A 4-Day Workweek? A Test Run Shows a Surprising Result

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/asia/four-day-workweek-new-zealand.html

by danso • 8 years ago

83 70 8 years ago

nytimes.com

danieltillett• 8 years ago

I wonder if anyone at the company had ever heard of the Hawthorn Effect [0].

0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

vmware505• 8 years ago

You right, productivity boost can caused by knowing that your productivity is tracked and surveyed...

However, here in New Zealand one of the most important is the work life balance. Everything is about being happy and enjoy your life.

For this reason, it is quite common the 37 hours workweeks, flexible hours, working from home at least one day a week and go for coffee or lunch when you want...

super cool country actually ;)

some_account3• 8 years ago

Sweden is similar. A desk job at a big company in IT means a very relaxed atmosphere with no problems leaving early or working from home. Nobody cares.

It's actually a bit annoying if you care about some project though. If you do, you get quite frustrated by the people who don't care (the majority) and you have to work with them.

kelnos• 8 years ago

I was also thinking that if the employees knew that it was a trial run, they might work harder than they otherwise would in the hopes that if they did well productivity-wise, they'd get to keep the 4-day work week after the trial was over. Obviously if the company recorded productivity losses, they'd scrap it and move on.

A better test would be to announce a 4-day work week, and tell people it's a permanent change. (Of course, if people's productivity drops, and then you go back to 5 days, morale will take a hit.)

vesak• 8 years ago

No, not a surprising result. A perfectly expected result.

Working 40 hours a week is too much. "Working" 50 hours a week is absurd. Occasional crunches are ok of course, but as a constant minimum, those are just idiotic numbers, and people who support this sort of work ethic should be deeply ashamed and possibly fired.

pdonis4• 8 years ago

Working 40 hours a week is too much. "Working" 50 hours a week is absurd. Occasional crunches are ok of course, but as a constant minimum, those are just idiotic numbers, and people who support this sort of work ethic should be deeply ashamed and possibly fired.

Really? What makes 40 hours the magic number? What number of hours a week isn't too much? 30? 20? 10? 1? A few minutes?

How many hours of work is required depends on the job. To say that anyone who supports working 40 hours a week "should be deeply ashamed and possibly fired" is way, way, way too strong a statement. How the heck do you know what is required by every single job?

tribby• 8 years ago

I could be wrong, but I interpreted OP to mean that the "constant minimum" of 40 hours is what doesn't make sense, in contrast with a flexible work week where coming and going is fine as long as the work is getting done.

mayniac• 8 years ago

The average work week in the 1920s was about 50 hours. The 40 hour work week was only standardised in the 30s, mainly as a response to huge increases in productivity.

We've had decade upon decade of substantial increases in productivity since then. Why hasn't our weekly working hours since the 30s ever been reduced?

watwut4• 8 years ago

There were studies on that, will simplify it a bit. Long term, 30 hours per week produced less then 40. 40-50 makes no difference in how much you produce, anymore then that lowers product.

Original studies were done with factory work. It is harder to evaluate mental work.

some_account3• 8 years ago

8 hours are too much because with travel time, you have to get up very early and you come home very late.

6 hours would be ideal since you would have time outside work for family, kids and hobbies. It would create a society where people are happier and have more energy, which benefits us all.

Jedd3• 8 years ago

Really? What makes 40 hours the magic number?

I think that's the question that TFA, and parent, and a lot of other people in between, are asking.

The answer tends to be 'because that's how it's been for a while'. Or, if you like, it's what mum and dad taught us, and various governments & employers advocate.

Parent was suggesting this is an unnaturally high number, but you're right that coming up with a replacement number - if indeed that's the best approach - is not as straightforward as just picking another one and making forcing everyone else to agree with it.

How many hours of work is required depends on the job.

...

How the heck do you know what is required by every single job?

I think this is a dangerous, though obviously prevalent, way of thinking. That every job currently requires ~40 hours a week to perform is, objectively, a ludicrous claim to make.

