, significantly more difficult, thing
| entirely.
| omginternets wrote:
| thankfully, life isn't about maximizing productivity.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Beacon, and I bet the majority of the audience here, is a
| knowledge worker environment. You don't shed out x widgets per
| hour. Your result is highly variable as it involves creating
| bespoke, unique or novel (in a broad sense) solutions to
| various challanges in development. In non-rote work mood has an
| extreme impact on results.
|
| Rote assembly line tasks in a warehouse or factory setting,
| even there you will see a ramp up mistakes and accidents as the
| hours get beyond a certain point. The chances of these ever
| have been "work from home"are slim to begin.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| Haters: you're missing my point, which is (a) this applies to
| some industries, not all; and (b) this applies to supply-driven
| inflationary periods and/or periods of excessive aggregate debt
| (public, commercial and personal). As someone who remembers
| 1979/80 talking to a bunch of people who may not have been born
| then --- we're in for a shit storm that only productivity &
| hard work will fix... unless USGOV finds more way to kick the
| can down the road.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > 2-6% productivity declines
|
| That seems pretty good for a 20% decline in working hours!
| Unless I'm missing something?
| omginternets wrote:
| It also seems likely that at least some of that 2-6% will be
| recovered as supporting processes and infrastructure emerges.
| golergka wrote:
| Hours of work are not input for knowledge work.
| larryett wrote:
| Are you trying to say if Amazon works less hours delivering
| packages , less packages will be delivered because they are
| already pushing every productivity edge possible?
|
| That is shocking to me. It feels like I just push these buttons
| and the package shows up to my door like magic. I assumed
| everyone has a job pushing buttons so why would we waste time
| pushing buttons for more than 4 days a week.
| [deleted]
| matsemann wrote:
| > _and you get 2-6% productivity declines & some amount of
| increased supply-driven inflation unless you offset with new
| technology (eg. software, robotics) or techniques._
|
| People worked 40 hours a decade or two ago as well, and since
| then there's been enormous technical improvements. Why not use
| that improvement to work less and enjoy life, instead of
| chasing higher throughput in various industries?
| adamhp wrote:
| Because capitalism.
| tharax wrote:
| That's why in my next start-up, we're making sure that each
| employee works 168 hours a week. We believe that maximising
| inputs is the only way to get results.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| That's some bleeding heart liberal commie bs. I make my
| employees bend the space time continuum to work more than 168
| hours per week! <serveral bicep, rocket and fire emojis here>
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Hustle grindset!!!
| musha68k wrote:
| You dropped the "UNLESS" there. Also lots of work is actually
| not useful. Constraints can be very good and quite often lead
| to qualitative outputs. There are lots of other factors at play
| as well e.g. more people finding employment / at higher pay to
| fill the gaps -> being able to spend more etc. The model is
| probably way more complex than that, it's not a simple function
| IMHO.
| [deleted]
| mouzogu wrote:
| 5 day week, no-flex also has costs, it's a matter of value and
| perspective.
|
| So what if productivity decreases by a few % if it means we all
| get better work life balance.
|
| Change is not easy but over time equilibrium can be found which
| is not dependent on this paradigm of infinite growth.
| gms wrote:
| Because then prices go up and the poor especially are hurt.
| Governments also get less revenue so are less able to assist
| the poor.
| mouzogu wrote:
| if prices go up then some of that money should go to the
| poor
|
| i would be happy to pay a premium for goods and services
| after 6pm or 7pm (or on the weekend) if it means those
| "essential" workers get paid more.
|
| but of course many would not, and so people can re-evaluate
| their priorities. hence equilibriums can form which are
| more healthy than present.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Quick refresher on productivity in economic terms: decreasing
| inputs = decreasing outputs UNLESS tech or technique improves.
|
| Economists stopped repeating the ceteris paribus fallacy about
| half a century ago. At about the same time as systems modelling
| got mainstream.
|
| I vote for retiring the no free lunch one next.
| anuraj wrote:
| What I don't understand about Europe is
|
| 1. They are facing a huge negative demographic dividend.
|
| 2. They are facing steep inflation, low energy and food security
| and lower economic growth.
|
| 3. High social security costs may not be sustainable in the long
| term.
|
| 4. Finance is crumbling and real economy is taking over. Monetary
| expansion had its run and is no longer the panacea.
|
| How will they handle this and still emerge unscathed while
| competing with China and India and Indonesia and the likes.
| giorgioz wrote:
| I'm from Rome, Italy and I feel like I'm on a sinking boat
| where everyone is enthusiastically carving holes in the bottom.
|
| My grand-parents bought a house to my parents when they were
| 27. My parents had it easy and never learned personal finance.
| They refused to lend me 30k to start a mortgage for the house
| in Budapest, Hungary despite having 2 young kids because they
| didn't trust Hungary stability and wanted me to go back to
| Italy.
|
| They have been keeping 60k in their checking account for the
| past 10 years. I've tried to convince them to invest a part of
| it in ETF but my father wrote me that: "They have invested in
| the Italian social security system and they have no need for
| other investments other than their government pensions and the
| house they own". Real estate value in Rome has declined 30%
| since 2012.
|
| I have been telling them about the population decline and how
| the pension system is gonna go belly up in the future. Then
| Elon Musk also tweeted about Italy grim population collapse
| future last month. I told my father in great distress that I
| was sadly right. He told me I'm working too much and I need to
| relax and essentially he won't be taking advice from me because
| I'm not thinking straight, implying I need medical attention.
|
| Try to save Italy and you will be called crazy.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Immigration -- they'll be a move to a two-tired (zero-hours,
| contract-only, fire-at-will) base largely made up of the young
| and immigrants. Then gold-plated 4d work-from-home jobs for
| 45-65s.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| >How will they handle this and still emerge unscathed while
| competing with China and India and Indonesia and the likes.
|
| This isn't even accurate. What is EU competing with China and
| India on? It should the reverse if anything, how will India and
| China compete in High Tech and Precision Manufacturing with the
| West when they are suffering massive brain drain?
| [deleted]
| jstummbillig wrote:
| Higher import tariffs are a mid term solution, but in the end
| nation states and national governance are dysfunctional
| concepts for an ultimately globalized world.
| atonse wrote:
| I'm all for experimenting with hours.
|
| But it is something only information workers can do because
| productivity doesn't translate linearly to hours put in.
|
| But anything physical, manufacturing, etc, it is simply more
| time = more output.
|
| Unless we use more and more automation and better tools of
| course. Which is also happening.
| timkam wrote:
| The idea is that 4-hours work weeks for relatively highly
| skilled knowledge workers will actually help lower the costs
| for the social security system (less burnouts, early
| retirements) and a more productive society (instead of
| 'grinding out' pointlessly long hours, work less and contribute
| to society in your free time) -- work is merely one way to be
| productive in society.
| Omniusaspirer wrote:
| Agreed on all points. Europe should serve as a warning to the
| rest of the world of what happens when you become complacent-
| the decline from earlier centuries to now is just staggering
| and shows no signs of slowing. Many of the lauded social
| benefits aren't actually sustainable long term and the stifling
| business climate has forced governments to become increasingly
| protectionary which is a death spiral for competitiveness long
| term.
| john_the_writer wrote:
| Four days in the office :(
|
| I mean you do you, but Bleck. "You don't have to come to work on
| Friday but we still want you to spend 12 hours a week crammed
| onto a bus or train." How else could you possibly write code or
| sit in front of a computer all day?
| alarmingfox wrote:
| Yeah that surprised me too. Surely if they are able to get the
| same job done while working from home that would be the better
| option for everyone involved no?
|
| As some employees may lose like an hour a day just to travel
| whereas that hour could be spent working on features etc. if
| they didn't have to travel into the office.
| ginko wrote:
| >we still want you to spend 12 hours a week crammed onto a bus
| or train
|
| Your commute is 3 hours per day?!
| cjg wrote:
| That was easily my commute when I was working in London. I'd
| drive to the train station, take the train into London, then
| the tube within London and walk the last 10 minutes to the
| office. On a normal day it would take 1h40 each way. On a bad
| day it could be much longer.
|
| That's nearly 17 hours over a 5 day week assuming no
| problems.
