[HN Gopher] How a four-day workweek works, from the companies pu...
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How a four-day workweek works, from the companies pulling it off
Author : lxm
Score : 214 points
Date : 2023-09-29 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| If I was asked to test a four-day work week, I would work harder
| and more efficient than I usually would to make a four-day work
| week look like a better option, even if it wasn't.
| billy99k wrote:
| If you want to work less and get paid more, there are better
| alternatives:
|
| 1) start a business 2) become a contractor/consultant. You can
| charge much more than a regular job and cut hours to get paid the
| same amount as you did before. I've been a consultant for 10
| years and almost never work 40 hours. If I do, it's on my side-
| business and it's by choice.
|
| The problem with these 4-day work weeks is that you are imposing
| your lifestyle changes on potential employers by expecting to get
| paid more for working less. It's a losing battle and will most-
| likely only be temporary, like remote work (I've been remote for
| 10+ years and it's written into my contracts).
| mkaic wrote:
| I am a firm believer that I would get _more_ work done with a
| 4-day workweek than I currently do with my 5-day workweek. I
| already spend an embarrassing amount of time slacking off daily,
| it 's not like I'm pressed for time to get stuff done in the
| office. I could easily meet my weekly objectives in 32 hours
| rather than 40, and having 3-day weekends every weekend I think
| would be incredible for my mental health and mood. And when I'm
| in a better mood, I get more work done!
|
| One thing I feel like a lot of people don't realize is just how
| big a difference it is to go from a 5-day week to a 4-day week.
| Sure, it's "just one day" but when you think about the _ratio_
| between time-on and time-off, the shift becomes a lot more
| dramatic. 5-on, 2-off means you spend over twice as many days
| working as not working. 4-on, 3-off means you spend a nearly
| equal number of days on each. It 's _just one day_ of difference,
| but it _feels_ like a major, major shift.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Just watched this interesting video comparing how much we work
| today to medieval times.
|
| https://youtu.be/hvk_XylEmLo?si=uOTc3ndf87enwrZK
|
| TL;DR we work a LOT more hours now than substance farmers did.
| They worked 4-6 hours a day and only worked about half of the
| days out of the year.
| linsomniac wrote:
| I think you mean sustenance... But maybe not. :-)
| hyggetrold wrote:
| Subsistence farmers, most likely.
| timmg wrote:
| > I already spend an embarrassing amount of time slacking off
| daily, it's not like I'm pressed for time to get stuff done in
| the office.
|
| Just because that is true for you doesn't mean it is true in
| general. Like, imagine a surgeon -- would he/she spend 8 hours
| a week slacking? Or a radiologoist -- can he/she read the same
| number of slides in 32 than 40? Or a barrista at starbucks?
|
| Also, if you worked 32 hours, would you still slack off? Is
| there a reason to expect that your slack/work ratio would
| change? You claim you'd be "in a better mood" -- but as humans
| we tend to adjust to the circumstances we are in. So I'm not
| sure that would be the case long term.
| [deleted]
| epylar wrote:
| mkaic isn't saying definitely they would be in a better mood,
| just that they -think- 3-day weekends would be good for their
| mental health and mood.
| bluefishinit wrote:
| "Slacking off" doesn't enter into the equation. Is your
| output worth more to the company than it costs to pay you to
| produce it? If yes, then great there is no problem to be
| solved.
| abujazar wrote:
| It does enter the equation, because idle time <<working>>
| or slacking off at work could be better spent pursuing
| other interests that improve quality of life and most
| likely increase productivity over time.
| bluefishinit wrote:
| I don't think this time should be labeled as "slacking
| off". It's just not working and there's nothing wrong
| with that if you've already met your obligations.
| TylerE wrote:
| One way to think of it is that you're not always being paid
| to be doing something specific, but rather to be available
| on short (e.g. 15 minutes or less) notice.
| Draiken wrote:
| Sure, some roles require that, but most definitely not
| the majority.
|
| In development at least, most of the times I hear this,
| the "availability" is only needed for random unplanned
| meetings from useless managers that can't actually plan
| or work asynchronously.
|
| The organization as a whole or individual managers can't
| do their jobs well and they make the people that actually
| get shit done pay for it by "standing by" for no good
| reason.
|
| Ironically, they also completely ruin productivity with
| these interruptions.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > In development at least, most of the times I hear this,
| the "availability" is only needed for random unplanned
| meetings from useless managers that can't actually plan
| or work asynchronously.
|
| Really? Because it's pretty routine for me to get pinged
| on IRC/slack/whatever by another engineer who's looking
| for help with something. Obviously I set the expectation
| that I'm not going to be able to instantly reply to every
| ping so some things are going to have to be async, but
| there's definitely a lot more than just managers that
| could ping me.
| Draiken wrote:
| Are those pings that require immediate attention? In my
| experience, no.
|
| The vast majority of time in my career, if you have a
| minimum amount of decent planning, you won't get blocked
| because you can't talk to another person immediately. And
| on healthy organizations, even if you do get blocked, you
| can simply work on something else while that particular
| task is blocked.
|
| If you really scrutinize all these availability claims,
| they pretty much all come down to lack of planning.
|
| Planning for blockers, planning for communication gaps,
| planning for maximizing asynchronous work, planning for
| decisions that require specific people, etc.
|
| So many people are horrified by the word "blocked" when
| it's most times an artificial block created by their own
| systems. If I can't move forward on something, I'll start
| on something else and come back to the other one later.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| This. If you have a high-functioning team with good async
| culture/habits, in my experience "blockers" are not a big
| deal. I work closely with 5 other people and we are in 6
| different time zones and I can honestly say that we are
| more productive than teams I have worked with in a
| traditional office setting. Sure, I cannot just walk over
| to a teammate's desk and ask a question, but I also don't
| have anyone walking over to my desk to interrupt me with
| a question.
|
| We are all intentional about _over communicating_ what we
| are working on and where we will need support from from
| each other. Everything else pretty much just flows
| naturally from that. There are (rare) times were I cannot
| progress on something that day because I need feedback
| from someone who will not be online for 10 more hours,
| but it is just a built-in assumption that this will
| happen and I always have other work queued up that I can
| do if I get stuck....
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| It's not about who can ping you. It's about the
| expectation of urgency behind that ping. A "ping" from a
| manager calling an unexpected meeting demands a lot more
| attention than a ping from a colleague looking for help
| most of the time.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Because it's pretty routine for me to get pinged on
| IRC/slack/whatever by another engineer who's looking for
| help with something.
|
| That's why when we were all colocated in one building, I
| was logged out. I made it clear they were welcome to drop
| by my cube whenever they wanted, but I would not be
| available by IM. It cut the interrupts by half, _easily_.
| People use you as a crutch. When you raise the cost even
| _minimally_ , they are suddenly willing to solve their
| own problems.
|
| That's the one aspect that COVID destroyed. Now I have to
| be online as people can't just walk to my cube.
| owenmarshall wrote:
| What I have started to do is to block an hour every other
| day, and when someone sends me a Slack message that feels
| like I am just their crutch, I snooze it until that
| scheduled block of time. It works like a charm. I still
| keep an eye on the urgent questions that I have to answer
| quickly, and many questions have evaporated by the time I
| come back to them.
| pelasaco wrote:
| While the situation might be different in the US, I can
| tell you that in Europe, particularly in Germany, there
| seems to be a changing work ethic in the software
| development field. Our company, based in the south of
| Germany, has increasingly been hiring talent from Brazil
| and India over the past year. We're not just bringing them
| in for developer roles, but also for management positions.
| It's not about having them work remotely to save costs;
| we're actively sponsoring their visas and handling their
| relocation. Here in Germany, it feels like some individuals
| prefer to work as little as possible, maximize their
| earnings, and are resistant to fixed deadlines or essential
| tasks and meetings. This trend is concerning, and I'm
| genuinely worried about what the future holds for our
| industry here.
| bluefishinit wrote:
| > _Germany, it feels like some individuals prefer to work
| as little as possible, maximize their earnings, and are
| resistant to fixed deadlines or essential tasks and
| meetings. This trend is concerning, and I 'm genuinely
| worried about what the future holds for our industry
| here._
|
| You should rest easy because all of those things lead to
| more relaxed and happy employees which leads to less
| turnover, better output and higher quality software.
| Software development is a creative field and companies
| that treat it at as such are rewarded.