It suggests a massively tightly coupled relationship between scheduling, specific personnel, and output.

I'd suggest that's a fallacy because western societies have typically settled upon ~38hr of 'being at work' per week ... and apologists try to work backwards from that number on the assumption it's normal / sensible / just right / tenable forever.

FranzFerdiNaN2• 8 years ago

The number of hours that isn't too much is 0. Work is dumb and bad for people. I don't mean labor, which is activities performed for its own sake, not because a boss demands it or you do it because you need money.

Job requirements, especially working hours, aren't part of some natural law. They are set as high as possible by bosses as they can get away with.

ekianjo2• 8 years ago

Who decretes its too much. Actually some people like working more than others. Are you going to restain them with a one size fits all standard? I am rather on the other end, let people work as little or as much as they want, but of course dont expect the salary to be identical at the end of the day.

watwut4• 8 years ago

Salary should more about how much you produce then about butt-in-office time. If working 30 hours a week makes you more productive then 60, the 60 should get less money in fair world.

everdev• 8 years ago

I think 37signals tried this about a decade ago. It's neither new or surprising.

Someone1234• 8 years ago

The state of Utah did it in a massive way, it was a huge success, saved some money, improved employee morale, and productivity, so naturally they switched back shortly after[0].

The biggest issue was that people didn't like government services closed on Fridays. But instead of doing shifting or trying anything to mitigate that, they simply gave up.

The depressing thing is that this pattern happens over and over, be it remote work, work hours, work days, work dress, or a million other things. Society just "pins" normality arbitrarily then keeps returning to that.

[0] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102938...

cookiecaper• 8 years ago

The Utah experiment involved "four tens", or 4 10-hour work days. It was still a 40 hour work week. The posted article discusses eliminating an entire work day and shortening the work week by 8 hours, rather than spreading them out over the remaining 4 days. cf. http://www.governing.com/columns/utahs-demise-of-the-four-da...

kijin2• 8 years ago

It is in fact massively inconvenient when government and/or financial services are closed while other people are trying to get work done. After all, they are the backbone that supports all other economic activity. A couple of hours of discrepancy at the end of the day is tolerable (and sometimes even desirable), but a whole day of downtime is too much.

We need to automate a lot more of the public and financial sectors than we currently do. As long as a significant portion of work needs to be done face-to-face, there will be pressure to synchronize everyone's working days and hours.

NeedMoreTea4• 8 years ago

The UK tried an experiment in 1974 with a 3 day work week, rigidly enforced, for everyone.

At the start of 1974 there was a national miner's strike. In order to preserve coal and power all commercial users were limited to 3 specified days electricity consumption in every 7. That lasted 2 or 3 months, and came right after the oil crisis.

At home there were regular power cuts and houses were freezing places illuminated by candle. This is when the UK became very interested in central heating.

From the government's own figures, a 40% reduction in working hours caused just a 4% drop in productivity.

I am surprised there haven't been studies to try and validate that experience outside of of strikes and crises. The government's own study and the result seems to have been silently forgotten.

zeristor• 8 years ago

This is a fascinating point.

Although one would need to tally this with worker stress.

Did companies have three continuous days of power?

Also this could mean there was only one day of overlap if two companies were working together.

Quite often there are trivial blocking details that just take a second to resolve, the benefit of experience to provide needed information upfront to ease things through.

Steve443• 8 years ago

From the government's own figures, a 40% reduction in working hours caused just a 4% drop in productivity.

and

That lasted 2 or 3 months,

It's quite possible that people 'pulled together' to get through the crisis, similar to how people managed in the war with the 'Dunkirk Spirit'. Just because we seemingly did well through a three month crisis does not mean that is a long term sustainable plan.

calewis• 8 years ago

Would you not agree that ‘pulling together’ should be the norm for a successful society? I agree that the high levels of stress are unhealthy however.

lostlogin2• 8 years ago

Just because we seemingly did well through a three month crisis does not mean that is a long term sustainable plan.