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| Common in countries in SEA like the Philippines
| ginko wrote:
| That's crazy. My "commute" is 30 minutes of walking each
| way. Could do it in 10 if I took the bus but I like the
| workout.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| They don't _want_ you to spend 3 hours a day commuting, that 's
| up to you. That does sound like a miserable commute.
|
| A quick google search suggests that the average US commute is
| 28 minutes one way, or about an hour a day, not 3 hours a day.
| The average US commuter is probably in their own car though,
| mass transit is usually going to add some, despite other social
| and personal benefits. I also know it's going to be higher in
| certain major metro areas. And that the US built environment is
| kind of insane, and sometimes seems like it was honestly
| designed to maximize commutes.
|
| I agree nobody should ever be spending 3 hours a day commuting.
| But it's not like the only possibilities are working from home
| or 3 hours commuting...
| krm01 wrote:
| I've mentioned this before, but when moving my team (design
| agency that helps B2B SaaS)to a 4-day work week, productivity
| increased dramatically.
|
| Most businesses can move to a 4-day work week. If you're an
| employer and you read this, just give it a try for a month and
| measure output.
|
| Your limiting beliefs will most likely become weak opinions.
| switch007 wrote:
| How'd you measure productivity?
| bern4444 wrote:
| Presumably the company already has indicators and metrics
| they use. You just continue using those same indicators and
| validate there is no significant change.
| swader999 wrote:
| Wonder if school will ever switch to four days a week.
| corrral wrote:
| I'd prefer they cut hours over cutting days. 7+ hours in
| classrooms with hardly any breaks is _brutal_. Keep them for
| childcare purposes if you must, but cut the instruction hours.
| More free time or recess, and wholly-optional, casual courses
| in various subjects on a drop-in basis. Fewer hours sitting in
| classrooms and expected to be fully engaged, unable to even
| take a piss without begging permission first.
| troupe wrote:
| There are some small private schools that do this.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I wish them luck. I understand their need to have folks in the
| office, and this is one way to make that more attractive.
|
| But it is only _one_ factor. Good management, strong teams, and a
| whole lot of "soft" stuff is even more important than beanbag
| chairs and foozball tables. The "good management" part is where
| most companies go pear-shaped. I wouldn't want to go to
| Buckingham Palace every day, if I hated the people I worked
| with/for, and felt like my work was being treated badly[0].
|
| Although I work exclusively at home, and have no desire to ever
| dress "business casual" again, I think that a _good_ * office
| environment can be extremely conducive to great work.
|
| * _As in "not like 99% of today's offices."_
|
| [0] https://dilbert.com/strip/1996-06-02
| [deleted]
| natly wrote:
| Wow, that comic really makes me question how much of todays
| complaning about work and life struggles has been a multi
| decade persistent thing - not just hardships facing this
| particular generation. (As someone who was 5 in 1996 and didn't
| see this first hand.)
| basisword wrote:
| I think work is just like everything else in this regard.
| Providing you have standard white collar job, as things
| continue to improve and get better, we just find new things
| to complain about. e.g. parent poster complaining about
| 'business casual' when it wasn't that long ago business
| casual was a nice step down from having to wear a suit. The
| workplace continuously adjusts but so do our expectations.
| corrral wrote:
| A lot of what people complain about in white-collar offices
| have been problems people've complained about effectively
| since such offices started to become common (the 1950s).
| Including how little actual work is required for most
| companies to function, and how much of "working" is just
| presenteeism.
|
| And actually, some things have gotten worse. I think
| requirements for natural light used to be much stricter in
| older buildings (that's where you get all those u-shaped
| ones) so you were more likely to be near a window, for
| instance.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| It's always weird to watch Office Space and see the guys
| all wearing ties. I can't imagine having to do that for a
| typical software job.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _It 's always weird to watch Office Space and see the
| guys all wearing ties. I can't imagine having to do that
| for a typical software job_
|
| I believe this changed in the early 2000s. The dot-com
| crash reset Silicon Valley. And the Enron scandal reduced
| corporate America's pull on it. (Steve Jobs wasn't an
| icon when business casual began taking its hold.)
|
| [1] https://high-tech-guide.com/article/how-did-steve-
| jobs-help-...
| brycewray wrote:
| In my case, it ended in 1994. The company where I worked
| at the time already had casual Fridays. _Business_
| casual, mind you; it was quite some years later before I
| got to see the whole jeans-and-sneakers casual Friday
| thing. During the summer of 1994, they went to business-
| casual-every-day. Then, as a morale booster (probably, as
| I look at it now, because the execs knew a 40% layoff was
| months away), the management decided at the end of summer
| to let us stick with that. The only time I wore a tie to
| work after that was on a day when I was going to have to
| leave early to go to a funeral.
| ghaff wrote:
| When I joined an east coast computer company in the
| mid-80s, ties all the time were already gone for a lot of
| engineering positions (though more senior engineers and
| managers still tended to wear them). Suits were pretty
| standard for marketing for marketing and other business
| roles.
|
| Around the time you say, casual Fridays came in. The
| funny thing is the CEO got annoyed at one point because a
| lot of the engineers felt they need to underdress
| relative to the business people who were now dressing
| business casual on Fridays and increasingly most days.
|
| I'd say that over the next couple decades, things got
| more and more casual to the point where ties, much less
| suits, are pretty uncommon in settings where not wearing
| one would have seemed out of place 25 years or so ago.
|
| At trade shows, as I recall, at some point in the 90s,
| IBM booth staff showed up at one big show wearing branded
| polo shirts rather than suits. At which point, most
| everyone else went: If IBM isn't wearing suits, I guess
| we don't need to.
| greedo wrote:
| A company in my town still requires suit and tie for men,
| dresses or long skirts for women. If you leave your
| chair, you need to put your suit jacket on. You can take
| it off when sitting.
|
| The amount of money it would take for me to put up with
| such ancient, sexist and conformist bullshit is hard to
| imagine.
| corrral wrote:
| Basically every low-wage service worker puts up with it.
| Not suits, but often-ugly required work uniforms. At
| least suits and dresses look good.
| greedo wrote:
| Yup! I remember wearing nylon shirts and pants at
| McDonalds in the early 80's. Those were so much fun...
| brycewray wrote:
| Even long after Ross Perot had sold EDS to General
| Motors, it was still frowned-upon for men to go to an EDS
| cafeteria without wearing their suit coats. Saw this in
| 1993 and, even as a lowly temp worker while between
| permanent gigs, I felt plenty of pressure to conform (and
| I did, because I wanted to be asked back for more work).
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I did that for the greater part of my early career.
|
| I think that banks in Manhattan may still have shirt-and-
| tie for engineers.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| I worked in a Wall St. firm in the 90's and wore suit and
| tie every day, even though my job was neither customer
| facing nor even in New York.
|
| I quickly realized I didn't mind it at all once I found
| correctly fitting shirts. If you consider a tie to be too
| constricting, you have the wrong shirt.
|
| Even as borderline OCD (self diagnosed, so likely wrong),
| I never found particular clothes to be a hinderance to me
| typing (I'm a software dev), and I'm one of those guys
| that can't stand tags in t-shirts and rip them out. I
| think 90% of the angst over "comfortable" clothes is a
| learned cultural thing, and overblown. IMO.
| hansworst wrote:
| I don't think it's really about the clothes being
| uncomfortable, but just the idea of being forced to wear
| certain kinds of clothes
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Are you sure you aren't just unconsciously repeating the
| same prejudice, but from a different click?
|
| How will the people around you react to you using a suit?
| If it's badly, you are as much forced to wear a certain
| kind of clothes as the GP was.
|
| Anyway, just because there is a dressing code, it doesn't
| mean that the culture normally associated with it
| dominates. Those are two different things, where one is a
| huge problem, and the other mostly irrelevant. It's
| always better if you react to problems that are rally
| there, instead of noisy proxies.
| janeerie wrote:
| Plus the expense of maintaining two different wardrobes.
| corrral wrote:
| The trad thing is that your old clothes become your
| casual clothes, mostly. Except athletic clothes--but half
| those are dress or business-casual now, anyway, like
| OCBDs and polos--most of our modern athletic clothes
| counted as underwear, before, if they existed at all. And
| it doesn't really work for full-on formal wear like
| dinner jackets or morning dress.
|
| A bunch of suiting trends come from this. Suit jacket
| with ruined pants? Now it's a blazer, so, casual wear.
| Handmedown worn 3-button suit that you're wearing
| casually at college, with the top button pretty much
| permanently unbuttoned? You've just invented the 2-roll-3
| jacket style. And so on.
|
| We've replaced this behavior with simply having all our
| clothes be disposable-cheap. Mending a hole and adding
| patches to keep wearing something's not really worth it
| when it cost $20 to begin with.
| MockObject wrote:
| Agreed. For someone whose experience of suits is the ill-
| fitting obligation for the occasional wedding or funeral,
| it will be shocking and unbelievable to read that a
| custom cut dress shirt is more comfortable than a
| t-shirt, and suit pants, soft and silk lined, more
| comfortable than jeans.
| greedo wrote:
| It might be shocking to realize that not all body types
| fit well into a suit, regardless of how well tailored it
| is. I used to be tall and lanky, great for a suit. Then
| age happened, and now I'm much more round that beanpole.
| Nothing fits well, and I've tried custom shirts etc. I
| just look like a well dressed, round person. I'm not more
| comfortable at all, in fact the opposite.
|
| Plop me in a pair of shorts with a t-shirt or better, a
| hoodie and I feel great.
| MockObject wrote:
| Interesting. I've been told that the suit is so
| ubiquitous over history and nationalities, because it
| flatters older and portly gentlemen more than other
| items.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Dilbert had his own desk, with his own stuff, he had a
| modicum of privacy from his colleagues
|
| The cube farm was hated at the time, but things only ever get
| worse if you work in an office.
| Loughla wrote:
| "After your boss has taken away your door, your walls, and
| your storage areas, there aren't many options left for the
| next revolution in office design. One of the following
| things is likely to go next: the floor; the ceiling; your
| happiness."
|
| Scott Adams was blasting open concept offices before it was
| cool to blast them.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Hot-take, it was never NOT cool to blast open offices.
| Unless you're in middle management.
| iso1631 wrote:
| blast as in criticize I assume
|
| When I entered the workplace in 2003 I was lucky to get a
| peg for my coat, had to hot-desk during the day - there
| were 6 people on shift but only 4 computers. You'd go out
| to fix a printer or something and when you came back to
| base someone's taken your place
|
| The Dilbert world of the time had cubicles, it was
| glorious. 3 years later the IT crowd had an entire room
| with just 2 people in, with their own phones, computers,
| desks etc.
|
| Now of course I'm in a far more senior position and no
| longer deal with printers (literally have a high-viz
| saying "We don't do printers"). If I went into the office
| I'd still have to hot desk, although only on a per-day
| basis.