| pelasaco wrote:
| > You should rest easy because all of those things lead
| to more relaxed and happy employees which leads to less
| turnover, better output and higher quality software.
| Software development is a creative field and companies
| that treat it at as such are rewarded.
|
| That's populism. Software development can be some moments
| very creative and fun, but it is mostly a hard work.
| Specially as full stack dev/devops, doing scrum, you have
| to do everything.. filling bug, tracking problems,
| looking at telemetry, deploying, discuss new features,
| improving pipeline..
| aetherson wrote:
| There's an opportunity cost question. If your output is
| worth more to the company than your costs, but it would be
| easy for them to hire someone at the same cost who has more
| output, then you're at risk.
| munk-a wrote:
| People are not replaceable parts. HR would absolutely
| love it if all developer 3s were the same - and it should
| be the case that one developer 3 is more like another
| developer 3 than a developer 2 - but people are different
| and have their own quirks and strengths.
|
| And, of course, you're ignoring training costs which are
| usually a big factor in companies that aren't
| incompetent. That Senior Dev that's 15% above marketing
| asking rate but who knows your system inside and out...
| do you really want to spend six years training a
| (potentially highly proficient) newbies on all your
| systems and the subtle intricacies. And how long will it
| be until you, the manager, trust that new Senior Dev like
| you did the old? How many fires will you both need to
| walk through until you see an availability alert and just
| trust the Senior Dev either is dealing with it or would
| be ringing your phone if they need extra resources?
|
| It can take quite a while to get a new employee (again,
| even a highly proficient one) to that place where in a
| meet your product team can be going over a proposal and
| your Senior Dev raises there hand and proceeds to calmly
| explain the incompatibility with the current system and
| how much it will cost to overcome those incompatibilities
| - and if they remain silent then you know they've done
| those calculations and consider it in hand.
|
| Hiring a replacement is an extremely complicated
| calculations that most companies just punt on - for good
| reason.
| bluefishinit wrote:
| > _but it would be easy for them to hire someone at the
| same cost who has more output_
|
| History has shown that it's not easy at all to replace
| someone. It's difficult to find good people and convince
| them to join you and it can take a _long_ time. If you
| can write code, you should always have the upper hand on
| your employer especially if your co-workers also realize
| that.
| flardartbhhgg wrote:
| Do you have any idea how much break time surgeons take? Tons
| of them work 3day weeks because it's more efficient. The rest
| of their time is either at home or "in clinic" doing
| busywork.
|
| https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/3-day-work-week-
| wit...
|
| I suspect you've pulled "surgeon" from you-know-where on
| account of it being a high-status, high-value role. But don't
| bring that baggage into the conversation.
| dmoy wrote:
| Also my radiologist neighbor works 3 day workweeks in 12
| hour shifts I think. Or used to. I forget the details. So
| that example from GP doesn't make sense to me either.
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| 3x12 doesn't seem too bad to me. You are zonked after but
| 4 days off is pretty sweet.
| freedomben wrote:
| I think you were a little harsher than necessary, but this
| is a good point. Surgeons aren't doing surgery 40 hours a
| week. They'd be making tons of mistakes if they did that
| and they'd be getting burned out. The last surgery I had
| the doc only did ops on Tuesdays and Fridays.
|
| In many ways it's a good analogy to writing code 40 hours a
| week. It takes high concentration and the quality of output
| drops heavily when you're tired or need a break or rest.
| paint wrote:
| [dead]
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Just because that is true for you doesn't mean it is true
| in general. Like, imagine a surgeon -- would he/she spend 8
| hours a week slacking?
|
| Don't many surgeons only work a handful of weeks per year?
|
| They're essentially already on a much better model.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Not to my knowledge. Source: I know a neuro and ortho.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Just because that is true for you doesn't mean it is true
| in general. Like, imagine a surgeon -- would he/she spend 8
| hours a week slacking? Or a radiologoist -- can he/she read
| the same number of slides in 32 than 40? Or a barrista at
| starbucks?
|
| My primary care doc has an assistant whose only job is to
| follow her around and input data into the electronic medical
| records system.
|
| There are countless blog posts from doctors complaining that
| a 1/3rd of their time is spent on redundant paperwork.
|
| For a related humorous take on this
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFGLDcTKFIY
| manicennui wrote:
| If you've spent any time in the corporate world, I think you
| know that the majority of people slack off for part of the
| day. The medical profession has its own set of time problems
| that I don't think should be conflated with the time problems
| in the corporate world.
|
| Your second point is definitely valid. Changing habits is
| really hard, and some of us are able to get by while spending
| very little time doing work because we work so much more
| quickly than the average drone.
| eddmakesio wrote:
| My best friend is a radiologist and I guarantee he's not
| working 32 out of his 40 reading slides - there could
| definitely be a way to organise them to have 32 maximum hours
| with the same output
| timmg wrote:
| FWIW, my brother-in-law is too. I and _do_ guarantee that
| he is reading slides every working hour.
| euroderf wrote:
| If you're off from 5pm thursday to 9am monday, that's 88 hours,
| which is 52 percent of a 168-hour week. Goood.
| pelasaco wrote:
| [flagged]
| epylar wrote:
| There's probably an optimum number of days to work and the
| suggestion here isn't that lower is always better, just that
| 5 is above the optimum amount.
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| The point isn't that you could work harder now with 5 days
| and do more; it's that you could be just as productive in 4
| days as you currently are, which presumably is acceptable.
|
| The big question is, will people continue to slack off during
| work hours and lose productivity? I do spend a lot of time in
| between tasks decompressing from one and gearing up for the
| next. I'm not sure how that would translate if I just tried
| to collect all that "slack" time up into a separate day.
|
| At the beginning of the Covid shutdowns, my company did go to
| a 4-day work week. It was great (although our pay was
| adjusted). I don't think our productivity suffered, but it's
| kind of hard to estimate because there were a lot of other
| unusual variables, like the supply chain issues and variable
| work schedules of people in other companies.
| pelasaco wrote:
| > The point isn't that you could work harder now with 5
| days and do more; it's that you could be just as productive
| in 4 days as you currently are, which presumably is
| acceptable.
|
| But that is just true if you are underperforming right now,
| or are too Conformable in a shitty job. There is always
| some doc too improve, some stack to update, a new issue to
| be fixed, a meeting that could be better prepared, a
| backlog to be improved.. People are just "if nobody says me
| what to do, then I can just slack off"
|
| > The big question is, will people continue to slack off
| during work hours and lose productivity?
|
| You will. No skin in the game, deliver or not deliver,
| there is mostly no consequence, boring work, company needs
| you.. I did the same. I was working 36 hours/week (friday
| free) until I realized, that there was a lot of things to
| do and to be done, but the team was just "naah, personal
| life FIRST".
| mettamage wrote:
| It's like I could've written this comment. I'm working on 4
| days per week, and I agree with everything you just said. I've
| worked on both 5 and 4 days per week. The issue in my case with
| 5 is: I get insomnia issues for a multitude of reasons. I also
| have them with 4 days per week, but it's easier to build in
| fallbacks and so on. My 3rd free day is on the Wednesday for
| this reason.
| maxRN wrote:
| Yup, another way to think about it is that it's a difference of
| 16h, not 8h. You work 8h less and gain 8h of free time.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Or you work 8h less and gain 24 of "contiguous hours that you
| control" per week.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Yes, the disproportionately huge increase in contiguous
| time off is the big win in my book.
| coding123 wrote:
| We could just work Monday and Tuesday with a 40 hour
| marathon each week fueled by coffee, donuts and an
| occasional pizza.
| [deleted]
| elAhmo wrote:
| Well... :D You can't add the gained time twice. It is like
| saying, instead of spending 20 USD on coffee, you spend 15
| USD. You didn't gain 10 bucks, you are still left with only
| five more than you would have otherwise.
| hervature wrote:
| Leisure hours in a 5-day work week: 72 (8 hours per day and
| 16 on weekends)
|
| Work hours in a 5-day work week: 40
|
| Difference: 32 hours
|
| Leisure hours in a 4-day work week: 80
|
| Work hours in a 4-day work week: 32
|
| Difference: 48 hours
| DollyPartition wrote:
| [dead]
| elAhmo wrote:
| That's the diffence. You had 72 hours before, now you
| have 80 hours of leisure time. It's 8 hours more of
| leisure time.