It would be interesting to know more about the effects of that crisis. Presumably many companies kept afloat by methods such as using accumulated stock or putting things on back order and such like. If I was ordered to go down to 3 days rather than 5, I’d be running long days if possible, or doing all the things that took a lot of energy on those days. These things are obviously unsustainable but how much did they come into it?

NeedMoreTea4• 8 years ago

That was my first thought when I first heard of this.

Despite living through it, and revising for A Levels by candle light, I knew nothing of the surprisingly minor effect on productivity until I saw a BBC documentary looking back.

otakucode2• 8 years ago

You didn't mention (and I don't personally know anything about the situation you're talking about), but did they maintain the same pay? That is an absolutely critical part of the equation. Cutting peoples work week and cutting their pay is quite a bit different from just cutting the work week, so I think it'd be good to mention.

jhabdas• 8 years ago

If you truly love what you do number of hours worked becomes inconsequential.

gboudrias• 8 years ago

I don't know if you're being sarcastic but this is a very dangerous way of looking at it. You absolutely can burnout and overexhaust yourself doing something you love. People need to learn to take breaks and time off more than the other way around imo.

ekianjo2• 8 years ago

working long hours does not mean you dont take regular breaks. its like marathons, you dont run at full speed when you know you will run for a long time.

some_account3• 8 years ago

The vast majority do not love what they do at work. It's a luxary afforded to a few only.

manmal3• 8 years ago

While most are lucky to find a job they love by accident, the rest of them finds it by being privileged and being able to keep looking until they find it.

hinkley2• 8 years ago

To you, the word ‘regret’ is still an abstract concept. If you don’t figure out that there are things in life you love more than work, you’ll learn about regret first hand.

Thinking about a spouse? Kids? Hell, friends? A dog? See how much they appreciate how inconsequential your choosing work instead of them is.

What are you here on earth to do?

John Calvin is dead and gone. So is the Bushido Code. Nobody is waiting around handing out big rewards for your personal sacrifice. And it is a sacrifice. What are you getting for it? Not what are you hoping to get, what are you actually getting? If that answer is enough for you, great, if it isn’t then you need to back up a bit. Those midlife crises can be a doozy.

FranzFerdiNaN2• 8 years ago

Ah yes, if only there were 5 billion jobs available that exactly matched what people love to do.

l39• 8 years ago

Only thing is that it rarely happens (for many it may never even happen).

themodelplumber• 8 years ago

This and the Nike article make me wonder about the possible emergence of higher-standards news media like the NYT into even more of a science & research-fostering-performing role. The possible benefits, the opportunities, the risks. Journalistic standards are very closely related to what we expect of science in many ways. Could "vetted media organization" be used in addition to "professional peer" in formal publishing guidelines, because things already seem to benefit from the additional filtering.

jasonkester• 8 years ago

I noticed a big boost in quality of life when I dropped down to 4 day weeks.

Working a full time job, I had gone from my usual "doctor visit every 10 years" to "doctor visit at least once a year", with an added flu or something each year on top of that. So when kid #2 came along, I used the excuse to drop down to 4 day weeks, and once the family was ticking away on all cylinders again I started using that extra day for climbing, cycling, and other "selfish" things. The idea being that this was "my day" and not just an extra day to do errands.

Boy what a difference it made. I haven't had more than a case of the sniffles since. I'm healthier, happier, and get to spend more time with the family.

I've since packed in the job entirely (to live off my business stuff full time) but if I do ever take another full time job, I'll be sure to negotiate 4 (or even 3) day weeks in to the contract. It's just night and day.

hinkley2• 8 years ago

Given the way software is run these days, I’ve been thinking that it might make sense for developers to be working a split shift, so we have people in the office seven hours a day, seven days a week. A 32 hour week of 4 7 hour days and a 4 hour day. Your days should probably be contiguous and everyone would probably have to work at least a half day on the weekend.