| greedo wrote:
| I worked briefly for a transportation company helping
| with a migration to Solaris. I was the FNG, and everyone
| else was primarily Windows so I stuck out like a sore
| thumb. My manager (and his manager) were really nice but
| had experienced a bit of turnover. My first day showed
| why.
|
| All of the sysadmins worked from one room, with a
| "datacenter" in the room next door. Imagine a single
| room, with desks lined up around the walls. No cubicles,
| and barely enough room for a keyboard/mouse/monitor and
| room for a soda or coffee. Crappy chairs too. Since I was
| the FNG, I got the desk in the back corner underneath the
| A/C duct. So I was perpetually frozen.
|
| No one looks at each other since our desks faced the
| walls. The walls between our room and the "datacenter"
| had no soundproofing, so whenever I spun up the Sun gear
| (T2 cpus) the noise was like a helicopter taking off.
| Even over the A/C blasting down on me, I would hear these
| servers when I did a reboot.
|
| I think the average salary at the time was around $70K or
| so, and there were 9 of us crammed into that crappy
| little room. So roughly $1M in compensation, but they
| couldn't find a real spot for us to work. Screw that
| place...
| skrebbel wrote:
| I looked it up so you don't have to: FNG means "fucking
| new guy"
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > I understand their need to have folks in the office,
|
| I don't. Can you explain what it is about every single job
| there requires 8 hours of 100% availability?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> every single job_
|
| That's the problem, there. One-size-fits-all approach.
|
| Every job is different. A lot of it is up to the management.
| If they get it right, things are shiny. If they get it wrong,
| they're sitting on their beanbag chair, alone, waiting for
| the movers to take the furniture away.
|
| But every company (and internal culture) is different. Some,
| I intensely dislike, but have to admit, they get results.
| Others, I like the culture, but I don't feel they get much
| done.
|
| Also, every employee is different. I know people that dress
| up in bespoke suits for work, in a cube farm, every day, and
| absolutely _love_ it.
|
| I know people that _hate_ remote work, and can 't wait to get
| back into the office.
|
| Different(folks).different(strokes)
|
| Good managers, especially first-line managers, are worth
| their weight in gold, and are usually disregarded by upper
| managers.
|
| A good manager can make an open-plan or cube farm job an
| absolute joy, and a bad manager can make a corner office
| career a nightmare.
|
| I like to think I was a good manager. I kept really good
| employees for _decades_ , in a pretty banal environment, and
| for a fairly low salary. They could have gone anywhere, and
| they knew it, but they stuck around, anyway.
| devilishDev wrote:
| 80% of work time at 100% pay doesn't really add up when you're
| paying PS53k for a office-based role in London. For a mid level
| role, PS66k at 0.8FTE would just be the same.
|
| Sure, some benefits sound decent but also deceiving... pension
| match is nice but 6 weeks of holiday (+BH) is actually 24 days
| and getting PS60 for each holiday day taken is PS1440 a year that
| won't rise with pay rises.
| [deleted]
| vaughan wrote:
| Is taking the Monday or Friday off better?
|
| I've always found Monday is a slow day for me to reload
| everything back into my working memory and get back into flow.
|
| I wonder if this is why Monday meetings are good. So that
| everyone can be reinvigorated for the week ahead.
| standardUser wrote:
| My employer has been fully remote with half-day Fridays for 2
| years. In practice, those half-days are worth maybe 20% of a
| regular work day, not 50%. I feel like we've already proven a
| 4-day work week can be effective and the only thing holding us
| back is an adherence to convention and expectations (by managers,
| execs and investors).
| formvoltron wrote:
| The 4 day workweek. This is life just laughing at me for having
| the gall to try & start my own company. 30 years on I'm still
| trying. Everybody else who just went & got a job are now
| millionaires & retired. I wrote a news publishing system 2 years
| before Elon sold them. I wrote the first Taxi app on iPhone. On
| my todo list for 2 years before Instagram was "twitter with
| photos".
| suction wrote:
| Seems like you're always two years too early for the market?
| formvoltron wrote:
| You definitely need a biz partner you can count on. Unless
| you have a family situation that encourages & helps this sort
| of endeavor.
|
| When someone burns you, don't go back to him / her for the
| second go around! Even if that person is a good friend.
| That's what I've learned. Alternative version of this is
| don't start a company with someone who is a newly minted
| millionaire & is single, not sure of what to do next in life,
| and not all that interested in money.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Not sure what the big deal is with working a 4 day week. I've
| done it for years, but at 40 hours. It not hard at all to work 40
| hours in 4 days, and I am very productive.
|
| Advocating for working 32 hours a week as if 40 is hard? I don't
| really get that at all. I know lots of people in other areas who
| easily work 60+ hours a week for years on end.
|
| I suppose if all you want to do is coast along at a company that
| will likely get wiped out by the competition when TSHTF, it would
| be nice to work 32 hours, but if you want to get ahead, don't set
| your sights so low.
| aczerepinski wrote:
| My last job (America's Test Kitchen in case they're hiring)
| did/does 4.5 day work weeks. Friday afternoons off. Zero loss of
| productivity. For me it was a built in zero-guilt place to
| schedule my dentist appointments, rare in-person tasks at the
| bank, take cats to the vet, etc.
|
| Of course, 4.0 days would be even better!
| krnlpnc wrote:
| > in the same way that nobody wants to go to a wedding over Zoom,
| we don't want to build our product over Zoom.
|
| It's absurd to compare a once-in-a-lifetime event to everyday
| work meetings.
| JamesAdir wrote:
| I really can't wrap my head around this four-day week trend. If
| the organization is focused on KPI's so why does it matter if
| people work one day or four-days?
|
| If the organization is focused on time spend no work (either in
| office or remotely) how can work be done in 80% of the time?
|
| Really don't understand how it works in day-to-day. It resembles
| the unlimited vacation days policy which was later found out to
| be unhelpful to employees.
| michaelmior wrote:
| > If the organization is focused on KPI's so why does it matter
| if people work one day or four-days?
|
| Arguably it matters in how you KPIs are set. I think it's
| reasonable to expect a full time employee to work more than one
| day a week. If you can meet all your KPIs with everyone working
| one day a week, then maybe you're aiming too low. Of course, if
| you require everyone to work 60 hour weeks to hit KPIs, that's
| an even bigger problem.
| JamesAdir wrote:
| KPIs can be change continuously so that's why I'm baffled by
| this trend. Companies can just say - we measure only by KPIs,
| work whenever you want. Something like this signals a much
| better workspace than four-days workweek, since the latter
| still measures time instead of output.
| michaelmior wrote:
| I'm not sure which trend are you referring to. In any case,
| I'm not suggesting employees should be measured solely by
| time worked. Only that I think setting performance targets
| based on a reasonable number of hours worked seems to make
| sense to me. Otherwise, I'm not really sure what benchmark
| you would use.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| It's mostly a case of figuring out when people will be
| available to work together. Some companies have a concept of
| "core hours". As long as you're active during the core hours,
| the rest are flexible.
| prometheus76 wrote:
| We work 4 days of 10 hours each. It's a good trade-off and I
| love the schedule.
| RegBarclay wrote:
| I had a 4 tens option at a previous job. We could have Monday
| or Friday off. I especially liked it late in the day when the
| 5 eights people left and it was quiet and there weren't any
| meetings.
| danaris wrote:
| There is ample research showing that humans can't be
| consistently productive for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm
| less personally familiar with research on 4-day weeks, but I've
| seen several studies with plenty of rigor that showed that
| working 6 hours a day, people were, on average, _at least_ as
| productive as they were working 8 hours a day.
|
| Banish from your mind the idea that "hours spent at work"
| translates directly into productivity. My butt in my seat
| doesn't produce anything. My _brain_ is what produces code,
| designs, problem-solving, ideas, etc, and it, like any other
| part of my body, needs periodic rest in order to function
| properly.
| jacquesm wrote:
| In quite a few countries the 32 hour workweek is already very
| normal, it creates a bit of extra scheduling work but nothing you
| can't handle in a larger organization. For smaller companies this
| is a bigger problem because they don't usually have the headcount
| to fill the resulting gaps and things tend to rely more on
| personal relationships.
| gargs wrote:
| It's not common to be paid 100% (aka for 40 hrs), though.
| jacquesm wrote:
| But you won't be paid 100% for 40 hours, you will be paid
| 100% for 32 hours. And people that work 40 hours should get
| more than those that work 32 hours.
|
| By the way, it is common to be paid far less for 40 hours
| than you should receive as well, and plenty of people work
| unpaid overtime who would be happy just to work the 40 hours
| they get paid for.
|
| Salary negotiations are always tricky, especially if you
| don't know your true market value. Given the difference
| between compensation at different companies one way you could
| attack this problem is to find a company that will match your
| current salary but at a reduced number of hours. Employees
| have the same problem that companies have: it is hard to
| charge by value if you don't know your value.
|
| As a gardener my work is worth less than as a computer
| programmer than as a financial advisor. Because each of those
| domains values time entirely differently, and because there
| are different levels of competition.
|
| If you can show your boss that if you work less that your
| productivity will likely remain the same or that it will go
| up they will probably wonder why they've been paying you for
| all that extra time in the past... so instead I would just
| argue to try moving to a different company at a better salary
| for the same amount of work or for the same salary with less
| work.
| paulcole wrote:
| > And people that work 40 hours should get more than those
| that work 32 hours.
|
| Someone who's 25% less efficient at their job should get
| paid the same as someone else who's more efficient?
