More bosses give four-day workweek a try

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/21/807133509/enjoy-the-extra-day-off-more-bosses-give-4-day-workweek-a-try

by hhs • 6 years ago

934 388 6 years ago

npr.org

BlameKaneda• 6 years ago

Wonder how hourly employees who work 4-days weeks at 32 hours would feel about this proposal.

strig• 6 years ago

They could do 4x 10 hour days instead

thrower123• 6 years ago

I really liked working 4x10 when I was working a blue-collar industrial job over college breaks. It was not union, but it had a similar attitude towards the sacrosanctity of break times, which broke the day up nicely. Clock in at 6:30, spend the first 15-30 minutes going over the plan for the day. Work until 9, then everybody downed tools and took a coffee break. Go back and work until 12:00, clock out for half hour lunch. Go back and work until 3 for another coffee break. Then you'd usually just wind down and pick up until you clocked out at 5.

In a lot of ways, working an 8 hour day as a software developer is more stressful, because it's so disordered and interrupt-driven. Meetings are strewn around all over the calendar, wherever they can best fit the constraints of people in disparate locations. Emails or pings come in with problems you've got to handle right away - and it seems to be easier for people to rationalize making you switch tasks rather than finish what you're doing when you have a piece of software in pieces in your IDE than when you have a bulldozer in pieces with the tracks off...

izzydata• 6 years ago

If they increase the hourly pay by 20% then probably quite happy.

Edit: 25%.

rejschaap• 6 years ago

25%, I don't think there is any way around that, it seems untenable to have such big difference in rate between employees

echelon3• 6 years ago

Conversely, I'd accept lower pay for 4x8.

I'm close to financial independence and would rather have my time than more money.

askafriend• 6 years ago

I'd really like to do 4x10hrs versus 5x8hrs. I think that'd be a significant improvement for a lot of people.

gordon_freeman2• 6 years ago

I think stuffing 10 hours in a workday will have a diminishing rate of productivity return during the last couple of hours during the workday.

Apocryphon• 6 years ago

How about a compromise? 4x9 hours.

NullPrefix• 6 years ago

Wait, so do we want hours clocked or productivity?

32h week is about productivity.

qsymmachus• 6 years ago

Why not 4x8 hours

geodel• 6 years ago

May work for exempt workers. For hourly white collar workers who usually earn less anyway it would be less income.

Ididntdothis9• 6 years ago

This is terrible if you have a long commute. During the 4 days you only commute, work and sleep. Now as a remote worker I could do this.

grecy• 6 years ago

True, but you'll spend less of your life commuting, because you spend less days at work.

technofiend• 6 years ago

The great thing about 4x10s is if employees are given the choice of Monday or Friday off you suddenly have a 40% reduction in time for meetings where everyone must attend. It cuts down on wasted time and frankly your fourth day is usually more lightly loaded, letting you get more actual work done.

wolco3• 6 years ago

If you are trying to kill 40 hours that works. Why not 14-14-12 or 20-20 where you take 4 hours from each day to get the 8 hours for sleep.

I remember going to an interview somewhere and during the summers they came in at 8:30am each day (instead of 9) so they could get off at 2:30pm on a Friday. That sounded like hell for no big gain.

We need to go down to 20 hours.

Darkphibre2• 6 years ago

I've pulled a 140hr work week twice in nearly three decades of my career. Those weeks were... not sustainable.

Fortunately, I was paid hourly both times, so I was compensated, and the project did get completed.

Ok. Honestly? The first time I was quite young, working with other employees on a fun project with an insane deadline, and it was a blast. But having 4 hours to drive home, eat, sleep, shower, return? Not the greatest.

These days, I'd love to have a 4x8 (or even a 4x10, since I'm pulling 5x10 to 5x12s already).

risyachka• 6 years ago

I bet you'd like 4x8 even more.

ropiwqefjnpoa2• 6 years ago

I did this (4x10) for about a year at a previous company, really enjoyed it.

The hardest part was coming back after the 3 day weekend, it always felt like coming back from vacation.

tasogare• 6 years ago

If were an a 4 day week I would like to have Wednesday free instead of Friday.

ropiwqefjnpoa2• 6 years ago

That or a floating day.

rabidrat• 6 years ago

I thought so too, but it turned out for me that having a 'break' in the middle of the week interrupted my work momentum, and I also never got the luxurious feeling of a 3-day weekend. 4+/3- worked a lot better for me (both work-wise and emotionally) than 2+/1-/2+/2-.

gdubs• 6 years ago

When the 40 hour workweek was first proposed, doomsayers said it would be the end of the American economy. The opposite happened, and as injuries and illness decreased, productivity increased. [1]

Something to keep in mind, as it’s counterintuitive and the instinct is to say, “that can never happen here”, or, “it’ll never work.”

1: Robert Gordon, “The Rise and Fall is American Growth”

mortenjorck• 6 years ago

I'm genuinely impressed that the Overton window on hours seems to have changed since the last time the 4-day work week was in the headlines.

Not that long ago, it was unquestioned that four days meant 4x10. It was simply unthinkable that we would consider less than forty hours "full time." I even skipped this article initially, expecting it to have the same assumptions! And yet, they specifically report that Shake Shack cut back to 32 hours without cutting pay.

I would have expected service-sector jobs to be the last to see something like this. And if a burger chain can do it, an office where we spend 40 hours in a combination of productivity and reading HN can absolutely do it.

wasdfff2• 6 years ago

Service sector does not want you working 40 hours a week for benefits purposes.

Ididntdothis9• 6 years ago

It seems a lot of these experiments are a success. But after a while somebody gets greedy and thinks “we get good productivity at 32 hours. I wonder how much more we could get at 40 hours?” And soon you are back at the old schedule.

Something similar happened at my company. For once a project was ahead of schedule. So instead of thinking that the system worked well and keep working in relaxed manner management decided to “pull in” the deadline and suddenly the project was a death march again.