This would take a ton of process maturity, but I’ve seen that level of maturity a couple of times. I think it could be done.

lordnacho2• 8 years ago

I found this quite enlightened:

He said the results of Perpetual Guardian’s trial showed that when hiring staff, supervisors should negotiate tasks to be performed, rather than basing contracts on hours new employees spent in the office.
“Otherwise you’re saying, ‘I’m too lazy to figure out what I want from you, so I’m just going to pay you for showing up,’” Mr. Barnes said.
“A contract should be about an agreed level of productivity,” he added. “If you deliver that in less time, why should I cut your pay?”

The times I've seen managers worry about time spent it's tended to be someone non-technical. They can't really tell whether the goods have been delivered, so their best proxy is whether the staff are in their seats. Now of course you can sit in your seat and not deliver...

wiz21c• 8 years ago

>> supervisors should negotiate tasks to be performed, rather than basing contracts on hours

Ok, then a part of my salary should be proportional to the quality of the ideas I bring to the table when I work (which is just as hard to estimate than it is for "tasks to be performed" if you look at our kind of creative industry)

lordnacho2• 8 years ago

Ultimately in software the quality of your work is dependent on the opinions of others. If your boss thinks you never come up with anything useful, he too will decide not to pay you for your hours.

And that's also why some people get paid a lot more than others in this industry. It's impossible to put in more than 168 hours a week, but undoubtedly there are people who make more than 4x the average full time salary.

ojosilva2• 8 years ago

I wonder what the effects would be of having 4-day weeks widely implemented in society. It may just not scale.

My theory is that all perceived advantages will disappear once we all expect 3-day weekends, ie increased weekend travel lenght/ frequency or intensified efforts at our hobbies could end up draining more of our energy.

For instance a 3-day "work weekend" could make starting and running a separate company or working a 2nd job much more doable. A 4 to 3 proportion in days can easily fit a 32h + 32h double workweek in one. Once that becomes the norm, retribution economics may reflect that, in a way that one-jobers would lose buying power due to an inflated 2-job workers economy.

I feel productivity and work-life balance could be a zero-sum game.

lucideer2• 8 years ago

You're describing a smaller minority than you think.

Currently, there's 168 hours in the week in which one could almost theoretically work. Plenty of people do double-job but in reality they tend to be more low-income jobs where people are struggling to get by and need the 2nd to make ends meet. In reality, the majority don't overexert to make more money if their current income is sufficient; only an exceptional minority will do this.

one-jobers would lose buying power due to an inflated 2-job workers economy

I find this conclusion odd, as I'm not sure what you feel is the issue here. We currently have wealth inequality anyway: it's not ideal/desirable but it's what we have. This wouldn't be a disimprovement (but won't happen anyway as I really don't think being a 2-jobber is as desirable as you make out: there's quite a lot of research to the contrary).

TeMPOraL• 8 years ago

I believe GP is thinking about something similar that happened with number of working people per household. Few decades ago, you'd only have one breadwinner. Today, in developed countries, a home with only one breadwinner usually struggles.

ojosilva2• 8 years ago

I think the desirability/need for a 2nd job increases as the number of job work hours decrease.

Imagine you had a 2-day/wk job that pays half of what you make in a 40h/wk job. Would you mind having a 2nd job that pays the other half?

Anyway, my point is that having more free hours will change how society behaves and colaborate and how the underlying economics work, therefore eliminating some of perceived advantages of a shorter work week.

chemmail• 8 years ago

I do a kinda 4ish work week. I do Mon Tue full day, halfish day wed (by appointment). Thur Fri full days, sat halfish also. Feels like a free day is always just a day away. For those really used to 5 days with a huge hump day, always feeling like friday is tomorrow is just a revelation.

jbkkd• 8 years ago

I wonder whether the productivity gains would continue if this experiment would last a year or more.

I have a feeling that employee motivation went up because of the fact that something changed - working 32 hours instead of 40, and only 4 days - rather than the actual new reality which they were placed in.