| hervature wrote:
| GP - "another way to think about it is that it's a
| difference of 16h"
|
| You - "That's the diffence."
| elAhmo wrote:
| In my reply I said the effective gain is 8 hours.
|
| No matter what kind of math you do, working one day less
| doesn't give you two extra days off.
| rags2riches wrote:
| I'm pretty certain a bus driver couldn't do eight hours worth
| of driving in six hours.
| DanHulton wrote:
| No, but two bus drivers could.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> I could easily meet my weekly objectives in 32 hours rather
| than 40...
|
| Sounds like someone needs some more tasks for their to do list.
| I have to abandon about half of the tasks I am meant to do, for
| lack of time. I can send you some of them to fill that eight
| hours.
|
| Who here actually works a 40-hour week? HN isn't a bunch of
| union factory workers punching timecards each day. I'd bet 60
| is more common than 40.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| For your sake, I hope you're being paid with an assumption of
| a 60-hour week.
| pelasaco wrote:
| you will be downvoted for state the obvious..
| lolinder wrote:
| 60 being more common than 40 is not obvious (it's not even
| true), and if it _were_ it should not be treated as okay.
| The downvotes are because OP is trying to normalize
| workaholism.
| pelasaco wrote:
| He might have had a different experience than you. I too
| served in uniform, often working (and earning) for more
| than 40 hours a week. Later, when I managed a team in a
| different country, the cultural norm there was to work
| longer hours as well. It's worth noting that while a
| 40-hour workweek might be standard in some places, others
| might see norms of 44, 50 hours, or even more. Even in
| Europe, roles like production management or working in a
| SOC often entail more than 40 hours a week.
| [deleted]
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Sounds like someone needs some more tasks for their to do
| list._
|
| Sure, if there is a corresponding pay increase for those
| tasks.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| 60 hours? What the _fuck_?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| 5x12 is 60. Many people in tech regularly do 12-hour days.
| lolinder wrote:
| Some people in certain parts of tech. In the Stack
| Overflow Developer Survey, the average number of hours
| worked per week in the US was 42 [0]. 2020 may have been
| a weird year, but not weird enough to make 60 normal.
|
| I would consider whether your employer is trying to
| normalize 60 hours to exploit you, rather than it
| actually reflecting reality.
|
| [0] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#work-
| hours-wo...
| profunctor wrote:
| I have never worked with anyone doing 12 hours a day 5
| days a week as usual. Then again I'm in Europe .
| ativzzz wrote:
| I wonder if this has to do with your
|
| > Old Life: Attorney
|
| All the lawyers I know are basically married to their jobs. I
| think workaholism is just part of law culture
| coding123 wrote:
| 10 years later...
|
| mkaic
|
| I am a firm believer that I would get more work done with a
| 3-day workweek than I currently do with my 4-day workweek. I
| already spend an embarrassing amount of time slacking off
| daily, it's not like I'm pressed for time to get stuff done in
| the office. I could easily meet my weekly objectives in 24
| hours rather than 32, and having 4-day weekends every weekend I
| think would be incredible for my mental health and mood. And
| when I'm in a better mood, I get more work done!
|
| One thing I feel like a lot of people don't realize is just how
| big a difference it is to go from a 4-day week to a 3-day week.
| Sure, it's "just one day" but when you think about the ratio
| between time-on and time-off, the shift becomes a lot more
| dramatic. 4-on, 3-off means you spend over twice as many days
| working as not working. 3-on, 4-off means you spend a nearly
| equal number of days on each. It's just one day of difference,
| but it feels like a major, major shift.
| jonahrd wrote:
| You copied and pasted, and edited 5->4 and 4->3 in an attempt
| to make a point about a slippery slope.
|
| But you didn't edit this sentence:
|
| > 4-on, 3-off means you spend over twice as many days working
| as not working.
|
| Which now doesn't make sense. Proving that it's _not_ as
| simple as a slippery slope.
| saulpw wrote:
| Yes. I was quite productive and happy at 4 days/week, and
| felt a strong part of the team that was still working 5
| days/week. But when I tried a more "part-time" schedule of
| 3 days/week, I was less satisfied and less productive and
| felt less a part of the team. 4 days/week is still full-
| time, 3 days/week is part-time.
| standardUser wrote:
| Continual advances in technology can and should result in
| people working less for the same productive output.
| thegrim33 wrote:
| The simple fact that more or less every company in the entire
| world does not do 4 day work weeks, when apparently all they
| have to do is switch their workers to a 4 day work week in
| order to magically gain more productive workers, as you claim,
| means either 1) every person running every company in the world
| is stupid and you're smarter than them about worker
| productivity, or 2) there's more downsides that make a 4 day
| work week not worth it, such as in reality only a small
| fraction of workers actually being more productive
| harshalizee wrote:
| Except there's no rationale to the 5-day work week either.
| Not too log ago, the proletariat class worked 7 days, then 6
| due to religious coercion, then 5 due to unions. The owner
| class would have no problem asking labor to work 7 days a
| week again if it weren't for pesky labor laws.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| I don't work on Fridays, I'm never going back.
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| [flagged]
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| why, if you are paying him its means he is making more money
| than you spending on him, if you aren't willing to pay the
| premium for the effort why he need to make the sacrifice of
| more work for free.
| biesnecker wrote:
| Does your employer pay you for hours or output? I'm a
| salaried employee, I get paid for output, not the time it
| takes to produce.
|
| I think if anything you're stealing from yourself, robbing
| yourself of the opportunity to take on more responsibility,
| grow faster, etc.
| [deleted]
| Spivak wrote:
| > sure you will have all sorts of mental justifications for
| why that's reasonable
|
| Because I'm salaried and paid for my work not my time. No
| other justification is needed.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _If you don't have enough work, then ask for more._
|
| > _You are stealing from your employer._
|
| Lol, no. I get paid $X to do Y work. I'm not about to do free
| labor for Z when I complete Y. If you want Z done, I need to
| be paid for it.
| fasttriggerfish wrote:
| No, sorry but that's a very dumb way to think about it. If
| someone can get something done in half the time it takes
| someone else, and is slacking off the rest of the time, is he
| stealing from the company ? Obviously not. And would his
| total output be significantly higher if he tried to work
| continuously ? Not necessarily. Different people have
| different productivity patterns. The point is that trying to
| impose a rhythm or longer hours onto someone does not
| necessarily improve their output, no matter how much you try
| to force them.
| kibwen wrote:
| I find the casual way people flagellate others for having a
| healthy work/life balance to be concerning.
|
| If your boss is happy with your output, then it doesn't
| matter how many hours you work to make that happen.
|
| You are paid to produce a result, not to warm a seat for 40
| hours a week. I'm sure you will have all sorts of mental
| justifications for why that's unreasonable or why others
| should be working themselves to death for nobody's benefit
| but their boss's, but that's how it is.
| woudsma wrote:
| I feel the same. If I work 5 days I'd feel like I'm wasting so
| much time, when realistically I can do the same amount of work
| in 4 days. I'm working as a developer so it's also about
| retaining my attention span. I just can't do it for 5 days
| straight anymore.
|
| My perfect 4-day workweek is having the Wednesday off so I have
| a 'mini-weekend' in my week. I only ever have to work 1 more
| day until I have some time to clear my head, make some music,
| etc. It feels like a more healthy work/life balance. And I feel
| sharper after a day off.
| radiator wrote:
| Yes. I have tried both Friday off and Wednesday off and the
| latter is better. Fridays at work are more relaxed anyway, so
| there is less value in skipping them.
| geodel wrote:
| Same for me. With Mon-Tues work, traffic, meetings, kids'
| drop off and pickup gets me drained. If there were
| wednesday break it'd be great. Mon-Tues hustle, a mid week
| break and then wrap up things on Thu-Fri.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| My team currently does Monday through Thursday, although
| we've done Tuesday through Friday before too. M-Th has
| aligned much better with other teams in the company. It was
| never great when someone discovered something late of Friday
| or over the weekend and our team was the only one there not
| on Monday to help address it.
|
| That said, I wish we could go to MT and ThF schedule. Only
| ever have 2 days in a row with out a break would seem pretty
| magical to me. I'd either had yesterday off, or tomorrow -
| always. Fridays are such a slower day though that I feel like
| I miss out on less than I would on Wednesdays.