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's up to the employer to decide for how long they
| contract someone, whether they are more or less efficient
| is something that is their problem, not the employees'
| problem, they are reserved for more time so they should
| get paid more. Lots of jobs are paid by the hour, and
| that is the sort of job that I believe we were
| discussing.
|
| The variables then are: your hourly rate, how many hours
| you are contracted for. I've never seen 'efficiency' in a
| labor contract as a metric, though, performance reviews
| may indicate that compared to your peergroup you are not
| performing well. In the end that then becomes an
| economics exercise, which in turn might lead to the
| company deciding that employing people for 32 hours is
| more efficient.
|
| But until then they should pay for what they receive in
| terms of time spent on the job.
| paulcole wrote:
| I'm dense, so I'm not following this at all. Let's say
| there are 2 people at a company doing similar jobs.
|
| Person A gets their work done in 40 hours a week.
|
| Person B gets the equivalent of Person A's work done
| (plus a little extra) in 32 hours a week.
|
| Do you think that Person A should earn more money?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Your question presumes that my opinion on this matters
| but that's not how employment works. Employment is
| governed by contract law/labor law. To reduce your
| example to absurdity: Person 'A' gets their work done in
| 40 hours a week and person B in one minute, do you think
| person 'A' should get more money?
|
| Clearly, the answer is yes because the claim on the life
| of person 'A' is a much higher one than the claim on the
| life of person 'B'. And you could argue the opposite just
| as easily: Person 'B' should get more money because
| they've figured out a way to be much more productive that
| might scale to others, and besides, sometimes getting
| something done in one minute has immense value and
| getting the same thing done in a week has none. But in
| practice neither of these things will happen. There isn't
| really a free market when it comes to jobs, employers
| hold most of the power and the differences between
| employees for most jobs do not exceed the normal
| bandwidth available for compensation, almost nobody
| except a lucky few contractors get paid by the value they
| create for the company.
|
| So what will happen instead is that employers will set a
| certain hourly rate for a certain kind of job with some
| leeway to incentivize people to come and work for them or
| stay and hopefully a career path so they can migrate into
| better positions if they perform well. This arrangement
| will be formalized using an employment contract which
| together with applicable law will govern the
| relationship. This is not without problems but in the end
| it is what we have as a solution. Whether your colleague
| (who gets their job done in 32 hours) and you (who work
| 40 hours) have different pay depends on who is in control
| of the relationship: if the employees have control then
| they might be able to get paid by the value they
| contribute but this is _extremely_ rare for salaried
| employees. The alternative, an hourly wage is much more
| common.
|
| And one of the fundamental reasons for that is that we
| (1) all recognize the value of our time and (2) have
| tried very hard to get away from labor that was paid 'by
| the piece', which was very common in the early industrial
| revolution days (and which is now returning through a
| backdoor as the 'gig economy').
| basisword wrote:
| >> And people that work 40 hours should get more than those
| that work 32 hours.
|
| This is not how it works currently. You get paid your
| salary and are expected to do a minimum number of hours +
| any more reasonably required. You don't get extra for those
| extra hours in a salaried job so I don't see why you would
| if they reduced the hours required.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > You get paid your salary and are expected to do a
| minimum number of hours + any more reasonably required.
|
| This is a geographically limited factoid, and even then
| lots of companies do pay overtime. But in those cases
| where they do not: I always wonder how those companies
| would respond if I treated them the way they treat their
| employees.
|
| > You don't get extra for those extra hours in a salaried
| job so I don't see why you would if they reduced the
| hours required.
|
| Because it is fair.
| basisword wrote:
| >> This is a geographically limited factoid
|
| Possibly but it's widely true for UK based tech companies
| and that's what this article was about.
|
| Whether it's fair or not and treatment of employees is a
| whole other discussion.
| jacquesm wrote:
| UK tech companies can and do pay for overtime, just not
| all of them and the ones that don't would like to have
| that discussion squelched as much as possible.
|
| Talking about a 'four day work week' is meaningless if
| you at the same time claim that you have to work more
| than those four days per week to satisfy your employment
| contract, it just turns one vague thing into an even
| vaguer thing.
| gargs wrote:
| That's not what the trial is; workers will be paid 100% of
| their salary for 80% of their usual time. That's what makes
| it different from a 'flexible hours' pilot.
|
| Overtime is extremely uncommon even in Europe and has to be
| agreed upon in contract, and even then most employers just
| provide extra time off instead of money for full-time
| workers.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, but eventually that will normalize to a raise if the
| trial is made permanent, the reason they structure it
| like that is if they revert that the employees won't see
| it as a pay cut.
| gargs wrote:
| Which is fine. The goal of the trial is to reward
| employees for increased productivity (historical trends
| tell an impressive story) by offering them the
| opportunity to keep their existing salaries by working
| (and therefore stressing themselves) less.
|
| Sure, high performers should be rewarded using subjective
| metrics, which is already the case for blue collar
| workers. This trial gives people the opportunity to not
| be penalized for working less, which is the case with all
| the existing flexible hour arrangements. If successful, I
| have no doubt that this would lead to a longer term
| bigger change in what counts as full-time employment when
| it comes to taxation, immigration, and retirement.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's already a success elsewhere, I really don't see the
| point of a trial, they should just do it. In NL I don't
| know all that many people that still have regular 40 hour
| work weeks, the vast majority are 32, 28, 24 or even 20
| hour workweeks, which incidentally helps a lot with
| leveling the pay gap between men and women.
| gargs wrote:
| I don't think you realize the difference.
|
| You interview for a job -- the offer is EURX @ 40hrs/wk;
| you tell the HR that you'd like to only work for 80% of
| the time since you have childcare responsibilities. HR
| either writes back that the job requires you to work
| 40hrs or they revise their offer to EUR0.8X.
|
| When 80% is the new 100%
|
| You interview, get an offer for EURX @ 32hrs/wk; you tell
| HR that you'd like to work extra since you're really
| passionate. HR either writes back that you could take
| extra time off or they revise their offer to EURX +
| conditional bonus of EURY.
|
| Like you said, working more doesn't mean more
| productivity, and so if a company is paying more just for
| you sitting in front of your computer more, we're not
| talking about the same jobs.
|
| And if all of this normalizes, sure, salaries would be
| rebased, but the negotiation changes, as described above.
| jacquesm wrote:
| How do you think we made the change from 6 days to 5
| days? Do you feel like you are getting 100% pay for 0.86
| time worked?
| sshah1983 wrote:
| I still don't understand the 100% as productive in 80% of the
| time. The math doesn't check out there unless the expectation is
| people are working 10 hr days Mon-Thurs. Even in that scenario,
| not everyone has the stamina to execute at that pace and it also
| makes it hard to recruit anyone with a kid who needs to navigate
| school dropoffs/pickups etc.
| mejutoco wrote:
| One way I make sense of it is that employers are competing for
| talent. Better working conditions (such as 4 day workweeks)
| might attract better employees for the same price. This could
| unlock enough productivity to compensate for the 5th day.
| matwood wrote:
| Unless people are machines, it's incorrect to strictly equate
| hours with productivity. What actually happens is there is
| quite a bit of slack time in the typical day. Going to 4
| days/week is applying a forcing function[1] to remove some of
| this slack time and given it back to employees.
|
| I think a better question is how much of this slack time is
| necessary to reach the current productivity levels, and how
| much is just...slack?
|
| [1] There are a lot of anecdote stories where people have a kid
| which limits their available time, and suddenly they are more
| productive than they have ever been during that small time
| window and get their startup off the ground etc...
| jstx1 wrote:
| Plenty of bullshit jobs where your input hardly matters. It's
| like a thin gas that expands to fill the working week - 20%
| compression doesn't mean much in that context.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Take the counter direction. Imagine there was a push to
| _extend_ the current normal to a schedule of 6 days of 8 hours
| each. Would you expect the typical office worker's weekly
| production to soar by 20%? I would not.
| truthwhisperer wrote:
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| > also makes it hard to recruit anyone with a kid who needs to
| navigate school dropoffs/pickups etc.
|
| But this is a pilot in a country where over 40% of kids go home
| and get to school by themselves starting at age 5 [1]. Not to
| mention we are talking about a continent where many children
| are independent in terms of mobility to school [2]. Denmark,
| Spain, Poland, Italy, Czechia, Netherlands, Germany,
| Switzerland, Finland, Great Britain, Norway, and the list goes
| on.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22570898
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7731133/
| danaris wrote:
| In addition to what other people are saying about productivity
| not being linear:
|
| _Screw productivity._
|
| We, as a society, produce vastly more than enough _stuff_ of
| all kinds for everyone to live comfortably. Insisting that
| everyone _must_ continue working a 40-hour week every week
| forever just because that 's the best that could be negotiated
| the first time workers successfully fought for their rights
| after the Industrial Revolution is foolishness.
|
| Total productivity has skyrocketed since computers came on the
| scene and helped to streamline millions of different processes.
| And where have those gains gone? Eaten up by the very wealthy.
|
| A 4-day work week is one _very small step_ toward letting us,
| the regular workers who _actually produce all the stuff_ ,
| genuinely share in the spoils that streamlining created.
| xnorswap wrote:
| People aren't machines, they bend to their environment.
|
| Even without crunching extra hours per day, you can be
| essentially as productive with fewer working days per week if
| you are more focussed on the days do you do work.
| sshah1983 wrote:
| Agreed but I've yet to hear the killer tactic for how a
| company gets every employee 100% focused 100% of the time.
|
| I think there are some roles that end up suffering. Like
| someone who is a product designer and now has to cram more
| creativity in fewer hours. Someone who is in inside or
| outside sales and has less time where they overlap with
| customers to perform demos and close deals. It may work - it
| may not work.