We tend to enjoy changes all around, especially if they are for our own benefit. And I do think a shorter work week is a step in the right direction. But how long would it take for those employees to get used to the new reality of a 4 day work week, and going back to old habits of working more slowly during those days?

Ideally an experiment would be made with young adults who just started their first job and will land straight into a day work week, and comparing those to the same age group but with a 5 day work week.

otakucode2• 8 years ago

Surprising? To whom, exactly? The 40 hour work week was created and optimized for a world in which the dominant work was repetitive physical labor. They determined at that time that around 40 hours was optimal for average peoples capacity for that type of work. That type of work has been greatly reduced, and been replaced with mental work. Human beings have radically different capacities for mental exertion compared to prolonged physical exertion.

Most businesses are run in a very 'cargo cult' manner, where the managers and executives still read books written by manufacturing magnates and then turn around and apply the same practices (or close facsimiles like tribespeople crafting 'headphones' with coconut halves) to their own companies. There is vanishingly little actual thought that goes into it, or consideration of the constraints and principles. Manufacturers found it beneficial to makes as much of their process routine and checklist-driven as possible, so modern companies blindly try to do that too. They don't realize that with mental work (whether something like software development, marketing, sales or art creation or much else that now dominates) this is actively destructive. No one pays a company to do simple checklist-driven routine thinking for them. When it comes to mental work, customers want novel solutions to problems. They want something that hasn't been done before. Every time. If you do manage to reduce your product to the outcome of a checklist performed by disposable workers... you've successfully destroyed the entire value of your product.

When a company is built, they hire workers. Workers are human. This places restrictions on the company. They have to install bathroom facilities. They have to offer breaks for lunch. These aren't just legal requirements, they're necessary to get good performance out of human workers. Being annoyed with the restrictions born in human nature and seeking to squeeze workers at those points is counter-productive. And humans have limitations to their mental capacity as well. These aren't rigidly defined and understood yet, and there will certainly be further development of our understanding as we go on, but we do know a good bit already. Extended periods of mental exertion are counter-productive. Given the cost of poor performance in most mental work, it would be wise to guard against this. Humans can not multitask mentally, as our brains facilities for attention simply do not permit it. Mental work suffers in environments where people are subjected to interruptions, and where they are continuously concerned with preserving social status and similar factors.

Socially we have a long history with notions of endurance and vigorous exertion being identified with virtue. That was very socially useful when dealing with physical labor. It is, however, very destructive when dealing with mental labor. Likewise, extroversion was very socially useful when dealing with collaborative physical labor projects, while introversion is far more useful when dealing with mental labor projects because significant portions simply can not be collaborative. (A systems design might well be collaboratively created, but once decomposed into manageable portions it becomes counter-productive to pile many people on a single manageable portion. They end up spending most of their time trying to synchronize everyones mental model of the same thing.)

What would surprise me is if experiments like the one described in this article actually resulted in any significant change to most companies. We literally have over 1,000 studies establishing the productivity-destroying nature of open floor plan offices, for instance, but they continue being used. Different excuses are always proffered (reduced expense, some people wrongly guess it would make them more productive in defiance of all research, etc) but they never compensate for the costs. In reality most of it is done because 'everyone else is doing it' or 'this is how its been done before.' So, research is great but implementing it is an entirely different story. Few are courageous enough to defy social convention and stick their neck out trying something new that is not intuitively obvious (from an intuition developed out of a manufacturing-driven working world).

jostylr• 8 years ago

It sounded like they cut out a lot of the BS from the job and these are presumably jobs that are productive. I would be curious how this could possibly play out in jobs that are mostly BS as described by David Graeber's recent book.

I am most curious about the meeting reduction. Were the previously longer meetings containing inefficient communications that were replaced with efficient ones? long debates that no one had the desire for anymore? wandering conversations that were curtailed? completely pointless stuff that simply vanished? How did the meeting runners handle their diminished role?

merricksb• 8 years ago

Discussed two days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17569391

A 4-Day Workweek? A Test Run Shows a Surprising Result

Related Stories