| xp84 wrote:
| Same on both counts. MT_TF would be cool, but MTWT has big
| 'economies of scale' benefits and also reduces unexpected
| "asynchronous" PTO that we get every time someone wants to
| take a long weekend. Essentially, almost all of our
| "working days" should then be working days when we're all
| here.
|
| Ideally though the 4-day program shouldn't be a thing only
| for specific teams because the "that team isn't here" side-
| eye quickly promotes resentment of the "lobsters pulling
| other lobsters back into the pot" variety.
|
| Teams that need coverage during the full work-week (such as
| B2B support) should normalize having two schedules which
| overlap, just as B2C companies have weekend shifts (they
| don't just force people to work 7 days to achieve this).
| saulpw wrote:
| This was true for me, I was more productive at 4-days/week,
| Mon-Thu. I tried having Wed off for the reason you described,
| but it was hard to get into the flow, both at work and in my
| home life. Turns out 4 days in a row for work and 3 days in a
| row for home was actually better for both work productivity
| and personal satisfaction.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| I would love to have Wed/Fri as no meeting days, so I could
| choose which one to take off depending on how I'm feeling,
| what the current work streams look like, and personal
| plans.
|
| A three day weekend is great for a trip. Hump day off is
| great for a break. Either could be good for an extra day of
| big exercise/recovery or deep cleaning my house.
|
| And then if working on either day, I get a full day of
| heads-down time.
| manicennui wrote:
| Being fully remote gives me 6-8 hours back each week because I
| don't have to commute. It has been huge for my mental health,
| mostly because I'm able to get more sleep.
| asciimov wrote:
| 10-12 hours back a week here. Life is so much better.
| paint wrote:
| [dead]
| zingababba wrote:
| Same, it has always blown my mind how I'm consistently one of
| the most productive members on any team I've been on yet I know
| how much time I spend just idling. It's the spurts of activity
| where I get my work done and time off 100% correlates with the
| intensity and length of those spurts/flow states.
| missedthecue wrote:
| If you spend only ~75% of your time working (i.e. you can
| finish your work in 32 hours instead of 40), does this imply
| that in the event your company switched to a 4 day workweek you
| would be busy 100% of the time?
|
| It seems more likely that people would retain a similar ratio
| of slacking to working.
|
| As an aside, how does "I finish my work in 32 hours" even work?
| What does that mean? Are most developers out there getting
| paint-by-numbers printouts they need to color in and then
| they're all done for the week? Almost all of my roles in a
| professional capacity have required self-starting, and the
| project life cycles are much longer than a day/week such that
| there is literally always work to do.
|
| If you're building a house and you're done nailing in shingles
| by noon you don't go home and come back tomorrow, you go put up
| sheetrock or install bathroom tiles. The "I finish my work in a
| few hours" that I see on HN and Twitter must be extremely
| poorly managed teams or people that are leaving a lot of work
| on the rest of their teammates.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| A lot of work, maybe more than any creative work, requires
| long breaks for the best output to be created. When you're
| well rested, the work often comes easily and you're hungry
| from it. When you're tired, it's a slog to get going and
| you'll procrastinate your time away. The next day is even
| worse.
|
| I've managed work in software, marketing, robotics and
| construction. In every field I have had to send people home
| to rest who were doing more harm than good with their tired
| decision-making. Doing the work that was set for the day and
| going home to rest is a great productivity and morale boost,
| in my opinion.
|
| Individual work capacity varies, but in my experience most
| people overestimate theirs by a lot.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| The argument is that if people work fewer hours per week,
| then they will spend less time slacking off. And the numbers
| so far show that to be true.
| b1gnasty wrote:
| I used to work manual labour in the reforestation industry and
| there were two main schedules we would work: 4-and-1s
| (criminal) and 3-and-1s (manageable). That change in ratio
| really adds up.
|
| Sadly, management mostly worked us 4-and-1s because, despite
| the fact that each day we were less productive, over 3 months
| more trees would get planted in less time.
|
| 4-and-1s of gruelling manual labour inevitably leads to burn
| out. It did every season without fail, and we all expected it.
| Burnout was a built-in condition. The key here is that labour
| tolerated it only because the work was _seasonal_. There was
| always an end in sight. And most folks spent the off-season on
| a beach somewhere it was cheap enough to live off the earnings,
| surfing and eating tacos all day (or the equivalent activity).
|
| The salaryperson should not accept burn out as a built-in; we
| are labourers for life and we need to learn how to find dignity
| in such a reality. When I first transitioned to a salaried
| worker, I brought the burn out mentality to my work and had a
| lot of pride in that. And though full of bride, the burnt out
| husk that I as had little dignity.
|
| Ratios that allow for more life and less labour is that
| dignity.
| djhope99 wrote:
| Everybody is different. We recently had 2 Fridays off a month and
| it just dropped back to 1 Friday off a month. I feel more
| productive, actually, contrary to what most people are saying.
| Fridays are mostly clear of meetings so I can actually focus more
| unlike other days of the week.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| If all your meetings take 20 hours per week and you're left
| with no time to do deep work, no wonder you feel more
| productive with an extra 100% focused day.
|
| Kind of like squeezing all your clothing from two closets into
| one won't make your room feel less cramped unless you cut half
| your clothing as well. Most people could do without that extra
| half and be better for it.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| To me it's the failure of our governments the fact that we're
| still discussing about a 32-hours work week, the processes have
| been evolving and have been optimised for the past couple of
| centuries, the value produced has seen an increased of a order of
| magnitude, but the benefits of it all has been squeezed from the
| working class into the pocket of a few individuals, I've broken
| my balls having to justify why we need shorter weeks, we could
| work 2 days and produce as much as it was produced 50 years ago,
| why do I have to have a life of misery always working, to not be
| able to afford even a house by myself, while these motherfuckers
| have everything and then tell me to work more, fucking
| capitalism, it's all useless existence and greed
|
| I feel it insulting that we need justify keeping the level of
| productivity with a shorter working week, while the change in
| process and tooling that boosted productivity were never adopted
| to make the sake of the working class but for the benefit of the
| powerful, its time to make it a law
| Draiken wrote:
| Unfortunately that's 100% because of capitalism.
|
| We pay with our valuable time so they get more time to enjoy
| their yachts.
|
| The government can't really solve this anymore, because
| corporations control the politicians and public opinion through
| the media.
|
| The only real solution is, in my view, revolt. But the majority
| (like myself) are also way too comfortable to risk anything
| drastic, so the status quo will persist for the time being.
| smithcoin wrote:
| What's the difference with "them" enjoying their yachts and
| you being "way too comfortable"?
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| Two extra 0's on their yearly take home pay.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| > The only real solution is, in my view, revolt. But the
| majority (like myself) are also way too comfortable to risk
| anything drastic, so the status quo will persist for the time
| being.
|
| I tend to agree with this. My prediction is the capitalists
| will continue to extract more and more resources from the
| working class for the next 50-60 years until there is a
| breaking point. After some violence, society will swing back
| to prioritizing workers' rights, then regulations will be
| eroded slowly over another 100-200 years as people forget
| what it was like, and the cycle continues until the earth is
| no longer habitable.
| seneca wrote:
| Weird how that timeline for the inevitable communist revolt
| in the west has been a few decades out for 100 years.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| It's idiotic to call communist revolt just people wishing
| to have a better redistribution of wealth, I don't see
| why the opposite of going from a 1500x difference of pay
| from working class to something more balanced, has to be
| seen like proletarian dictatorship, I guess it's just the
| stupidity that affects modern society, I wish people with
| those thought would just be intelligent enough to
| understand how fucking retarded they are
|
| and you also have the nickname of a guy who enjoyed
| simple stuff, enjoyed taking care of his time,
| criticising those who would call the servants for
| dinners.. I guess it's just that modern society is about
| showing off without understanding a dick
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| I didn't say communist revolt. More like, any attention
| paid to worker quality of life at all.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| These people calling marxists or communists people just
| wishing for social democracy, how much would it take to
| let them open a book sometimes, they're a cemetery of
| human knowledge
| billy99k wrote:
| "We pay with our valuable time so they get more time to enjoy
| their yachts."
|
| The alternative is that a few people at the top get yachts
| and the rest of us are poor and have no chance at even being
| comfortable.