For some people it’s hard to accept that relaxed people are productive. They want to see stress and overtime or they will think that people are underperforming.

toper-centage• 6 years ago

Is it not also the responsibility of employees to ask for that benefit? Specially developers have that leverage. We have the ability of changing the whole job landscape.

ahoy• 6 years ago

Sounds like labor organizing, and yes, its the best way to ensure you say some say in what your work-life looks like.

castlecrasher2• 6 years ago

Is it not also the responsibility of employees to ask for that benefit?

I've been on both sides of this equation and yes employees have a responsibility to speak up, but given the dynamic of the relationship it's easy to see why they wouldn't. If managers aren't interested in listening then speaking up can just get you on their bad side.

Ididntdothis9• 6 years ago

The usual path for this are unions.

postsantum2• 6 years ago

I agree. This is our duty to push for normalizing reduced work hours and remote work

kody7• 6 years ago

I agree that it's hard for some people (managers) to see a relaxed, happy person and believe that they're also totally productive.

I don't blame them either; I feel like the image of overly-caffeinated, stressed-out people is embedded in our collective consciousness as representative of High Productivity and our lizard brains can't seem to be able to reconcile that with the data that is saying "relaxed people who make enough money, are treated well, and have the freedom to live satisfactory lives outside the office will most probably be more productive, focused, and effective at work."

bluntfang• 6 years ago

I feel like the image of overly-caffeinated, stressed-out people is embedded in our collective consciousness as representative of High Productivity

Don't forget about the over prescription of amphetamines. I knew I was in a bad place when all the "high performers" (according to management) all had darting eye, chewed gum all day, and were underweight/never ate during the work day.

dnh44• 6 years ago

If it works for chickens I don't see why it can't work for people. Companies could brand themselves as "Free Range"

Happy workers lay nicer eggs!

AWildC182• 6 years ago

It's as if killing the golden goose is a tale as old as time...

burnte4• 6 years ago

we get good productivity at 32 hours. I wonder how much more we could get at 40 hours?

Usually 4 days a week means 4 ten hour days, not 4 eight hour days. Hence the phrase "four tens".

culopatin• 6 years ago

In the article they are discussing the 32h week though

nfriedly• 6 years ago

In my mind "4 day work week" means "4x8 hours", and "4 tens" means "4x10 hours". I have family that works 4x10 hours, and they usually refer to it as "4 tens".

It looks like some people go either way, though. Quote from the article:

Many employers aren't just moving to 10-hour shifts, four days a week, as companies like Shake Shack are doing; they're going to a 32-hour week — without cutting pay.

ChrisMarshallNY3• 6 years ago

I was a development manager for years, for a Japanese company.

The Japanese are type A++ (at least, in Tokyo). They are masters at applying stress across the Pacific.

As a manager, it was my job to insulate my team from the stress, and I often took the hit for telling my bosses that I wasn't going to push my people harder than they already were working.

It seemed to work out in the end. When they finally rolled up my team, I had been managing it for 25 years, and the person with the least seniority in my team had a decade with the company.

It's a whole different world, out there, now. I had a manager at a startup tell me that conventional management assumes that engineers will only stay at a company for 18 months, so they really pile on the stress.

I can't even imagine that. There were a lot of downsides to working with the corporation that I worked for, but they treated us all with a great deal of respect, and made it possible for me to keep valuable, senior-level C++ developers for decades; despite rather sub-optimal pay, and a not-so-thrilling work environment.

andrekandre• 6 years ago

I had a manager at a startup tell me that conventional management assumes that engineers will only stay at a company for 18 months, so they really pile on the stress

which is ironic, because isn’t that why people stay less and less longer at a company (can’t stand the slog)?

danbolt2• 6 years ago

Game development has a degree of notoriety for its working conditions and I’ve noticed a similar management style to yours appear subtly in certain teams here and there. The turnover is much lower, although the work tends to be less glamorized. I think it works well for the older programmers that have started families.

bumby2• 6 years ago

Anecdotal, but I’ve experienced the opposite where the greed seemed to come more from fellow employees rather than managers. Five day weeks meant breakfast breaks as soon as the group came in on Friday, long lunches, and people mentally checking out early. When we switched to shorter weeks this just shifted to Thursday. After productivity was hurting management was met with a near mutiny attitude at the thought of going back to 5 day weeks.

Point being, I think there’s something to be said for company culture in making this work

asdfman123• 6 years ago

There are two types of companies: those that value presenteeism and those that actually value things getting done.

Yes, I imagine in the first type of company people would continue to slack, but just do it fewer days a week.

m3kw9• 6 years ago

It didn’t happen when we had weekends. But they workaholics or pressure will have them work weekends. The 4 day week seem moot point in that regard. The other issue come up later on when people get used to 4 day work week is that they eventually have chores that can’t be done in 3 day weekends. Sort of like the rule where if you give x amount of time fir a task, you will likely use all of it.

NaOH• 6 years ago

For some people it’s hard to accept that relaxed people are productive.

Just look at how U.S. culture treats service workers. We best be seated on time for our dinner reservation. No one should wait 15 minutes for their hotel check-in because housekeeping isn't done yet. Oh, and that coffee was ordered nearly 5 minutes ago. And the plumber was supposed to be here at 8.

Your concerns about greed extend well beyond worker productivity. It appears to be the logical extension of believing the individual is sacrosanct.

jawns• 6 years ago

All of those examples you offer sound like management issues rather than issues with the service people themselves.

If I make a dinner reservation, my expectation is that the restaurant knows what the crowd will be like at that time and has scheduled enough staff to handle it.

Similarly, if the plumbing company says the plumber will be here at 8, it is totally reasonable to expect him to be here by 8, or they shouldn't say he'll be here at 8. If there's too much uncertainty in his schedule to give a specific time, the company's scheduler should instead be giving blocks of time.

One example of treatment of service workers that actually does reflect their own performance rather than resource allocation / scheduling issues is expecting them to always be doing _something_. I used to work in retail, and if there were no customers in our department, heaven help us if our managers caught us just standing around chit-chatting. We needed to be wiping windows, no matter if we'd just wiped them an hour ago, or tidying stock, no matter if it was already in pristine condition. I see the same thing with restaurant waitstaff. Both management and customers expect to see them always on the move, even if their tables don't necessarily need anything at the moment.

kody7• 6 years ago

I worked 4x10s when I worked for the Army and it was awesome. 3 day weekends take off so much pressure, and come Sunday night I was starting to feel the itch to get back into work rather than the dreadful feeling that I 'wasted' my weekend. The only work experience that was better than this was 100% flexibility to work remotely and/or flex hours.