|
| The penalty for being sick for a day (or your kid being sick
| for a day) is more drastic too. Although perhaps those folks
| just use their extra day to catch up.
|
| I'm more bullish on remote work than these 4 day a week
| experiments.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| > I think there are some roles that end up suffering. Like
| someone who is a product designer and now has to cram more
| creativity in fewer hours.
|
| I'm sure everyone said similar things moving to work week
| with 40 hours and 5 days. Nothing magical about it, people
| still work over when they feel the need to because
| deadlines are silly in some cases.
|
| This is a pilot for a reason. A work week with 32 hours and
| 4 days does improve the health of people overall, but we
| will see if it's the same as 40 hours which also didn't
| have merit when it was chosen.
| xnorswap wrote:
| 100% focussed 100% of the time is a strawman argument set
| up to fail, there's no killer tactic because it doesn't
| exist and no-one is arguing it does.
|
| You literally don't have to cram in the hours, you can just
| work less, enjoy a healthier work/life balance and still be
| productive.
|
| To argue otherwise is to suggest that we should all work 6
| day weeks.
|
| If you accept that working 5 day weeks has benefits over 6
| day weeks then why not accept that 4 day weeks could have
| benefits too?
| RHSeeger wrote:
| This is a fair, argument, but...
|
| People seem to put forth the argument that "people will
| work more efficiently if they work less hours" to counter
| the argument "if less time is being worked, then less
| work is being done, then costs/prices go up". And, while
| it may be (and probably is) true that efficiency will go
| up, it's almost certainly true that overall work will go
| down (because efficiency will not go up enough to
| compensate for the loss of work time).
|
| Now, the/your argument that the overall loss in work is
| worth it for the work/life balance benefit is one worth
| considering. It's just a different point from the one
| that that less work, overall, will be done, likely
| resulting in higher costs. I guess another way to look at
| it might be
|
| - Am I willing to earn 10% less in exchange for working
| 20% less?
|
| And, as a reverse example for the 6-day work week
|
| - Am I willing to earn 10% more in exchange for working
| 20% more?
|
| For me, at least, the answer is no to both, because I'm
| comfortable with my 5 day work week. For some people, the
| answer to one or the other of those is yes.
| franciscop wrote:
| > it's almost certainly true that overall work will go
| down (because efficiency will not go up enough to
| compensate for the loss of work time)
|
| That might be true, or it might not. It depends on how
| much efficiency goes up and how much buffer time people
| has, right? In many jobs people spene a non-trivial
| amount of time reading news, or in FB/Twitter/etc, so it
| def can be true that removing one hour of news+twitter
| yields the same productivity.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| I've seen no compelling evidence to suggest that working
| fewer hours will raise efficiency enough to result in the
| same amount of work being done in those fewer hours. It
| _can_ be true, but it seems unlikely enough (to my
| intuition) that I'll assume it would not be the case
| unless someone can put forth a convincing
| argument/evidence.
| mlyle wrote:
| I assume you don't quite break even.
|
| I really support 4x9, though, for a lot of reasons. It
| should become a work norm (and 36 hours set as the
| nominal workweek by government).
|
| - I do think productivity will go up some, and the fall
| in output will be less than 10%. Split the difference,
| and call it 5%.
|
| - Because there will be _some_ fall in output, and
| because there are some professions where you need butts-
| in-seats for coverage... I think it will, by reducing the
| supply of labor, push up the equilibrium price and get
| more people into skilled work.
|
| - It's a hedge against automation reducing demand for
| labor.
|
| - I think we'll recognize a lot of ancillary benefits
| from reduction of commute times, etc.
|
| - It's a massive difference in quality of life.
| basisword wrote:
| You're assuming people are 100% productive each day currently.
| If people are told they need to keep hitting the same KPI's
| etc. or they go back to a 5-day week, you bet they're going to
| work a bit harder on those 4 days. A bit less news, Facebook,
| chatting etc and a bit more actual work.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Also a bit less meetings with no agenda that waste a bunch of
| time because no one is organized.
|
| I have at least one hour meeting every day that could be 30
| minutes (or non-existent).
| pc86 wrote:
| They say it's 100% of the full-time salary, but the one open
| position they have is a full-stack JS engineer for the equivalent
| of about $66k USD. Is the market really that bad in the UK?
| That's not even a good new grad offer in the US.
| Guid_NewGuid wrote:
| A new grad offer in much of the UK outside London would be up-
| to $33k USD maybe less though I may be a few years out of date.
| US salaries are very different and seem strange to (this) non-
| American(s).
| TrackerFF wrote:
| You might ask yourself - if Europeans are willing to do the
| work that Americans are doing, but for half (sometimes even a
| third, or quarter!) the price - Are European workers
| underpriced, or American workers overpriced?
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| With global corporations it's hard to imagine they would be
| willing to lose this badly on Labor Costs if there isn't a
| clear benefit to paying more in the US. Especially with the
| rise of remote.
| weakfish wrote:
| That's fairly normal outside SF/Silicon Valley - my friends and
| I all fell around the 60-80 range fresh out of school with CS
| degrees, working in the southeast (Raleigh, NC)
| tristan957 wrote:
| 65k (General Motors) was the lowest offer I saw as a new grad
| in 2019. Everything else was above 75k. I took a job for 90k.
| I work in Texas.
| weakfish wrote:
| Then you're lucky.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Almost every company outside the US pays at most half of what
| the US offers for similar positions. Only a few unicorns and a
| few countries are exceptions to this.
| corrral wrote:
| Most of the US pays at most half of what a handful of
| (mainly) California and New York companies do.
| renaudg wrote:
| No that's definitely on the very low side for a London engineer
| unless you're a new grad or with very outdated skills.
|
| You can't directly compare salaries with the US though : the
| tax and benefits structure is vastly different.
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| Yes, yes it is that bad.
| https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/london-software-
| engineer-.... 60k Pounds is about 75k USD. Seems like Beacon
| might be on the low side.
| renaudg wrote:
| I wouldn't trust that : for one thing, they list the "Entry
| Level Software Engineer" average as PS57,581 when "Software
| Engineer" is PS53,392 overall.
|
| Better in my experience : https://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/
| theonething wrote:
| too bad they don't do four-day _and_ remote.
| robbiep wrote:
| I would love to hear some stories of startups that have tried to
| implement a 4 day week... any examples?
| jansan wrote:
| I can give you examples of startups with 7 day work weeks, but
| 4 day work weeks seem to be very rare in startups.
| imjared wrote:
| We've been doing this (4day x 8hr) at Monograph (monograph.com)
| for much longer than I've been at the company. I like to think
| we're a bit of an outlier since we take Wednesdays off. While
| this seems strange, it means that I never work more than two days
| at a time, I have time in the middle of the week to recharge, and
| I don't totally lose context on problems I'm working on. We could
| argue that this means it's not a true "off" day which may be true
| but I'm completely happy with this setup.
|
| Tuesdays are the new Fridays, y'all.
| standardUser wrote:
| That sounds like a very family-friendly policy, but as a single
| individual it would be vastly less useful than regular 3 and 4
| day weekends that could be used for travel.
| bern4444 wrote:
| 4 day work weeks are clearly here to stay and a huge quality of
| life improvement but taking a 20% pay check reduction for it is
| absurd.
|
| You are doing the same amount of work in less time, not less
| work. Company goals do not change, nor do their deliverables or
| expectations of you.
|
| A reduction would only make sense for hourly employees (though I
| think the hourly rate should go up so the total weekly pay is the
| same) but if you are being paid full time, it should not matter
| how much time it takes you to complete your work.
|
| You are paid for your knowledge, skill, and ability to deliver.
| You are not paid to be working a set amount of hours or days.
| mavhc wrote:
| Can we spend the spare day going to school to learn about all the
| new stuff since we left school, or stuff we've forgotten?
| simonswords82 wrote:
| This is part of a wider scheme in the UK whereby 60 firms and
| 3000 employees are piloting 4 day weeks.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/04/thousands-o...
|
| From the article:
|
| Employees from a wide range of businesses and charities are
| expected to take part in the scheme, which will run initially
| from June to December, including the Royal Society of Biology,
| the London-based brewing company Pressure Drop, a Manchester-
| based medical devices firm, and a fish and chip shop in Norfolk.
|
| It comes as the push for companies to adopt a shorter working
| week - crucially with no loss of pay while aiming for higher
| productivity - gains momentum as a way of improving working
| conditions.
| belter wrote:
| "Which country and city governments have a four-day work
| week?": https://buildremote.co/four-day-week/4-day-work-week-
| countri...
|
| I am surprised the lack of mention of Denmark, Sweden or the
| Netherlands. Most business persons I contact, normally only
| work 4 days a week.
| kqr wrote:
| I live in Sweden and have never hard of any company doing a
| four day week. The closest I get is one of my first jobs
| which had a 37.5 hour week (rather than the customary 40
| hours) but again, spread out over five days.
|
| That said, some of the last few weeks at the time of writing
| have in practise turned out to be four day weeks due to
| public holidays. Could this be what causes the confusion?
| BigJ1211 wrote:
| I live in the Netherlands, here it depends completely on
| the "cao" that is used within the 'branche' (type of
| industry). There are industries that use 32, 36, or 40
| hours as full-time work weeks. Most goverment jobs for
| example are either 36 or 32 hours.
|
| I work in SWE, which is almost always 40 hours in my
| experience YMMV.