| standardUser wrote:
| I'd like a model where every other Friday is off for half the
| staff. A lot less complicated for companies because they can
| still operate 5 days a week. Also a lot less radical/daunting
| from their perspective. But all those extra 3-day weekends, some
| of which become 4-day weekends due to holidays, will create a lot
| of much-needed time and space in most working peoples lives.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| I'd rather five day workweeks but with shorter days, to be
| honest. I feel I have about 3 hours of peak mental acuity each
| day that I'd like to spend on my work. It seems like a better
| time-for-value trade for my employer.
|
| To be fair I work more remotely than not these. If I had to
| commute in more often I'd almost certainly prefer 4-day
| workweeks.
| RangerScience wrote:
| Interestingly -
|
| I went on ADD meds (Dexedrine, 10mg) ohh 6 months ago. I used
| to be like you and now I'm the other way around - it's easier
| to Just Keep Going.
|
| Note that I would totally support you getting "five sixes"
| (~30hours); I'm just finding it interesting that with the meds,
| for myself I'd now want "three tens" (or whatever).
|
| PS - It helps a lot that I freakin' love working in Ruby/Rails,
| so I kinda... _want_ to just keep going anyway.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| I could see that as being a quite straightforward effect from
| taking a drug that increases your ability to focus for
| prolonged periods at a time.
|
| I don't have ADD myself, however, and I find that even a
| stimulant as low grade as non-decaf coffee generally messes
| with my ability to stay focused. Different strokes, I guess.
| koromak wrote:
| Depends on the job I'm sure, but genuinely only have 3 good
| hours too. After 5-6, I may as well just not be working. I'm
| writing garbage code and I'm grumpy.
| IKantRead wrote:
| I like this better in theory, but my experience is that, given
| my current hours, work tends to very frequently spill over
| until later in the evening. If my day was supposed to end at 3
| or even noon I don't think it would make a practical impact on
| how late I worked.
|
| Work spilling over into extra days does happen during crunch
| times, but is much rarer. Though I likewise fear that 4 day
| work weeks would simply mean you end up working 8-8 everyday to
| get the same amount of stuff done.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Por que no los dos? For lots of jobs peak productivity is
| probably around 20-30 hours of work. Could easily be 5-6 hours,
| 4 days per week. Gives you time to warm up and cool down from
| your more intense work.
| imachine1980_ wrote:
| peek productivity not means peek output, i'm agree than the
| possibility for 30 or 20 hour work week should exist but i'm
| working 20 hours and even when less productive i will make
| more in 30 hours, i don't want so i work 20, but i will make
| substantially more output in 30 hours not 50% more but 35% so
| my compensation make sense being lower , the 4 day work week
| means that productivity compensate the loss of hour so the
| output and to consequence the salary don't change.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| You're speaking my language here.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| I interviewed with one place for a kernel dev role that was
| explicitly 12-4pm. Yes you read that right. They were in the
| "defense" space and lowball salary so I didn't take that offer
| but always thought it was interesting idea
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| That is a fascinating idea. I could easily see myself going
| for that if I loved kernel hacking and they were willing to
| let me work remotely.
|
| I imagine you'd have to have a really stripped down warm up
| and cool down routine for such a role. 30 minutes to get into
| the flow, 3 hours flow state, 30 to step back down and do any
| documentation you needed to.
| jfoucher wrote:
| I used to work 5 days a week, 9 am to 2pm. I quite liked it,
| but my employer would often call or ask for "urgent" stuff to
| be down after my hours, which meant I could not be fully
| present for family or whatever I had planned. I have now
| switched to a 3 days workweek at another job, and I find it
| much easier to set effective boundaries. If I'm not there I'm
| not there and that's it. I don't think I could ever go back to
| working 40 hour weeks to be honest. When do you get anything
| personal done?
| jewayne wrote:
| > When do you get anything personal done?
|
| This is why my stomach drops when this discussion turns into
| "the whole organization should shut down for another day".
| That's what I need a day off for. To go to doctor's
| appointments. To watch a contractor when he's working in my
| home. To talk to the lawyer planning my estate. Those people
| need to be working for me to get the full value of my extra
| day off.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| We don't all need to shut down on the same day, and if we
| do, we'll schedule around it or use shift work. As you can
| plainly see, service work still gets done even with two
| days off in a week. Three won't make a difference.
| jewayne wrote:
| That's my point. I think the vast majority of adults have
| some amount of personal business that already isn't
| getting done. Shortening the week is going to make it
| worse.
| dijit wrote:
| one thing I've realised is working style is really something
| that is highly preferential, you cant possibly satisfy
| everyone.
|
| Working from Office, Working from home, hybrid- working hours,
| lunch hours.
|
| you cant ever hope to satisfy everybody.
|
| In my case for example, i bloody hate commuting, I feel like
| any work I do in a day eats disproportionately too much of my
| day (like going to the gym, where if you work out for 45
| minutes you should allocate 90 minutes actually due to prep,
| shower, travel etc).
|
| I'd much rather have longer fewer days.
| emerongi wrote:
| This is why working in a company with async communication is
| quite nice as you can do whatever works for you. I'd do 12h*3
| and ~30min on the other days to answer any urgent questions
| from people working on a different schedule. Sadly I don't
| work in a company with that culture anymore :(.
| TylerE wrote:
| That sounds amazing. I often do my best stuff at 2-3AM
| (mega night owl), but I don't necessarily want to work that
| schedule - not least because it's a shared house so it's
| not a time frame I'd ever want to be, say, having to take a
| voice call.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Best is to just have core hours that work for everyone. Ours
| are 9-12 and 1-3.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| I'm a big fan of this. Having an idea of the "golden hours"
| for different parties is even moreso the way with
| geographically separated teams.
|
| I'm currently operating out of Finland as a software lead
| for a quite complex product (the displays on your bus/train
| that show you the next stop - a smorgasbord of bespoke
| hardware, embedded Linux, and everything you can imagine at
| the border of software and electrical engineering) and I
| keep a laser sharp eye on what hours I work so that I can
| efficiently communicate with my colleagues in North
| America. If I need to get ahold of my man in Chicago I
| thankfully have the clearance at work to come in an hour or
| two later in exchange for having an hour or two which
| matches his timezone. There's a golden window where my
| evenings wrap around to his mornings that I like to try to
| use for high bandwidth communication before I close out for
| the night.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| 4-day weeks have a lower cost than 32 hours spread over 5 days,
| because some of the days you're off would have been off anyway
| due to holidays or whatever. You can also get away with
| offering fewer days off without doing any harm--all weekends
| are three-day weekends, and you see fewer parents taking days
| off because of e.g. a Friday school in-service day.
|
| The cost of having Fridays always off is a fair bit lower than
| 20% of actual hours worked in most 5-day-a-week workplaces.
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| We are stating subtly different points here. Holding 32 hours
| a week constant, you are arguing that 4-day workweeks reduce
| cost to the employer, and I think your arguments are at least
| situationally true quite often; however, I am stating that
| shorter workdays would lead to greater average value per hour
| spent for my employer from me, which I think is also true in
| my case.
|
| The deciding factor is whether the difference in value
| generation is greater than the possible cost reduction you
| propose. That is a difficult question to give a definitive
| answer to, especially because there are large groups of
| people who want to spend as little mental effort as possible
| at work, to whom my personal preferences obviously don't
| apply.
|
| TLDR: You bring up an interesting point. Thank you for your
| reply.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| I do think a 6 hour 5 day schedule could see _zero_
| productivity drop, sure. At four 8s I'm gonna be zonked out
| short of 8 hours, anyway, just like with a five 8s. That's
| a good point.
| Unbeliever69 wrote:
| I've worked 4-10s for 3 years at an aerospace contractor but
| after 8 hours I felt done. I worked 5-7s during COVID as WFH
| and really enjoyed it. Sometimes we would do 4-8s around
| holidays and vacations and that was also great. It's really
| about defining a culture that supports quality over quantity of
| work.
| xur17 wrote:
| > I've worked 4-10s for 3 years at an aerospace contractor
| but after 8 hours I felt done.
|
| Same thing here - I enjoyed the day off, but 10 hours was
| definitely too long, and the day off wasn't really worth the
| trade off.
|
| My current employer has "my mondays" - half the Mondays are
| days with no meetings, half are completely off. From an
| employee retention perspective this is a pretty sticky
| benefit - it would be difficult for me to go back to a normal
| schedule.