So there's my anecdata for you :)

clSTophEjUdRanu2• 6 years ago

I worked 9 hour days with every other Friday off and hated it.

kody7• 6 years ago

Yeah that sounds way too inconsistent on a weekly basis for me

sithlord• 6 years ago

and still on average > 80 hours every 2 weeks.

standardUser3• 6 years ago

10 hours really seems extreme. I am certain that the vast majority of office workers could produce the same level of output at a 4x9 schedule as they do in a 5x8 or would in a 4x10.

And most would be profoundly happier people.

burnte4• 6 years ago

The vast majority of people I know who can do four 10s love it, and find the 10 hour days aren't really much different then the 8s. I'd love it if I could do four 10s, but in a company that does 24/7 healthcare, that's not an option for support staff like IT, not even at my level.

kody7• 6 years ago

Oh for sure. I'd bet that people working 4x9s or even 4x8s are equally/more productive as 4x10s and 5x8s and are happier. But if I'm choosing between 4x10 and 5x8 I'd take 4x10 any day.

techslave• 6 years ago

really? HN crowd is talking about 10 hr days as “exhausting” ? i can’t remember the last time i worked less than 5x10.

monknomo2• 6 years ago

4x10s are tough for me, but the 5-4-9 plan (5 9 hour days one week, 3 nine hour days the next week followed by one 8 hour day - basically alternating 3 day weekends) are pretty nice in my book

stan_rogers• 6 years ago

My best schedule ever was also military, but it was 7-3-7-4: 7 8-hour "afternoon shift" days, then 3 days off, then 7 8-hour "day shift" days followed by 4 days off. The 3-day time off was Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday, and the 4-day was Friday through Monday - and because you were getting off the early shift and going onto the late shift, it seemed like a longer break. Of course, that implies shift work and three crews for 16-hour/7 day coverage. (The "graveyard shift" was a skeleton crew, and your turn would pop up every four months or so. Air force. It was basically for emergency landings for civil and allied aircraft and such, with some swabbing of the decks for busy work.) The work week was long, but there was plenty of time to get stuff done and to wind down. Hell, you could even cram in a weekend getaway without a lot of stress.

hinkley2• 6 years ago

Many of us work in spaces where servers are expected to be working and running 24/7. Yet our bosses still want every single employee to have butts in seats 9:00 am to 5 pm, 5 days a week and in the same time zone. Sometimes with a little guilt-tripping on the side for taking sick days and vacation.

Wouldn't we be better off with several shifts, 4 days a week, covering Monday through Saturday or even the entire week?

wolco3• 6 years ago

Mature places have this with a global workforce.

Not so mature places put 9-5ers on call with a tiny bump in pay.

hawaiianbrah• 6 years ago

And the least mature do it without a bump at all!

greedo• 6 years ago

My org has been around for over 150 years, and our IT department expects admins to take a rotating week of oncall. Not only are you expected on call with a 10 minutes response time, but you're expected to do your normal day to day operations/projects. And during normal business hours, a ton of extra stuff gets dumped into the lap of the oncall person, because why not?

My boss describes this as everyone's turn in the barrel, and part of working in IT. There's nothing more demoralizing for my coworkers than being on call. Well, maybe having our tickets be the metric we're evaluated by.

mjayhn2• 6 years ago

I can't begin to explain how much less stress I encounter in day to day life having just one week day to stay home. Just having a day to be able to easily knock out chores between Jira issues; drop the car off at the dealer, sell something on craigslist, complete a house project, go to the dentist, meet the handyman, go to the bank, etc is so nice.

All of these things wind up on the back burner when I'm in the middle of high stress projects and forced to sit at a desk for 8-10 hours a day.

All that does is lead to more stress because now I'm falling behind on my life tasks and have to burn a weekend catching up when I should be able to spend that weekend de-stressing.

I know not everyone is as sapped for energy as I am after work, I hate that I'm this way. But after leaving work and siting in an hour of traffic my energy is just sapped from me by the time I make it home. I have enough energy to feed myself and sometimes work out to maintain my health..

volkk• 6 years ago

I know not everyone is as sapped for energy as I am after work, but I leave work and sit in an hour of traffic. My energy is just sapped from me by the time I make it home. I have enough energy to feed myself and sometimes work out to maintain my health..

I know that some people just dont have the privilege of living close to their jobs, but after spending one internship getting up at 5;45am to drive with my dad to work to beat the traffic for 1hr, and then spending 1.5-2 hours driving back in heavy traffic in NYC, I vowed to never ever live in a place where I have to drive that far to get to work. 2 months of that and I was already losing my will to live. My dad did it for 15 years and I can see why towards the last leg of that job, he was bitter and angry on a daily basis. That is not a way to live.

tombert7• 6 years ago

I live in NYC, and I have a roughly 1 hour commute each way, but I just take the train everywhere.

Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that taking a train to work is a lot less stressful than driving every day. At least on the train, I can read, or pull out my laptop, or just play a video game.

mjayhn2• 6 years ago

Yeah that definitely helps!

Unfortunately I think I'd still need a few hours to unwind and get out of "work mode." I've worked jobs where I could actually walk to work and I still went home just drained. TBH, I'm an introvert and I'm not sure going in to the office will ever be really conducive to my personality.

I've worked jobs where I had an office to go to when I needed/wanted to be there but could work from home or at a clients office. That was wonderful. I actually showed up to it much, much more often than I expected - by pure choice. If I was having an off day or felt especially introverted and just needed a break from people I could just knock things out at home!

kbenson2• 6 years ago

There are ways to work around the system around metro hubs that tries to push you towards the standard of commuting 2 hours or more each day to get to a higher paying job, but you have to search for them and be flexible yourself in your search for a job that's flexible.