| snowAbstraction wrote:
| In Sweden, a significant number of parents with young
| children who work 80% so maybe that has caused the
| confusion.
| kqr wrote:
| That describes also myself -- yet I didn't think about
| that possibility!
| ochrist wrote:
| I live in Denmark. The normal is still five days a week,
| although I do know people who work four days a week.
| isodev wrote:
| Belgium is missing as well, by law you are allowed to choose
| a 4d work-week and many, many people do it, including myself
| :-).
| galangalalgol wrote:
| If you can choose to work %20 fewer hours dor the same pay,
| who doesn't choose to do so?
| brtkdotse wrote:
| It obviously comes with a 20% paycut.
| l33t2328 wrote:
| The pay is not the same
| Arcanum-XIII wrote:
| Except the latest is working 120% the day you're working -
| so, not a true 4 days/week.
|
| Or you can have a true 4 days/week. With the pay cut. As
| for half time and so on... taxes though start to rise,
| because why not.
|
| I hate so very much my government for this kind of shit.
| apexalpha wrote:
| In the Netherlands you're legally allowed to work parttime
| for the same hourly pay. This has resulted in a lot of people
| working 32 hours (or less).
|
| This, however, is not the same as an entire company working 4
| day weeks.
| bombcar wrote:
| A company could even be staffed 24/7 and yet nobody work
| more than 32 hrs a week.
|
| What we really should be trying to normalize is most
| everything shutting down an extra day where possible.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I understood that the UK trial is without paycut. So full
| pay for 32 hours assuming hourly workers.
|
| Whereas in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Scandinavian
| countries, etc. they typically accept 32 or 24 hours but
| with a proportional pay cut.
| gargs wrote:
| But do they get paid for 5 days? Are their pension
| contributions the same as for someone who worked 5 days? What
| about their holiday allowance(s)? Their bonuses?
| mchusma wrote:
| Isn't this worse for people who rely on government services?
| (Without knowing the details)?
| [deleted]
| LegitShady wrote:
| I've worked in offices before (engineering, architectural)
| that have one day a week where they don't answer the phone
| except for emergencies, and lets say friday is 'catch up and
| do paperwork day'.
|
| Externally it might seem like 4 days a week, but its actually
| 5 with one where you can't reach them.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| As with every time these tests are run, I would like to see
| results longer than the initial few months honeymoon when
| people's productivity is being closely monitored
|
| I want to know if 1-2 years down the line, the productivity is
| still running at 125%
| pattle wrote:
| Four day work weeks sound good but since being remote from 2019 I
| could never go back to working in an office.
|
| Seems like a case of one step forward, two steps back
| papito wrote:
| I actually WANT to go to the office, especially when it's nice
| out. My body is craving the walking and the activity, and the
| positive stress of being in a different environment is actually
| helping my mood significantly. I've become puffy, lazy, and
| slow.
|
| But not 5 days a week, no.
| Frost1x wrote:
| The problem isn't remote work, the problem is the never
| ending productivity growth. Chances are, you've shaved at
| least 30-40 minutes a day of your commute. You've probably
| let work gobble that up because even though it wasn't comped
| time, you still considered it work time so it wasn't too
| difficult to squeeze a little bit more in each day.
|
| Take that time back, go use it to go on a walk or exercise.
| You'll thank yourself. Prior to the pandemic I worked remote
| but in a location less obsessed with productivity. I had
| flexibility to exercise in the middle of the day most days
| when my energy levels topped out and I was in the best shape
| of my life. Fast forward to now and infinite demand always
| likes to pretend everyone is somehow behind and I too let my
| reclaimed commute time slide. I've recaptured it, started
| exercising regularly again, and already feel great. This
| culture that obsesses with productivity generation for
| someone else above all else isn't healthy.
| eertami wrote:
| I've never understood this. If you work from home you can
| also just... go walking outside? In fact you could even go
| walking for longer, since nobody is checking for your
| presence and you haven't wasted time commuting.
|
| I'd rather walk to the lake and go for a swim during the
| afternoon, than walk to a train to walk to an office.
| basisword wrote:
| >> I'd rather walk to the lake and go for a swim during the
| afternoon, than walk to a train to walk to an office.
|
| This requires some degree of motivation. When you had to go
| to the office you were forced to get dressed, get outside
| and travel etc. When you are WFH it is so tempting to get
| up late, get online, and stay comfortable. This is true
| even when you know what you are doing is unhealthy. It's
| similar to people eating a poor diet. They know they're
| doing it, they know it's bad, but it's hard to do the right
| thing (even when the right thing is relatively easy to do).
|
| I say this as someone who loves WFH but also has fallen
| into a lot of bad habits that have definitely impacted my
| physical/mental health.
| yrgulation wrote:
| My personal observation is that most pro office folks are
| seeking to substitute gaps in their personal lives with
| onsite work. A drain on their coworkers to be frank. Lack
| of friends, proper housing, lack of exercise you name it. A
| tiring hindrance on those whom understand that most of
| these issues are caused by being farmed in offices 8 hours
| a day and clustered in crowded, poorly planned cities. Of
| course there are valid practical reasons as well for onsite
| work.
|
| But if your excuses for wanting to drag people back into
| offices are that you cant walk on your own, dont have
| friends, cant play politics, cant hold remote conferences
| or online chats, then i am sorry but you are on your own.
| Too many have been conditioned to think that you need to
| sit in a building and slave away for a praise and a rushed
| holiday every now and then.
| matsemann wrote:
| Wow, what an uncharitable view you have on people with a
| different opinion than your own. Quite stunning,
| actually.
| yrgulation wrote:
| Quite the contrary. My aim is at those opinions that tell
| _me_ what to do, essentially not respecting my own
| opinion. I am more than happy for people to return to the
| office if that's _their_ wish but I am not returning to
| an office to be someone's substitute for a normal life.
| To each his own, basically. As i said, there are valid
| reasons but not at my own freedom's expense.
| matsemann wrote:
| If you only said you don't want other's needs to affect
| you, that would be a valid opinion. (Albeit not very
| altruistic)
|
| But what you're saying is also that those wanting to be
| at the office are friendless, need this as a substitute
| for a normal life etc. That's unnecessary, and just you
| being a total dick. Please present your arguments here in
| a better way.
| yrgulation wrote:
| i never said that. please be more mindful when making
| accusations and try and reread what people write here if
| english is not your strength, instead of being a
| pretentious prick.
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| > most pro office folks are seeking to substitute gaps in
| their personal lives with onsite work
|
| > you're saying is also that those wanting to be at the
| office are friendless, need this as a substitute for a
| normal life etc
|
| What did he characterize wrong?
| dymk wrote:
| Wow! Stunning!
| bodge5000 wrote:
| Yeh I kind of thought the same. I applaud them either way, the
| more companies adopt it, the more pressure is placed on the
| others to offer the same, but whereas 4 day work week is a huge
| bonus for me, wfh is a hard requirement.
| encrux wrote:
| I was very pro home-office (and even Anti-Office) before and
| during the pandemic. Now that restrictions are more or less
| gone, I'm glad to be working in the office again.
|
| Being in the office for the first time in my career showed me
| that there are definitely upsides, especially when you get
| along with your team really well.
|
| Though 100% mandatory office time is BS.
| ironlake wrote:
| >Now that restrictions are more or less gone, I'm glad to be
| working in the office again.
|
| In the US, COVID cases are five times higher than this time
| last year, and the CDC estimates that 1 in 5 will result in
| long COVID.
| floren wrote:
| > the CDC estimates that 1 in 5 will result in long COVID.
|
| This scolding "I'm not sure exactly how, yet, but you'll be
| sorry!" any time anyone admits that they're no longer
| hiding inside & wiping down every banana with bleach is
| getting a little tired.
| basisword wrote:
| >> I'm glad to be working in the office again. / Being in the
| office for the first time.
|
| I think the fact it's your first time has a big impact. Give
| it time. Any time I start a new job I enjoy being in the
| office for the first 6-12 months. Once it becomes routine
| (same commute, same lunch, same people) and you have learnt
| how to do your job (and rely on others less) it becomes much
| less attractive. I'm not saying you'd go full remote but I
| would bet you will go hybrid and transition further remote
| over time. This is what I've seen happen with all of my
| colleagues (including people I thought would jump straight
| back to the office post-pandemic).
| fleddr wrote:
| I've been working 4 day workweeks for well over a decade now,
| took the pay cut myself.
|
| As for the goal to maintain 100% productivity whilst cutting back
| on hours, I'm confident that they will succeed. In fact, they'll
| succeed in this without requiring some kind of brilliant plan, as
| this recalibration happens automatically.
|
| When you start working one day less, nobody will reduce your
| workload by 20%. You'll have the exact same workload as before
| and now need to achieve it in less time.
|
| There's many ways to cross this gap. An obvious one is that a
| typical 5 day work week has moments of slack, depending on the
| culture. Friday after lunch is where productivity sinks in many
| offices. Wednesdays are also slower as it's typically the first
| moment in the week where things are running (planned, prepared,
| on track). In a 4 day work week you sacrifice this breathing
| room, the 4 days become more compressed.
|
| Another natural change is to take a more aggressive stand in
| rejecting non-sense. Excess meetings, unimportant emails, etc.
| This works very well and is extremely effective for the simple
| reason that you MUST. As such this time compression is a
| blessing, a cleansing mechanism for yourself and the
| organization.
|
| You'll be amazed at how much time you can win back. Let's say you
| do need to attend a meeting. It's a 1 hour meeting. You're needed
| in the meeting. Go in and say you only have 20 mins. As if by
| sheer magic, what needed to be discussed gets done in 20 mins.