| [deleted]
| elAhmo wrote:
| I find this very interesting from the tax perspective too.
|
| In case you reduce your pay by 20% to accommodate for fewer
| hours, in many countries with progressive tax rates, the effect
| on take-home pay in absolute terms is not as significant as
| relative.
|
| For example, in Germany, 100K gross leaves you with 57 after tax.
| Whereas 80K results in ~47k. In absolute terms, it is 'just 10k
| less', on a salary of 57k, but with 20% less working hours.
| effnorwood wrote:
| [dead]
| 303uru wrote:
| I'm on a true 4x8 work week and it's life changing. I have
| Tuesdays off. It feels close to half my days at work and half
| off. I'm more productive at work and the extra day off has
| allowed me so much flexibility in life; from going to Costco when
| it's quiet to 5 hour bike rides around Denver and even spending
| the day with my kids if they're off. It's huge. It's hard to
| place a value on it, but I'd probably turn down another job that
| was 5 a week unless it was at least $70k+ in more annual pay.
| kmlx wrote:
| > I'm on a true 4x8 work week and it's life changing.
|
| while many have shared positive experiences, mine was quite the
| opposite. i did a 4-day work week for around 1.5 months and
| didn't find it to be beneficial at all. i went back to a 40-50
| hour work week. i really love my work and want a lot more of
| it. not having a family also probably helps.
| orzig wrote:
| Thank you for specifying that you do not have a family. More
| people should give their life context when they make posts
| like this, positive or negative.
|
| There has been a time in my life for each type of work
| arrangement, and there will be a time for retirement. Talking
| without that context is just going to result in talking past
| each other.
| alexhjones wrote:
| Same here - love my Tuesdays off and going for long bike rides
| before collecting the kids from school to play. Costco never
| seems to have quiet times near me any more though! I get the
| Friday Feeling on a Monday afternoon, get the out of office
| ready and switch off mentally. Every Public holiday that falls
| on a Monday gives an automatic 4 day weekend. I try to avoid
| squeezing in too many odd-jobs like a weekly food shop. Like
| you, I would also only look for a new job that could be
| flexible on 4 days.
| 303uru wrote:
| I forgot to mention the Monday holidays! They're the best.
| ghaff wrote:
| A midweek day off sounds pretty uninteresting relatively
| speaking. I'd much rather have (official) long weekends--though
| Fridays seem to be there in a lot of informal arrangements at
| many companies these days.
| freedomben wrote:
| Likewise, but I think it depends on how people like to spend
| their spare time. I love being able to go on a road trip or
| camping trip, and 3-day weekends open up an entirely new
| world of possibility for a weekend trip.
|
| For people that use the time to do errands, I suspect mid-
| week is better. I do wish we could settle on weekends though
| because the errands can be easily done on Friday or Tuesday
| or whatever, whereas a weekend trip cannot.
| jewayne wrote:
| I'm all for a 4-day week, as long as we all get a different
| extra day off. I don't need most of society to shut down for
| another day a week. I need a day when everything's running
| but I don't have to work. A society-wide 3-day weekend?
| That's a nightmare, to me.
| benbjohnson wrote:
| Do you mind if I ask who you work for? I'm in Denver as well
| and I'm always curious what companies are doing 4x8 or even
| 4x10.
| blissfulresup wrote:
| Interested too case OP responds
| mym1990 wrote:
| There needs to be a catalogue for this!
| imiric wrote:
| https://4dayweek.io/
| [deleted]
| wil421 wrote:
| Someone I know worked at Lockheed and had every other Friday
| off and worked 9-5. Not quite a 4 day work week because half
| the smallish team needed to be on call Fridays.
| panzagl wrote:
| A lot of government offices (and therefore their
| contractors) work '9 nines' to get every other Friday off,
| though in practice it really becomes '9 eights'.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Feels like this had some traction a year ago at the peak of the
| Great Resignation, when worker power seemed ascendent. Now after
| all of the mass layoffs, are there more companies actually
| experimenting with four day workweeks, as opposed to those who
| had made the switch earlier? Also a shame that one of the more
| high-profile tech startups with a four-day workweek, Bolt,
| imploded (though not as badly as their competitor, Fast).
| yieldcrv wrote:
| doesnt seem like it would work for my overemployment so pass
| hackermatic wrote:
| I have a four-day, 32-hour work week, and I am less productive,
| but that was the plan up front and I'm very okay with that (and
| luckily, so is my management).
|
| I wanted more personal time, and I also needed more time to take
| care of my physical and mental health with appointments -- which
| all of my providers schedule during the 9-AM-to-5-PM period
| anyway -- and simple rest and relaxation. If I didn't have this
| schedule, there's a good chance I wouldn't still be at this
| current job or would have burned out earlier in general, and my
| contributions are valued, so it works out well for all parties
| involved.
|
| But I don't think you have to justify it so concretely or morally
| -- you can just want to do a day's less formal work, or want to
| work toward a society with less work and more leisure time! The
| 40-hour work week is arbitrary, anyway.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| Did you exchange the extra hours for a cut in pay?
| hackermatic wrote:
| Yes, so I get 80% of the normal salary for my role, but the
| same benefits package (insurance, 401(k) match, etc.).
| nkozyra wrote:
| I think of a "work week" as a bit of a fishbowl situation for
| most professionals. If you extend it from 40 hours to 80 hours
| you'll generally get the same output over time.
|
| Of course, this productivity can only be squeezed into only so
| small a frame, but I think what we're learning is that 40 hours
| is probably not the maxima for efficiency.
|
| The simplest way to have more efficient workers is to make them
| happy. I don't have a panacea for that problem, but giving them
| an extra day for leisure sure doesn't hurt when possible. But
| more than that, companies rarely ask and listen to employees
| about what they want/need, and there's so much social pressure
| that people seldom speak up. Fundamentally this is a cultural
| problem.
| statquontrarian wrote:
| I've had a 3 day work week for years (at 20 hours per week) and I
| love it. I feel like I'm more productive than before, too. Not
| just productivity per hour, but total productivity. I was
| surprised by this result since I'm working half the hours per
| week.
| jawns wrote:
| Is that generalizable, though?
|
| Most people I know who are working under 30 hours a week do not
| qualify for important benefits such as health insurance.
|
| Are you benefiting from a partner's income and health plan, or
| are you able to sustain yourself entirely on your own income?
|
| And out of curiosity ... how do you spend the extra 4 days per
| week?
| statquontrarian wrote:
| I'm earning half my previous salary, and I'm single, so it
| was definitely an adjustment. I had heard about the 30 hour
| per week cutoff for benefits, but I was surprised that my
| company was able to provide full benefits at 20 hours per
| week. It's a very large company, so I know they're following
| all the laws properly. Maybe the ones that require a minimum
| of 30 simply aren't up-to-date on the latest laws.
|
| It probably helps to be a top performer and have years of
| experience. But if I were to be let go tomorrow, I'm sure
| it'll be difficult to find again. But I'm going to try! Never
| hurts to try when you know what you want.
|
| I keep a low profile but the extra days per week are fun to
| fill! There does seem to be some sort of mental flip between
| 3 days and 4 days because I know that the majority of my week
| is whatever I want to do versus the majority (or vast
| majority) being work.
| emerongi wrote:
| When applying for senior positions, a 4-day work week is
| already quite an ask. I feel like the whole agile/scrum
| approach is so deeply rooted into modern companies that
| ironically they are unable to adapt.
|
| We had somebody in a different timezone join the team and there
| was a long discussion about when we should do stand ups. I
| almost suggested just dropping it, but that would have been
| heresy.
| statquontrarian wrote:
| I'm a senior software engineer, but, yes, there are lots of
| complexities. 3 day work weeks might only work for top
| performers, but a lot of them never ask.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| Did anyone suggest doing standups asynchronously, for
| instance, over Slack?
| dudul wrote:
| Companies should just have roughly 20 "core hours" in the week
| during which everybody is expected to be reachable for calls,
| meetings, chats, etc. And then just let people do whatever they
| want as long as they deliver.