These days, it's likely semi-remote work, where you commute 1-3 days a week or in off hours (part of day at home, part at work). For me, I've been lucky enough to always find something that I found interesting and that pays well enough while not having to commute more than 10-20 minutes in the local area, and that's having been born, raised, and lived my entire life 45 minutes North of SF.

There's not guaranteed to be something good in the borderlands, but I think people might be surprised what they could find if they can resist the call of the behemoths (and those that congregate in the same area) while being within throwing range of them.

nickbauman2• 6 years ago

I changed my life so my work is 6 blocks from home. I will never go back. No realistic amount of money will ever be worth a commute. I consider commuting a form of incarceration.

tentboy• 6 years ago

I think there is a happy medium too, and you don't need to live across the street from your job. I really like my job - which is located in the suburbs outside of DC but I wanted to live closer to the city so I have metro access and can easily bike around the city.

I could easily get a nice place walking distance from work but my 30 minute commute (pretty much against traffic so not stressful) allows me to enjoy my time after work and the weekends much more than I would from the extra time from a short commute. I also enjoy driving and listening to music in my car so maybe thats part of it too

anonsivalley652• 6 years ago

Exactly. Work someplace else cheaper/less dense, remotely or get the tiniest, rathole, walkup closet where there's only a refrigerator and a tub, and you can't open the frig to open the door (but at least you can drink OJ from the carton while in the tub;). The people who commute by plane, 1-2 hours each way, or 100-200 miles daily are phreak'n outside of their skulls looking in.

werber• 6 years ago

I quit my last job because of the commute, gave up driving completely this year, and got a job in walking distance of my home. That part alone has made me a significantly happier person, I was able to stop taking anti anxiety medication, I have time for social activities, I have time for my friends and family again. I could never go back to driving to the office

fjp• 6 years ago

Agreed, the one thing I have promised myself is to never have a commute over 35 minutes. I even found a 35 minute commute to an internship in the suburbs disheartening when it was mostly spent sitting in traffic.

It's insane to waste that much of your daily life shuttling to your job (if you have an option, which I hope to remain lucky enough to have).

nine_k• 6 years ago

I work in NYC. My commute from Brooklyn in now about 30 minutes, 20 of them on a train, the rest is walking and waiting on a station. It's the shortest and least stressful commute I ever had among several cities I lived. Dense cities have upsides when you live inside them.

thorwasdfasdf• 6 years ago

What's crazy is that you see regulation on minimum number of parking spaces for nearly any kind of building type and yet for working buildings, there's absolutely 0 regulations on minimum number of places to live. So, what happens is there's a huge imbalance between number of jobs offered vs places to live, thus driving up the cost of housing unnecessarily.

It's almost as if they designed cities to only be driven too without any thought given on how to place living spaces closer to working spaces.

ratsimihah• 6 years ago

I've always prioritized living close to work and making my commute a 10mn walk. It's such a quality of life improvement, but I understand it can't be done by everyone.

Since I lived and NYC and London, living near work often meant living in busy and noisy city areas, but it's a compromise I've generally been happy with.

burnJS• 6 years ago

Even if your commute is only 30 minutes, that is 5 hours lost a week roundtrip. An hour commute? Say goodbye to 10 hours a week. Yuck. Thankfully I have never had a long commute, my current commute is a 10-minute bike ride.

Additionally, every company should provide at least one work from home day. Having a day at home where you can do laundry while working and other minor chores are such a huge win. Not to mention sleep-in to 830 if I want. Even while doing these mini chores I am WAY more productive at home. It also breaks up your week. My WFH day is Tuesday. So I deal with Monday, then have that cushy WFH day, then when I come back on Wednesday it feels like just a 3 day work week. Friday is casual and most employees take Friday to WFH. Its a ghost town and I love it.

I need to begin looking for one of these dank jobs that are truly a four-day work week though.

wonderwonder2• 6 years ago

Long commutes are pretty terrible. Often times though parents are forced to choose between a long commute to their place of work but sending their kids to a good school zone vs the alternative. Unfortunately funding school zones based on property taxes leads to vast disparity in their quality and their ability to provide for students. The result for many is having to choose a long commute.

With that said I commuted for just over an hour+ each way in a sports car pre kids for 3 years and I never want a low car again. Give me a comfortable SUV / sedan any day now.

golergka• 6 years ago

Renting in a 5-minute walk distance from the office have been, by far, best investment I've made in my life.

Even though it's a small studio apartment, saving two hours of stress per day is heaven-sent for someone with low energy and chronic depression like me. It's like life switched to easy mode all of a sudden. The only downside is, I can't manage to schedule a time to read books – subways and trains were ideal for it.

Cyph0n• 6 years ago

I feel exactly the same when it comes to energy, even though I live ~10 mins from work...

As far as work schedule goes, my company/team is fairly flexible when it comes to WFH. However, I still operate in "work mode" while at home, which makes it difficult to take of chores, etc.

rverghese• 6 years ago

But doesn't this rely on everyone else working 5 days?

If everyone had a 4-week, it would be just like the current weekend. You can't go to the bank or dentist, because they would also be off.

Perhaps you could get the same effect and quality of life by taking Sunday and Monday as your days off and working Saturday.

jonny_eh• 6 years ago

Maybe people could take different "3rd" days off?

cocomittens• 6 years ago

Maybe different employees could have a different day off so that the business can still run unless there is only one individual that can do that particular job. I think that would work for at least 95%

elicash• 6 years ago

Another example:

My dad is a letter carrier. He's off Sunday and then has a floating day off that changes each week. (Scheduled far in advance.)

mdorazio• 6 years ago

Exactly right. The best alternative I've seen implemented at companies is 9/80 where employees get every other Friday or Monday off, and half the employees get one week while half get the next. That way you still get an extra 2 useful days a month to get stuff done at home, but companies themselves are able to continue working 5 days a week.

cortesoft2• 6 years ago

It is an especially big deal for working parents... having a day when kids are at school/daycare to do chores and errands is huge... so many things are impossible to do when you are chasing kids around. I get way more done on a weekday home than a weekend.

calvinmorrison• 6 years ago

how about single working adults? I have to literally take off of work to go to the DMV.

senderista• 6 years ago

This. I literally cannot get anything done on the weekends unless the inlaws stay over to look after our 2 toddlers. As the kids get older I'm sure it'll get easier.

david-gpu2• 6 years ago

Just having a day to be able to easily knock out chores between Jira issues

This seems to conflate working from home with having time off. Is your employer paying you to work on that day or not?