| Without this forced "budgeting", people would just fill the hour
| with bullshit.
|
| Counter intuitive, but by being rigid instead of elastic, you
| maximize value.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| My company does max 30 minute meetings. It's great and somehow
| everything still gets discussed. Occasionally we run a bit long
| but everyone knows you can only rely on people to be there for
| the first 30 minutes.
|
| I'm in a Staff role with my fingers in multiple projects across
| several teams, and I still only have 2-3 hours of meetings a
| day.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| >only have 2-3 hours of meetings a day.
|
| Only?? It's surprising you tolerate even that much.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| Maybe you are not aware of what Staff Engineer roles tend
| to involve. There's lots of technical direction, scoping,
| working with other teams, etc.
| fleddr wrote:
| Great practice. We're doing a similar thing and although
| these meetings sometimes run late, it's now culturally
| accepted that invitees just type "need to drop" and leave.
| When this is normalized, people learn to get to the point.
| paxys wrote:
| I'd argue that the majority of office settings don't have
| moments of slack, but rather moments of productivity. This same
| productivity can be achieved in wayy less time than the
| standard 40 hours/week.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| > I'd argue that the majority of office settings don't have
| moments of slack, but rather moments of productivity.
|
| Absolutely. The complete lack of slack in the modern office
| drives a lot of my stress. I am transmuting that into an
| long-term win, however: it is driving me to seek flexible
| working arrangements, working for myself, setting up passive
| income streams (however small they are) and generally working
| less. I refuse to give my best years of my life to my work,
| and will work 2x as hard (for myself, obviously) to partially
| decouple time from income.
|
| > This same productivity can be achieved in wayy less time
| than the standard 40 hours/week.
|
| The nebulousness with which productivity is defined based on
| the context suggests it is not nearly as objective as some
| would have you think.
| fleddr wrote:
| I can only agree, depending on what you include in
| "productivity".
|
| I'd say it's incredibly common for a modern office worker to
| be engaged in email, meetings and chat for some 4-6 hours per
| day.
|
| Not only does this leave little time to do actual tasks, that
| little time is also highly fragmented across the day.
|
| It's a point I've made repeatedly on similar threads: the
| problem with modern office work is too much collaboration.
| Pretty much we spent the vast majority of the day figuring
| out what to do when, instead of actually doing it.
| sdeframond wrote:
| > Pretty much we spent the vast majority of the day
| figuring out what to do when, instead of actually doing it.
|
| One could argue that we virtually never do actual work.
| Machines or remote workers do. All we are doing is
| defining, communicating and controlling others' work.
| Mo3 wrote:
| That's arguably also work.
| hinkley wrote:
| I had a boss who was very sensitive to the fact that most
| meetings have several agendas, that half of the team doesn't
| give a shit about a third of the agenda, and so if you let the
| wrong people start talking first, then the entire team sits
| there for an hour when they are only interested in 15 minutes
| out of that hour (often at the end). So you start with the
| things everyone cares about and work your way down the list.
|
| The upside/downside to this is that you can't filibuster on
| something that matters to you but nobody else cares about,
| because they already left the room before you started. But of
| course neither can any of the other people who think their hill
| is as valuable as yours.
| sktrdie wrote:
| This makes sense and understand what you're saying. But the
| idea of having a full extra day where I don't have to open the
| laptop and can instead concentrate totally on myself is much
| more important than a decompression day at work.
| fleddr wrote:
| Exactly, that's also why I made the change.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Yes, there's only so much work that you can get done in one
| day. A lot of time is also spent on things like social
| interaction. What a 4 day work week offers is more flexibility.
| ie it'll allow for either more quiet days of work or allow
| people to compress their work week and have more time to relax
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm starting to get more militant about zoom calls. Trying to
| avoid angering people explicitly, but still pushing back as
| best I can to protect to the team from incessant zoom calls to
| have conversations that would be faster on slack, and better
| documented in email. Zoom calls just invite conversation that
| has to repeated again because 80% of everyone on the call
| forgot some amount of detail.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| > conversations that would be faster on slack
|
| I'm still searching for the golden goose "conversation"
| that's actually faster on Slack. Sure, a quick back and forth
| or check in is actually faster.
|
| I have yet to find a meaningful discussion that's actually
| faster on Slack. It seems like they always drag out as
| sparsely filled, 45 minute threads. Nearly everyone of these
| would have been better served by a 10 minute call.
| bombcar wrote:
| Faster can mean less clock time (Zoom will almost always
| win) or less "involved" time - each person reads the thread
| and responds when they have time, which uses less of their
| time but more clock time.
|
| It can work either way, depends on the type of discussion.
| Often the best is to hash as much out in chat as you can
| and then meet to finalize.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| The problem is it still requires mental load to switch in
| and out of that conversation.
|
| You also create inequality on the team since threads
| rewards the fastest to reply. This is a lot easier to
| manage on a Zoom call.
| theonething wrote:
| > still requires mental load to switch in and out of that
| conversation
|
| In my experience, sitting through a boring meeting while
| trying to appear engaged is way more mentally draining.
|
| > You also create inequality on the team
|
| Actually, I see the opposite, that video conferencing
| favors the most extroverted.
| bombcar wrote:
| All methods can create equality issues, which can be a
| reason for using a variety.
|
| I've noticed that the way Teams "collapses" threads that
| often the _last_ to reply is the only one read besides
| the opening post.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| > ... and better documented in email.
|
| This, so much. Let's just jump on a quick Teams meeting
| almost always can be taken care of in an email. And then it's
| documented and can be referenced and sent to all parties who
| may need to know that were not included in the "quick" Teams
| meeting.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Quick phone calls are often more efficient than emails. For
| status updates, downloads of information, sure email works.
| But if you want a back and forth exchange of ideas, talking
| is often much faster.
| heretogetout wrote:
| Talking is indeed faster but if you're not recording the
| result in some document to share with others not on the
| call there's risk that valuable information will be lost.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| We create a teams chat that is separate from the meeting
| and document what we agree on in that chat, that way it
| is documented for everyone who forgets the details by
| tomorrow morning.
| seti0Cha wrote:
| I'd say talking is best at straightening out
| misunderstandings. In those cases there's not necessarily
| any extra information generated. It's kind of like
| attaching a debugger to your communication stream.
| rhino369 wrote:
| Good point
| corrral wrote:
| I hate-- _hate_ --when I'm trying to find something in
| Slack and right where I'm pretty sure it should be I see a
| marker indicating that a call took place there, often
| without any surrounding indication of WTF it was about.
| Fucking hate it.
| greedo wrote:
| My company's retention policy deletes emails after 6 months,
| as well as Teams chat logs. So unless we create docs in
| Sharepoint (who has time to add another layer of
| documentation?), everything becomes ephemeral at some point.
| Like tears in rain...
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| > As for the goal to maintain 100% productivity whilst cutting
| back on hours, I'm confident that they will succeed. In fact,
| they'll succeed in this without requiring some kind of
| brilliant plan, as this recalibration happens automatically.
|
| I worked as a contractor for a while with a 32 hour/week
| schedule. I was essentially just as productive as I was full
| time.
|
| Reality is for most creative jobs, there's a fraction of your
| work week where you're extremely productive. Everything else is
| just rounding out the admin work while your brain is mush.
| hinkley wrote:
| Nothing illustrates this quite like the task that is marked
| as 'half a week' and some manager doesn't understand why you
| can't do two of those in the same week.
|
| Like, if a marathon only takes 6 hours then why can't you do
| a second one on Sunday? And if I harass you enough can you do
| another one on Saturday afternoon as well?
| missedthecue wrote:
| If you can do your work week in 4 days without losing
| productivity, you don't have anywhere near enough
| responsibilities.
| fleddr wrote:
| That makes no sense. I have exactly the same responsibilities
| as before my switch. I also have exactly the same
| responsibilities as my peers working 5 days. And yet I
| successfully squeeze those 5 days into 4, and it wasn't even
| that hard.
|
| Magic? No, modern office work is incredibly ineffective. Most
| of the day is spent collaborating with almost no part of the
| day spent on actually doing things.
| coldcode wrote:
| When I was working before my retirement I routinely had to work
| 60 hr weeks since I was lead (went to every meeting) and wrote
| code full time along with my team. Most of our projects started
| with a hard deadline (estimates were only used for budgeting,
| the time was predetermined) and constant change was endemic
| during every project. No way this would fit in 32 hr weeks. Yet
| we still had sprints (which assumed 40 hrs of effort) and
| burndown charts (which is antiagile and idiotic given all the
| changes). The real issue is institutional insanity, assuming
| you can direct engineers like they were machines.
|
| Until you fix the institution you can't change the hours.
| roflyear wrote:
| Absolutely. Almost every org treats engineers as an
| expendable resource. They do this because they fear the
| alternative, which requires treating people with respect,
| because those people are valuable to your organization.
| rtp4me wrote:
| You and I have very different career experiences. I have
| worked for 5 Fortune-100 technology companies over the past
| 20 years and never once did I feel like I was an expendable
| resource. Outside one particular experience, every one of
| my managers (Directors, Sr Directors) treated everyone with
| respect and honesty. Furthermore, they were genuinely
| concerned about health and family issues (family health,
| PTO, etc). Even in my current role, my company goes out of
| its way to provide a solid work-life balance (additional
| PTO for COVID, extra volunteer time, etc).
|
| I hope others on HN have had the opportunity to work in
| places such as these...