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| Half of every week seems like a lot of talking. I don't find
| the remaining 20 hours of deep work to be enough for the team's
| goals, or for me personally.
| dieselgate wrote:
| That's reasonable and seems like parent was expecting some to
| work more hours where/when necessary (or not long as they
| deliver)
| hotnfresh wrote:
| I believe the proposal is to have 20 hours a week in which
| everyone's expected to be available at the same time, not
| limiting weekly work hours to 20.
| Filligree wrote:
| To be clear, you're saying it's the non-core hours in which
| you'd get work done?
|
| This is probably true for most ICs, and false for most
| managers/execs. Hence the tension.
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| Yeah, clarified that.
| dudul wrote:
| You don't need to talk for the 20 core hours. It's just time
| where everybody is supposed to be around if there is need for
| collaborative work.
|
| It's a maximum.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I feel like the 4 day workweek will need to be led by new
| businesses rather than hoping large corporations will ever go
| there. In my mind a 4 day work week would also increase
| consumption across the board as people have more time to
| vacation/have experiences/get into hobbies/etc...
|
| Of course it is not a silver bullet but spreading awareness is a
| good step.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| That feel when you work at a job where you can't work from home.
| jedberg wrote:
| > Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University, says it is
| doubtful most businesses can shed a fifth of the workweek and
| maintain productivity. "Whenever I talk to managers, they find
| the topic pretty insulting--they argue it implies they are
| completely wasting a day a week," he said.
|
| Yeah, that's the point. You shouldn't expect the same
| productivity. You should expect less. Just like in theory if we
| went back to a six day week we'd expect more productivity.
|
| The change isn't expected to hold productivity, it's expected to
| make people's lives easier and take advantage of technological
| advantages. Go to a four day work week and you can expect the
| same productivity that you had 20 years ago at five days.
|
| Nothing wrong with that, if reduced productivity is even true,
| but most studies refute that anyway.
| dv_dt wrote:
| It seems like that most formal studies show that it's just as
| productive, at least in the few nations that did made specific
| processes to test it out.
| manicennui wrote:
| But they are wasting a lot of time in most cases. How many
| people work in the corporate world and spend hours in meetings
| keeping people up to date who add nothing?
| ncallaway wrote:
| > Whenever I talk to managers, they find the topic pretty
| insulting
|
| Most managers in most organizations *are* completely wasting a
| day a week. If they find that insulting, they should stop doing
| it.
| Hammershaft wrote:
| Nicholas Bloom is an economist & yet he appears to be
| conflating productivity & output!?
| webel0 wrote:
| The journalist's phrasing surrounding his quote did seem to
| do this. But his actual quote did not.
| kibwen wrote:
| I just now asked some friends who work in the enterprise space
| the question "how many hours per week do you spend in meetings
| that feel completely pointless and a waste of your time?"
|
| The lowest answer was 8 hours. The highest answer was 15.
|
| We can absolutely cut a day and lose no productivity. We
| already have a four-day workweek, we're just forcing people to
| spend a day of their de-facto three-day weekend in the office
| with their thumbs up their ass.
| unbalancedevh wrote:
| I'm definitely not 40-hours-productive, and would love to go
| to a 4-day work week. But I think that a lot of down-time
| that I spend between tasks wouldn't go away, because my brain
| can't just switch contexts that quickly. Or maybe I'm waiting
| 15 minutes for my computer to run a job, and can't
| effectively work on some other task for that short of a time.
| tomcam wrote:
| I assume you'd expect a 20% pay cut
| jedberg wrote:
| Why? Pay isn't related to output. It's related to what it
| costs to get me to work for you, ie worker supply and demand.
| trescenzi wrote:
| And even if it is related to output working less hours
| doesn't always mean less output. If you can genuinely
| retain the same output, or similar within reasonable
| bounds, I'd expect to see no pay cut. I know for a fact I'm
| more productive a tuesday after a 3 day weekend than a
| monday after a 2 day weekend so I'd expect to see at most a
| 5% decrease in output and I'd happily trade 5% of my pay
| for a 3 day weekend every week.
| thefurdrake wrote:
| I'd expect to be paid the same amount for accomplishing the
| same tasks. It's not that hard to comprehend.
| [deleted]
| pelasaco wrote:
| Never, they want to work less and earn more. They want to
| arrive Monday, and have the cards there ready to be worked
| on.. and don't disturb my YOGA at 10 AM!/s
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| People who make it to management are rarely combinations of
| self aware, empathetic, or rational about work output and
| arrangements, hence the challenges around these conversations.
|
| Look no further than Amazon, with their we "feel" in person is
| better. They don't care about the data, they care about the
| control.
| winwang wrote:
| I wonder if that's actually true, though. Especially since
| engineering is a creative field. For example, what if I churned
| out 20% less code, but bugs per line decreased by 50%? Or if
| we're architecting a system and the +50% weekend time led us to
| a significantly better design?
| SirMaster wrote:
| Would there be some standard between companies to always agree on
| the same day being the day off?
|
| Seems like a nightmare for working with other companies if the
| employees are off on a day you are not, and you need to contact
| them to work on something with them.
| imiric wrote:
| What we need is a culture change where companies accept that
| there are very few tasks that need to be done synchronously and
| with urgency.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| Why do you think that? Assuming both companies worked 4 days
| between M-F, that would always mean you'd have a minimum of 3
| days overlap. Unless we're talking about urgent support type
| issues, for which scheduling would probably need to be
| staggered at each company, anyway, I think 3 days a week is
| totally enough time to schedule necessary meetings and get
| prompt responses to email communications.
| jedberg wrote:
| This article is so dramatic. "Look at how hard it was for these
| companies to go to four days a week."
|
| It's not hard. You just declare Friday a weekend. Then you do
| everything like before.
|
| Did you have meetings on weekends? No? Good, move the Friday ones
| to another day because they're on the weekend now. Who is going
| to answer customer support emails on Friday? The same people who
| answered on Saturday and Sunday, and maybe you'll pay them extra
| work on the weekend. What if we can't get everything done? You
| probably weren't getting everything done before, and you either
| worked on Saturday or just said screw it. Do the same thing.
|
| The only slightly reasonable issue brought up was the lawyers who
| wanted to work four days but kept having to go to court on
| Friday. Yes, if you work with external entities, you either have
| to be willing to say no to working on Friday or if you can't, you
| have to wait for them to also move to four days. But very few
| people are actually in a position where they can't say no to the
| client (the lawyer being one of the few exceptions).
|
| The WSJ wants to make it sound like a massive undertaking because
| they are pro-business and anti-worker. Don't buy the hype.
| manicennui wrote:
| I was surprised to see this in the WSJ at all. Obviously they
| did it so they could sow doubt. This entire article is likely
| PR for ActivTrak though:
|
| "Many four-day-week employers don't appear to be operating more
| efficiently, though, according to data from ActivTrak, a maker
| of workforce analytics software. Gabriela Mauch, vice president
| of ActivTrak's productivity lab, suspects that is because
| management hasn't revamped the way teams work."
| ncallaway wrote:
| > But very few people are actually in a position where they
| can't say no to the client (the lawyer being one of the few
| exceptions).
|
| Yea, I agree with this. As the lawyer, when the court asks you
| your preferred dates for scheduling something, don't give them
| a Friday.
|
| If the Court asks you to schedule something on a Friday, you
| could politely request it moved to another day. If the Court
| says: "too bad, this Court works Fridays, and I'm going to
| schedule something for Friday", then you show up on Friday.
| Exactly the same way that you would if the Court said: "I'm
| going to schedule something for a Saturday".