I work four days a week (30 hours). On my days off, I do not work at all. On my days on, I do not do random house chores during office hours. That's what my employer and I agreed to, and I think it describes what most people understand as a four day workweek.

Aeolun• 6 years ago

You can do chores during your workday if your workday extends by a similar amount of time. That’s basically the definition of flextime, and I’ve never heard of work from home without flex (how would you check).

systemtest2• 6 years ago

I did it a bit different. For 2020, working four days gives me 204 workable days per year. Working five days gives me 255 workable days per year.

What I do is that I work five days a week and around June-July I take ten weeks off. I have the same amount of working days per year with the same income but it feels like a godsend to have a yearly sabbatical of over 2 months during the best weather of the year. It reminds me of being in school again with the long summer holidays.

If I ever have children that means being with them for six weeks fully dedicated to them.

msds• 6 years ago

I do this too, but split between 5 weeks in the summer for PNW alpine climbing and 5 weeks in the winter for desert stuff in the SW, plus normal vacation for long weekend climbing trips and the obligatory holidays.

If I had children, taking the summer off with them seems great - it's a shame their vacation policy isn't flexible...

erik_landerholm• 6 years ago

Do you actually like your job? I don't mean any disrespect, but I've had jobs I don't really like and I get where you are coming from. Right now, though and at other times, since I've had my own companies, 6 day work weeks and 10-12 hrs a day was not even an issue. I feel like if people go to 4 day work weeks, people that love their jobs and are willing to work 1.5times as much or more will have a huge advantage over the long haul.

mnicky• 6 years ago

At my team, we recently established a rule that during Friday you can work on anything work-related you want (e.g. it doesn't have to be something from the actual sprint etc). Similar to the old Google "20% for your projects" kind of a thing.

I expected that lots of useful or interesting things will be made during that time, which is true. But for me, the most beneficial effect is that my enjoyment of my work (which previously wasn't bad - I really liked my work) increased a lot.

So this can be another way how to boost your job enjoyment.

GordonS3• 6 years ago

Around 5 years back, I went from 5 days a week to 4, taking a 20% paycut in the process.

It was one of the best decisions I've ever made - it feels like I have so much more time for family, side projects and hobbies than I ever did before. And for reference, I work around 90% from home.

TBH, the company I work for has got a pretty good deal out of this, as I'm sure my productivity hasn't dropped at all. (it's a mega corp, so there is zero chance of negotiating back to equivalent of a 5-day salary)

guntars• 6 years ago

It's a 20% paycut, but a 50% increase in free time! I'm doing the same thing btw, taking every Wednesday off and I love it - it breaks up the week and having the whole extra day for fun projects is totally worth the money to me.

glenneroo3• 6 years ago

A few years ago I seriously contemplated changing professions, so my boss allowed me to switch from full-time to 20 hours/week spread across 2-3 days. One immediate upside was that I only took a ~35% paycut due to being in a different tax bracket. As I dove deeper into my new career, I realized it wasn't for me, so I stayed at my old job... and now I can't imagine ever going back to full-time, as my quality of life has risen exponentially and I finally have enough time and energy for my never-ending list of hobbies and side-projects.

gentleman112• 6 years ago

How did you find a part time seng job? I’ve never seen one in my life. It’s all full time and contract work

davidajackson• 6 years ago

This is why I recently started doing remote work. I just can't justify commuting/time it takes to go somewhere 30+ minutes away.

bytematic• 6 years ago

It's interesting how many of those things rely on certain businesses being open 5 days a week at least.

Eoan• 6 years ago

Obligatory link to solution that would let working less be something that would not deserve a news story: https://i.imgur.com/ia2s7AM.png

axaxs• 6 years ago

Honestly, it just sounds like your job is too stressful. I work 5 days a week, sometimes more, but nobody bats an eye if I need to go somewhere 2 or 3 hours in the middle of the day. I much prefer this to 4 full time days. 5 days of less stress gives you more availability and more flexibility at the same time. I feel it's what we should really be striving for.

grappler• 6 years ago

Seconding this, but particularly and especially for tasks that have to be done during normal business hours. If there's some issue I have that requires calling some customer service number, it often gets put off for days or even weeks before I manage to fit it in.

sky_rw• 6 years ago

I encourage everybody to work as little as possible, that way the competition for me is lower.

postsantum2• 6 years ago

Many people optimize for life quality, they are not competing with you

amyjess2• 6 years ago

Going down to a 32-hour workweek would be lovely, but I'm simply not interested in doing 4×10. I'd rather get home at a decent hour than have an extra day off.

echelon3• 6 years ago

To each their own. My work week is spent on work and I can't really enjoy the time before or after work. I'll never enjoy M-F.

I'd rather have a 4x10 than a 5x8.

If my side hustle ever graduates into a startup and I start hiring other people, we're doing 4x10 or 4x9.

domingobingo• 6 years ago

What's the nature of the side hustle if you don't mind me asking?

SuoDuanDao• 6 years ago

I wonder whether the benefits decrease when the whole team does 4X10 - I found when I did 4X10 that I was much more productive for the two hours I was alone in the office. Of course, no saying everyone has to work the same 4X10.

wobblykiwi• 6 years ago

Why not try a 4x8?

TrueGeek• 6 years ago

Why not let your employees choose? From what I’ve seen single people love 4x10, people with kids don’t. 2 extra hours a day means my kid can’t possibly make it to practice in time 4 days a week.

gpanders3• 6 years ago

I work from 7-5 each day, so even when I go to the gym or run a quick errand after work I can be home by 6, which strikes me as a "decent hour", although I suppose that's subjective.