| mywittyname wrote:
| Things have changed in the past decade for engineers. In
| the 00s, I felt expendable at every job, even at places
| that suffered after an exodus engineers. In the 10s, I
| felt necessary, but fungible. And in the 20s, I feel
| important and that my skills are distinct.
|
| I'm sure this varies a lot for people working in
| different sectors, but I think every sector has seen the
| perceived importance of technology engineering increase
| over time.
| hinkley wrote:
| If you are organized you can call their bluff. But if more
| than a couple of people defect and keep insisting they can
| make the unreasonable deadlines, then those people get
| attention because they are saying what management wants to
| hear.
|
| One of my goals in life is to get better at identifying
| (read, admitting/accepting) when the team has defectors and
| finding someplace else to apply my skills. But the few
| times it has actually worked are a mighty incentive to try
| again, even when I should know better.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| You always have more power than you think, and if you really
| don't it's probably time to move on.
| fleddr wrote:
| Agreed. The situation you describe is one where constraints
| do not exist, which is cultural. You assume input, say 40
| hours (input is not productivity) and keep piling on work,
| responsibilities and unrealistic deadlines where workers feel
| forced to put in as much as 60 hours. Which is again input,
| not output.
|
| Where I work, we work output-based. We work in sprints where
| the amount of work that can be done in a sprint is fixed,
| expressed as velocity. This capacity is a hard constraint and
| immutable (unless you hire additional people).
|
| The business is free to spent that velocity as they please,
| but they have no say over velocity itself. They also have no
| say over input (hours) or estimates (they're not qualified to
| do so).
|
| These hard constraints are a thing of beauty, it forces
| serious prioritization. Call me old and cynical, but in my 25
| years in IT, I'd say at least 80% of what gets build is
| bullshit. Untested brain farts from higher-ups that have no
| tangible benefit to any customer or user. Hence I fail to be
| impressed by almost any "priority" or "deadline", exceptions
| aside.
| jelling wrote:
| The only thing I support more than WFH is my competitors
| working 20% less.
|
| If they're doing this to compete for talent, go ahead by all
| means. I suspect they need to do something like this also
| because they're a UK SaaS company (so lower wages to start)
| serving the low-end of the non-profit market (price sensitive
| buyers). And they don't have the enterprise features to
| compete with Salesforce and CRM for the high-end segment.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The goal is to keep expanding these trials until labor law
| ratchets the work week down for everyone to 4 days. It will
| take time, but it will happen.
|
| If you as a freelancer want to work five days a week (or
| more), by all means, spend your life in such a manner. The
| rest of us work to live, not live to work.
| ako wrote:
| Laws mostly do not apply across borders, and many of your
| competitors are in other countries. How do you think you
| can compete if your competitor's employees work 25% more?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You disadvantage foreign firms with cross border
| financial/policy mechanisms, in the same way you
| encourage better labor and environmental practices for
| work outsourced abroad. This is a well worn policy path.
|
| A race to the bottom can avoided with laws and
| regulation.
| fleddr wrote:
| Sad that you call your colleagues "competitors". I guess
| you also missed the main point of the initiative, which is
| to have the same productivity in one day less. So your
| extra day of work effectively does nothing to the bottom
| line.
|
| In case it does, all power to you. I think it's fair game
| that when people work more, they earn more. Nothing wrong
| with that.
| heretogetout wrote:
| > Let's say you do need to attend a meeting. It's a 1 hour
| meeting. You're needed in the meeting. Go in and say you only
| have 20 mins.
|
| Every time I've tried this or seen it tried the meeting gets
| rescheduled and everyone's time is wasted. I wish it worked
| this way.
| hinkley wrote:
| There are no technological tricks and very few sociological
| tricks that can cause an immature person to act like an
| adult.
|
| And the older I get, the more I realize that thinking that
| such a thing exists is its own kind of immaturity.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Yesterday I had a 1 hour meeting where 3 of the 7
| participants needed to attend another meeting after 30
| minutes. We reorganized the agenda to hit the issues that
| they were especially concerned about while they were
| available, and then did the other things in the next 20
| minutes, finishing a little early.
|
| It's not impossible, it just requires a culture of
| consideration, communication, and prioritization.
| torvald wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
| heretogetout wrote:
| I wonder if that's the key -- maybe it's acceptable to
| shorten one meeting on your behalf (or at least your
| participation in that meeting) if the reason you'll miss
| this meeting is that you'll be in a different meeting. As
| long as you're in some time-wasting activity, they're
| satisfied.
|
| I say _mostly_ tongue in cheek...
| fleddr wrote:
| That's funny if it wasn't true.
|
| "I have to get out of the meeting as I need to work on a
| task."
|
| A task? Ok, so you can stay?
|
| It fits right into "wow, jealous of your agenda"...when
| it has some blank spots. The spots you actually do work,
| but somehow are regarded as slack.
| hinkley wrote:
| "He's out of line, but he's right."
| pizzachan wrote:
| It also heavily favors the loud and self important who will
| force their way to the front and dominate the conversation.
| In an hour long meeting there is much more opportunity to
| give everyone several minutes to speak and have group
| discussion and deliberation. Now if your meeting can actually
| get done in 20 minutes, it probably should have been a phone
| call.
| jimbokun wrote:
| With so many people working remotely, aren't all meetings
| basically phone calls now?
| ghaff wrote:
| Well, most meetings _are_ phone calls. Over time, I 've
| seen more and more things default to 30 minutes whether
| meetings, presentations, or whatever. That's not to say
| that an hour isn't the right length for certain things, but
| it's reasonable to default to 30 minutes unless people
| think more time is needed.
| hinkley wrote:
| Practically the only think I like about Scrum is that
| there's a person who is slightly at arm's length to referee
| these sorts of things. But it's a sort of broken clock
| scenario.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| I wonder what percentage of meetings occur because someone in
| leadership is disorganized and / or unable to properly
| communicate with staff while they're performing their jobs on
| a daily basis.
|
| Gonna say that, excluding standup, this has to be at least
| 50%.
| pc86 wrote:
| I've heard this class of meetings described as "organizing
| your thoughts with witnesses" and that's a brilliant
| explanation in my experience.
| andruby wrote:
| That's a brilliant description. And might not always be a
| bad thing.
| orzig wrote:
| If you were explaining the world to an alien, it would be hard to
| justify the lack of diversity in working arrangements. I applaud
| any such non standard option in the labor market - may your
| office be full of good fits!
| basisword wrote:
| People in a company often collaborate so having them work at
| the same place/time is useful. Companies often collaborate or
| use each others services so having all companies and all people
| work at the time is useful. Parents need their kids taken care
| of while they work, so school hours mirror (to an extent)
| working hours and vice versa. All very explainable I think.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "People in a company often collaborate so having them work at
| the same place/time is useful."
|
| the funny thing is that the same people who talk about
| collaboration at the office are often the decision makers
| that set up open offices where everybody wears headphones and
| nobody ever talks to each other.
| basisword wrote:
| I meant more historically why things are this way. Open
| offices/cubicles have been around longer than people have
| been wearing headphones in the office. I certainly don't
| agree with it for modern tech work.
| iso1631 wrote:
| You sleep a full third of your rotation. You rest and relax
| while you are awake. Alpha quadrant has far too much down time.
| jamesmishra wrote:
| I don't know. The aliens could be some type of insect with
| entire classes of workers that can never stop working.
|
| Maybe they think about how to justify their working
| arrangements to us humans.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| "It's only for the next 24 hours and then you're dead"
| viraptor wrote:
| I'm not saying it's right or the most effective option, but I
| believe it would be trivial to justify: it's easier to organise
| something in a group if everyone's available at the same time.
| I'm the only person in the team working 4 day week and even
| that was a bit awkward in planning. (still totally worth it)
| musingsole wrote:
| > it's easier to organise something in a group if everyone's
| available at the same time
|
| I think most workgroups have effectively been paying
| extremely high overhead in social costs just so the
| organization could have the _option_ to organize easily. The
| problem then is that meetings are called flippantly. If it 's
| hard to get everyone in a room, you'll do a better job
| capitalizing on when it happens.
|
| The downside is there really are a large array of tasks that
| a group can tackle better than an individual, but I've never
| seen a corporate group meaningfully recognize or organize for
| those tasks. Far more often, I get pulled into meetings
| because some specific individual or another is lacking in
| autonomy and expertise.
| laserlight wrote:
| > I get pulled into meetings because some specific
| individual or another is lacking in autonomy and expertise
|
| These people are unconsciously aware that they are
| incompetent. They pull people into meetings in order to
| have a sense of having done work, at the cost of total
| productivity.
| seydor wrote:
| birds migrate, humans travel to work, self-organization and
| herd behavior are very prevalent in nature
| Gigachad wrote:
| I think it would be pretty easy to explain how everyone
| converged on the same system. If you continually optimise for
| the best arrangement, everyone is going to end up on pretty
| much the same thing.
| waylandsmithers wrote:
| I recently watched the movie 9 To 5 where Jane Fonda, Lily
| Tomlin, and Dolly Parton rebel against their boss at work, and
| ultimately fix the workplace by allowing people to job-share,
| where sets of two people each work half a day, and by opening a
| day care center on their floor. This movie came out in 1980.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| I feel many people in tech and other office jobs have implicitly
| worked 4 day workweeks for years. During an average workday, how
| much time do you spend doing personal things at your desk
| (texting friends, reading non work-related online articles,
| etc.)? I bet that time aggregated across Monday to Friday adds up
| to at least a full 8 hour day.
| dangets wrote:
| The larger question is whether one would stop doing those
| personal things during a 4 day work week.
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