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > The WSJ wants to make it sound like a massive undertaking
| because they are pro-business and anti-worker.
|
| I agree. It's just a shame that for the most part we're still
| using a lens that's so binary. I understand why say Fortune 500
| companies are so slow to change. But why are the rest? If
| you're competing for talent - and nearly all companies are -
| and "we're on a 4-day workweek" would be appealing, why not do
| it?
|
| On my last contract I worked 4 days x ~8.5 hrs with Fridays
| off. LOVED IT. I was more productive and never had to face
| "This client / project annoys the shit out of me...And even
| nore so on a Friday." There's nothing to be said for that ;)
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _If you 're competing for talent - and nearly all companies
| are - and "we're on a 4-day workweek" would be appealing, why
| not do it?_
|
| At my workplace, this is how we ended up shifting to a 4-day
| work week. We were in a bit of a squeeze for hiring, and the
| last few candidates we had hired didn't end up working out.
|
| We shifted to a 4-day work week and we have found we're
| getting higher quality applicants that would have presumably
| skipped over us for a more prestigious name, a company
| offering 4-day already, or whatever.
|
| Not saying it's guaranteed to be the same for others, but
| it's worked remarkably well for us in our talent search.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| It is, at least for now, a point of differentiation.
|
| It also could be dog-fooding. That is, how of is it, "We're
| innovative. We're pro-team...4DWW? What's that?"
|
| The other thing is, not everyone wants Friday off.
| Therefore, the company can remain open 5 days, but not
| everyone is available all five days.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _The other thing is, not everyone wants Friday off.
| Therefore, the company can remain open 5 days, but not
| everyone is available all five days._
|
| We rolled it out this way. Business is still open 5 days,
| roughly half the staff has Mondays off and the others
| have Fridays off. Staff have a "buddy" on the other
| schedule that they touch base with in case something
| needs to be taken care of on one of their days off.
| yndoendo wrote:
| To be far, the metric of a salary at 40 hours is not valid. The
| time to commute should be count against that 40 hours and yet
| we exclude it. You're driving to work means work is taking your
| time, they also know where you live and how long it takes so
| there should be no scruples there.
|
| Current metric fuzzes reality and allows for persuasion against
| 35 work weeks because people think they are only working 40
| hours a week.
|
| To be far, I find 9:00-17:00 to be a destructive cookie-cut
| mentality too. Prefer having about 12 hours of continual time
| when implementing a new feature or working a new solution. This
| allows for laying out the solution and better refactoring to
| make it cleaner. 9:00 to 17:00 does not allow for this because
| continual thoughts have to be shelved for the next day which
| takes more energy and time to try and rev-up again to continue
| where one left off.
|
| To be far, a CEO or President or Owner or Manager seeing you in
| the office is a social engineering hack. "They are there so
| they must be doing work, I'm getting what I payed for."
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| My guess is it's because the commute is really up to the
| employee. So if someone moves does the employer adjust their
| salary? What if I ride to work on my bike a few times a week
| (15 miles)?
|
| Perhaps there could be some time stipend, so days may start a
| bit later and end sooner than 9-5.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > Good, move the Friday ones to another day because they're on
| the weekend now
|
| That only works if you cancel the bullshit meetings, and
| empower your employees to say no to bullshit meetings.
| treebeard5440 wrote:
| I like how you broke this down - it's really not that hard
| hurril wrote:
| I always thought the perspectives of this question is weird. Are
| people asking to be paid more than they work, or is someone
| forcing them to work full time?
|
| I totally understand the urge (and suggestion) to not work too
| much on the other hand.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| A few months ago a few recruiters approached me about a job with
| a company that works 4 days a week.
|
| _They work 4 10 hour days a week._
|
| There's just no way to balance that kind of schedule and
| children. I was very frank when I responded to the recruiter.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| paulpauper wrote:
| What about tech support or sales reps. How do the gaps get
| filled.
| footy wrote:
| at my workplace it's done by having the same employees we had
| before, but working fewer hours each.
| munk-a wrote:
| No, we're not talking about 10/4 or supplemental employment.
| People are actually just more productive at creative tasks if
| you don't overwork them so eight hours a day, four days a week,
| the same team... Your productivity may not drop/Your
| productivity per hour may increase by 20% or more.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| You'd probably do staggered scheduling for positions that truly
| need the coverage. But, I suspect a lot of these needs are not
| really "needs."
| brtkdotse wrote:
| Since becoming a freelancing contractor I've experimented a fair
| bit with my work week and for me the sweet spot is 5 6-hour days,
| split up as 2x90min, 2 hour lunch and another 2x90min.
|
| I prefer a five day workweek with shorter days because I rarely
| have 8 good hours in me. That, and as long as the rest of the
| world is working 5 days a week it's easier to conform.
| rockostrich wrote:
| This is pretty much how I work anyway as someone who
| technically should be working 5 8-hour days and I tell everyone
| on my team that I really don't care how much they're working as
| long as: their output is at least meeting expectations, they
| attend any meetings they're required to be at (although at this
| point it's almost only stand-up and 1:1s), and they handle on-
| call when it's their turn on the schedule (although we're a
| data team so the stakes are a bit lower in terms of incident
| response).
|
| I usually start anywhere from 8-10, work until around 12-1, get
| some chores done/eat something/work out, work until around 4-6.
| Some days there's more in the tank or whatever problem is
| interesting and I can't put the laptop down. Some days I'm done
| by 3 pm because I'm not getting anything done. And sometimes
| it's like 8 pm on a Sunday and I have a great idea about how to
| solve something so I pick up the laptop.
| GGO wrote:
| https://archive.ph/C6qmf
| freedude wrote:
| The challenge comes with debt. If you are not servicing debt,
| then it becomes easier to be free to do the things you need to do
| when you want to do them.
| philfreo wrote:
| At Close we have been offering an 80% salary / 4-day week option
| for engineering roles for a few years now. This originally was
| mandatory during early 2020 COVID-19 economic uncertainty as a
| way to cut costs without doing layoffs. Quickly it became
| optional - most people moved back to 100% but some people decided
| they enjoyed it and wanted to continue that arrangement.
|
| What's interesting about 4d weeks is that it's 20% less work but
| 50% more days off, which can be very impactful for folks.
|
| Our 80% option is a flexible thing, as in you can choose to do it
| for the summer but not the rest of the year. We try to adjust
| workloads accordingly. I've taken advantage of it myself for a
| period of time and it gave me more free time to be with family
| and also work on side projects.
|
| Some people really love taking our 80% option / 4d and others
| absolutely don't want to.
|
| Companies offering flexibility in work hours can really help
| retention IMO, and is a natural progression after (a) remote /
| freedom of location, and (b) freedom of specific work schedule.
|
| I know a few companies offer "4-day week summers" to everybody or
| even "everyone always does 4-day weeks". But I like the
| "fairness" of giving people an option, since different people are
| in different life situations at different times where working
| more vs. less can be especially helpful.
| wnolens wrote:
| > This originally was mandatory during early 2020 COVID-19
| economic uncertainty as a way to cut costs without doing
| layoffs.
|
| I'm surprised I've never heard of this solution before. I think
| it's brilliant, especially for engineering roles where we can
| still make rent on 80% pay.
|
| I would gladly move back and forth between the options as I get
| more or less burnt out with work, or take on a new extra
| curricular.
| Hasz wrote:
| I have a split lunch schedule -- I usually take 30 minute lunches
| during Mon-Thu and take an hour for lunch on Friday. Based on my
| internal notes (and a bunch of metrics) I am _more_ productive on
| Friday (especially afternoons) than I am on a given Tuesday
| afternoon. There 's a ton of other variables and probably some
| contraindications in that anecdote, but it's the kind of counter-
| intuitive result that a 4-day work week is based on.
|
| I'm also amazed at how variable an hour can be in terms of
| output. I can easily do 5-10x work at my best compared to my
| worst. The key here is being completely in the zone, and not
| trying to do it all the time.
|
| I believe a 4-day work week could help put more people in that
| productive zone,resulting in as much/more output for less hours
| spent. Of course, you have to have employees trusting enough and
| stable enough to use the extra time to decompress.
| imiric wrote:
| One detail about the 4-day work week that tends to be ignored is
| that a 4 day work week is not the same as a part-time position,
| and, crucially, it should be compensated the same as a "full-
| time" 40 hours per week position. Some companies claim to have a
| 4 day work week schedule, when in fact they simply negotiate an
| equal reduction in salary.
|
| The point of working less is for people to have more personal
| time without this impacting their livelihood. There are many
| well-studied benefits of this[1], both to workers and companies,
| yet greedy companies still cling to archaic practices to squeeze
| as much profits as possible out of each employee.
|
| Even after considerable productivity increases gained in part by
| automation and technology, we've seen decades of wage stagnation
| and an increasing productivity-pay gap[2,3,4]. Workers have lived
| with this short end of the stick for far too long, and the least
| controversial step forward would be to make the 4 day work week
| without pay reduction a general policy in all companies in
| nonessential industries. There are industries that need to
| operate with longer schedules, and those positions should be
| compensated accordingly, but most IT companies can certainly
| operate with much less than 5 days per week.
|
| [1]: https://time.com/6256741/four-day-work-week-benefits/
|
| [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupling_of_wages_from_produ...
|
| [3]: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
|
| [4]: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
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