Waking up at 6am takes getting used to but isn't unreasonable in my opinion.

amyjess2• 6 years ago

It's pretty much impossible for me to go to sleep any earlier than 2am, so getting to work at 7 would require me to only get a couple of hours of sleep at night, which isn't nearly enough for me to function on.

decebalus13• 6 years ago

If during rush hour you can leave work at 5 then do a workout or an errand to get home by 6, then you either live in a village or you're a winged animal.

chadlavi3• 6 years ago

As knowledge workers (I'm assuming), I feel strongly that the number of hours we spend at work has little correlation to the amount of value we deliver. I could easily get the same amount of value delivered in 4 7-hour days that I currently do in 5 8-ish hour ones. I'm only forced to hang out at work for a certain set of hours because of... tradition I guess?

firstplacelast• 6 years ago

I work for a start-up that is non-VC funded, I work 5 days a week, but I’m only in the office 5-6 hours a day (there are some weeks where things are very busy and it’s not the case) and I occasionally work a few hours on the weekend.

They’re only concerned with results and it’s a slow growing business, I am however extremely underpaid.

Getting ready to take the jump to a new job with a 70% pay increase, but the last few years my life has been sweet (besides living in a very shitty apartment).

ClikeX• 6 years ago

4x10 would be fine by me if I'd live 10 minutes from work. But I don't think my dog would appreciate being left without a walk for 12 hours.

On 32 hours now and I can handle it financially. As long as that stays the way it is I'm not changing anything.

OldGuyInTheClub• 6 years ago

9/80 schedules are common in my industry. We are paid based on 80 hours/2 weeks. Week 1 is 36 hours (4 days x 9 hrs/day) and the Friday is off. Week 2 is 44 hours (4 days x 9 hrs/day, 1 8 hr Friday). There's flexibility around this with management approval.

I think most people like this arrangement, especially those with long commutes. A full free day for appointments, errands, or just relaxing can be a big help.

tombert7• 6 years ago

I remember when I interned at Lockheed Martin forever ago, they had a system where you normally work 9-hour days (8 on Fridays), and as a result had every other Friday off. It equated to a 80 hours for every two weeks, and it was really nice if you ever had to go to the bank or DMV (which are typically only open during weekdays).

I always wondered why this wasn't more popular.

aetherson• 6 years ago

Popularly known as the 9-80 schedule. My wife has it, it's really nice to get the Friday off but it makes it rough for her to be at all involved in picking up/dropping off the kids (which is hard even with a normal 8 hour day).

clSTophEjUdRanu2• 6 years ago

Why is this so common in defense?

tombert7• 6 years ago

What? I was just saying that I liked that system, I wasn't trying to engage in any kind of real apologia.

monknomo2• 6 years ago

It's a standard federal employee option. They pretty often get straight 8s, 5-7-9 or 4x10s as they possible schedule options

om42• 6 years ago

9/80 schedules are more popular in defense, at least from what I've seen. There's some unintended consequences (to me) of it. PTO/holidays can get weird, do you get 9 hours of paid time? Do you get 8 and shift your hours? Its mostly a problem when teams have a mix systems and there isn't a standard.

When I was at LM a few years ago, some teams were on a different 9/80 pattern (different Fridays off), and some still on the regular 10/80 schedule. So on Fridays you basically had significantly less people in the office and it was never the person you needed to get work done. Basically made Monday to Thursday the regular working week with Friday being there if you really needed to get work done.

Think the different schedules was a combination of LM employees, employees that were in the union, and external contractors having different contract requirements.

hylaride3• 6 years ago

In Canada I’ve seen this at large companies over the summers for white collar workers.

k__5• 6 years ago

I'm from Germany and none of my friends works 40h anymore.

They're all down to 50-80%

This is even regulated by the law, your employer has to allow you to reduce your work time, only in some extreme cases they can deny it.

Works like a charm.

frockington12• 6 years ago

I like the idea of working less, but it's going to be hard to use Germany as a poster child. The German economy hasn't been doing to great recently. In my opinion it's largely due to carrying lagging EU economies, but it will be hard to use a struggling economy as a positive indicator

Germany: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-growth US: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth

standardUser3• 6 years ago

The German standard of living is exceptional. Abstract worries about "the economy not doing too well" don't really matter until the standard of living declines in some meaningful way for a lot of people.

Owners demand perpetual growth. People demand comfortable lives and occasional vacations. Most achieve that in Germany. There probably isn't a single better "poster child" of a prosperous society with anywhere near the same population.

devmunchies2• 6 years ago

GDP growth is not indicative of a higher standard of living. It just means more things are part of the economy.

If I grow my own food and play board games with my family, it doesn't boost the GDP. However, if I go to MacDonald's and then send my kids to daycare while I go to the movies (3 economic transactions), it increases the GDP since those services are now commoditized.

Increasing the GDP might boost the standard of living in really poor countries, but there's a healthy ceiling until it becomes growth for the sake of growth.

fogetti2• 6 years ago

I am curious. Where do they work? What do they do?

Ididntdothis9• 6 years ago

My family is in Germany and a lot of them also work shorter hours. This works for all kind of jobs including upper management and specialist jobs . It’s a misconception that some jobs require 40+ hour work weeks. When the 40 hour workweek was introduced a lot of people also thought that the economy would crash and it worked out just fine.

k__5• 6 years ago

Accountant, marketeer, developer, nurse, optometrist, barkeeper

kuu• 6 years ago

Do you also get paid a 50-80%?

zhdc12• 6 years ago

Salary is set at a 100% baseline, but your contract is fixed at a certain percentage (usually 80% or 60%) and your salary and working hours are adjusted accordingly.

Employees are generally not expected to work beyond that amount, and when they do, it's with the understanding that they can go around and reduce their working hours the following week (or whenever works for them & their manager) to cover the delta.

k__5• 6 years ago

Yes, but since the taxes aren't linear (less pay equals less tax %) you usually end up with more money per hour.

Some of my friends even got an indirect raise out of it, because employers couldn't pay more, so they worked less for the same pay.

sib2• 6 years ago

Is there an English-language description of this law anywhere online? I couldn't find it and would love to learn more. Thanks!

k__5• 6 years ago

https://www.mayr-arbeitsrecht.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/...

systemtest2• 6 years ago

What about your pension or your company car? If you work an extra day in the week 100% of that money can go straight to your pension, giving you 10 years of early retirement.

k__5• 6 years ago

Sure.

Either you get free time when you're young or you have to work longer.

IkmoIkmo• 6 years ago

Indeed, my employer (Netherlands) is also quite flexible here. Problem is that it almost always comes at the cost of promotions. I've never seen someone who works parttime get promoted. Everyone who gets promoted works full-time.

In other words, going part-time is a commitment to the job-level you're in, in my experience. It signals to management you're good, reliable, ready to stay in that position perpetually and do a decent job, but not up for anything ambitious. Whether this is true is a different story, but it's how in my experience it gets interpreted.

That works fine if you're a 45 year old parent making 2x the median wage in a mid-level manager position working 36 hours (one week 5 days one week 4 days), 32 hours (4 days a week) etc, because your salary doesn't need to grow, plus even at parttime its sufficient. But at the start of your career making 70% of the median wage, going parttime both hurts career growth and isn't always financially feasible.

Mountain_Skies• 6 years ago

Some of our hourly employees are on a 4x10 schedule. One wrinkle that has come up is for holidays and vacation days, which are paid at 8 hours each. The 4x10 employees end up being two hours short each paid day off. The company won't change it to ten hours as that is unfair to the 5x8 employees. Maybe if 4x10 became the standard, they would.

jacquesm3• 6 years ago

It's interesting to note that in Europe that 32 hour workweek is fairly standard and nobody would even bat an eye or think this is special in any way.

https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/11/working-hours.html

fogetti2• 6 years ago

Is it though? I worked in 4 different jobs across 2 different countries and this was unheard of. Not even a single one of my friends do this.

nagyf• 6 years ago

Source for this? I'm from Europe and I have friends working in 2-3 different countries in Europe, but 32 hour workweek is not standard anywhere. Never even heard of such a thing being standard in Europe.

zhdc12• 6 years ago

Germany and Switzerland, at least. I can't speak for other countries, but at least where I'm at, most folks are on an 80% contract (four days a week) and enjoying it.

jacquesm3• 6 years ago

It depends on the country. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, NL, Germany, Switzerland, France.

Others probably less so, depending on how well the economy is and general attitude towards workers rights. Eastern Europe much less so, in some cases (Romania, Bulgaria) conditions are still terrible.

blablabla123• 6 years ago

In Germany at least in large Corporations it's a standard thing and it's possible to choose when starting there. (At least for "normal" positions) But it also seems that more and more startups are open for it, at least those which are a bit more niche.

And of course outside of the IT world in Germany, there's a lot of part-time work going on...

TrackerFF• 6 years ago

Here in Norway it is 37.5 hours of paid work / week.

Our finance minister recently had a hissy fit over the idea of shortening the work week, arguing that if we got rid of 3.5 hours a week (i.e down to 34 hr. weeks) we'd lose out on tens of billions in tax revenue.

ocdtrekkie• 6 years ago

I feel like I'd probably be as-effective with a four-day work week. I monitor and respond to issues when I'm at home anyways. But I think it'll still be a while until this becomes substantially more popular.

At a previous job I was furloughed one day a week for a while, and it was definitely time I enjoyed having available, I just wasn't fond of the 20% pay cut that went with it.

mikkergp• 6 years ago

I don't know if I'm pro a 4-day work week, (I'm personally not for it if it's 4x10 instead of 5x8)

But I'm reading the book [peak performance](https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Performance-Elevate-Burnout-Scie...) (Highly recommended) and I generally think that companies should really encourage those employees to work at a schedule that works best for them (This is obviously harder for shift work where the value comes from having a person in a chair at certain times)

We have all these norms about 8 hour days, and 5 day weeks and not sleeping at work, and I think people should be given the freedom to work in the way that works best for them.

One norm I'm trying to get used to breaking right now is the norm about "sleeping at work". I would be much more productive if I napped for 15 or so minutes twice a day. I know that when it comes to coding or writing I could get a ton done in a 3-4 1-hour-sessions day if those 3-4 hours were clear, well defined and rested. I could get much more done in "3-4 hours" than an "8 hour day" with meetings and other administrivia thrown in. I'd guess my optimal work week is somewhere around 26 hours, assuming that the space between those 26 hours is spent resting and focusing and getting ready to work hard those 26 hours.

Darkphibre2• 6 years ago

Nap time adds to productivity

Amen to this! I pushed for, and saw implemented, a dual nap room for our studio. It was used around the clock by people stretching, meditating, and napping. I found a huge productivity spike taking out 20 minutes a day.

Then, we hired a bunch more people for the upcoming launch, and it was re-purposed into a storage room for old rack hardware (I pushed against this, but was told it was a temporarily unavoidable allocation for the space... meanwhile, the dedicated Lego room sits unused 38 hours a week). So we lost the nap room right as we enter our year of crunch.

Boggles the mind.

Ah well. Have an interesting read on recent research into the commonality of four (rather than two) chronotypes (which I'd used in laying out my position): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691...

sloppycee• 6 years ago

Most children stop napping around four years old.

Maybe there's a deeper problem at your job if people need a nap room. Just get more sleep at home, you're not being paid to sleep.

btw, a 'dedicated lego room' sounds like another symptom of a toxic infantilizing culture that eats confidence and breeds reliance.

cft• 6 years ago

Karl Marx saw it as of vital importance to the workers' health, writing in Das Kapital (1867): "By extending the working day, therefore, capitalist production...not only produces a deterioration of human labour power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labour power itself."

blobbers2• 6 years ago

"Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is backing a parliamentary proposal to shift to a four-day week." -- with all the Russian meddling in the U.S.A., maybe they can get this pushed through!

Jokes aside, I would love this. Right now in tech asking for this sort of thing feels like a 'career limiting move', and definitely in a hiring situation could label you as 'not a hard worker' despite your emphasis on efficiency and productive hours.

blackearl• 6 years ago

If not career limiting, pay limiting. I'd worry that I suddenly get a 20% cut in salary

philshem• 6 years ago

I consider it a 20% bump in time.

edit: or is it 25%?!

brozaman• 6 years ago

In Spain it's somewhat common to do 9 hours Monday to Thursday and only working 4 hours on Friday. Unfortunately I only worked for a company that did this only for one year, but it is the one thing I miss of this company.

Personally, I'm reluctant to the 4x10, but doing 4x9 and 1x4 was simply awesome, plus you could get a 3 day weekend by just spending half day of vacation.

jt2190• 6 years ago

Counter-point, from the article:

Natalie Nagele, co-founder and CEO of Wildbit, has heard from other leaders who say it didn't work for them. She says it fails when employees aren't motivated and where managers don't trust employees.

Also it would be good to keep in mind the Hawthorne Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect#History

chadlavi3• 6 years ago

it fails when employees aren't motivated and where managers don't trust employees

I'd counter that _anything_ (including the standard 5x8 schedule) will fail in those conditions.

gist• 6 years ago

'More bosses give 4 day workweek a try'. How weak is that? What does 'more' mean anyway? .001 more? 40% more. Of course there is no answer to that. What about 'more bosses think wearing blue shirts in the office is fine' (Everyone would laugh at that right on the surface right and say 'how many exactly percentage wise'?

Unclear why people seem to think there needs to be some kind of 'one size fits all' approach. If a job is such that 32 hours works fine. If it's not fine. And the media saying things like 'a move toward' and 'more companies are' when clearly there is no significant push in this area appears to be just some kind of evergreen story to sell advertising. Media does this frequently. Keys are statements not backed up by anything but anecdotes such as 'and questions are being raised' and so on. That one 'questions are being asked' is literally a nightly occurrence on network news broadcasts (says me using the same technique but it is happening).

Guess what? Some people don't mind working 5 days. Some people like working 7 days. Some people would rather sit and not work at all. Everyone is different.

kosii• 6 years ago

I'm a software engineer, I started working 4 days/32 hours per week about a month ago, and I couldn't be happier :)

perfunctory3• 6 years ago

I started working 4 days/32 hours I think about a decade ago. Never looked back.

tren2• 6 years ago

I was 4 days 32 hours for 7 years, now I do 3 days 24 hours. It has allowed me to spend time a lot of time with my boy. Now that he's started school I generally work on side projects in my 2 extra days and do the school pickups. Of course there are days where you don't feel like coding so you can read a book, do chores, go to the beach.

birdyrooster• 6 years ago

I'm going to do that now and fuck what my manager thinks honestly.

notjustanymike2• 6 years ago

I introduced "work from home Wednesday" at our company and the reduction in stress is palpable. Hell, I sleep better on Tuesday nights knowing I've got a day of silence lined up. The naysayers quickly fell in line too, once they realized how much more they could get done that day.

david-gpu2• 6 years ago

Working from home is still working. Working four days a week is entirely different.

bananamerica3• 6 years ago

Why Wednesday though?

notjustanymike2• 6 years ago

So that you never have to spend more than 2 days a row in the office. It keeps the stress build up low.

triceratops• 6 years ago

In addition to OP's reply, I guess it also keeps people from turning it into a long weekend if it's not a Monday or Friday.

saghul• 6 years ago

I've been working 32 hour weeks ever since my daughter was born 2 years ago. Mondays are my day off, we go to music classes, walk on the park and just spend time together.

On tuesdays I'm "hungry" when I go back to work. I think this is the perfect balance for me and I feel I'm more productive than ever.

It may not be for everyone, and it's definitely a privilege, but if you can, I really encourage you to try it out.

minikites• 6 years ago

Worker productivity has gone way up over the recent decades but wages have stagnated, so why shouldn't we work fewer hours? It's not like the average worker is reaping the benefits of working longer.

ivanhoe• 6 years ago

I worked 4 days a week on one project that lasted 14 months. It's really great for motivation and productivity. I actually started to enjoy Mondays first time in my life, and I'd be coming to work full of inspiration. The downside is obviously that as a contractor you earn 20% less that way.

annoyingnoob• 6 years ago

I feel like my best work happens in about 6 hours on most days. Beyond 6 I feel like I'm less motivated/productive, I get things done but it goes a little slower.

I've previously done a 9/80 schedule with every other Friday off. The 9 hour days made my personal life harder, harder to meet family obligations like pickup/dropoff. I'm cool with 5 shorter days, I would be happier and probably more productive.

ndespres• 6 years ago

I met with someone recently who offered 4-day workweek as a benefit, but it wasn't a 32-hour week over 4 days, it was just 4 longer days with the same number of total hours. It would be great to have 1 less commute, a 3 day weekend etc but where are the benefits of these computers that were supposed to save us all time?

lwb4• 6 years ago

Something felt fishy about their claim that number of hours worked has been climbing in the United States so I checked their source. It turns out that "average annual hours worked" has changed from 1,780 in 2011 to 1,786 last year. This seems like barely a rounding error...

On the other hand, if you look at the FRED website it shows that average annual hours worked has massively decreased in the last 50 years: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG

1951, for example, shows 2,030 hours worked on average. That's the equivalent of more than six additional weeks of full time work.

I would say that Keynes's prediction that economic growth could get to the point where we would only need to work 15 hours a week (750 hours per year, assuming 2 weeks vacation) is ... trending towards becoming true? At current trends, it will take another ~280 years.

(Obviously this is a silly prediction but, an interesting thought experiment.)

chadlavi3• 6 years ago

these numbers are across all industries, right? a 40 hour union job has certain parameters such that the work hours aren't going to shift much without larger political shifts within those orgs.

But I suspect the number of hours a non-union knowledge worker works per year has gone up in the same time frame.

lwb4• 6 years ago

these numbers are across all industries, right?

I think so. The way these sources gather data is somewhat opaque to me but there's nothing to suggest that it's filtered out by industry.

I suspect the number of hours a non-union knowledge worker works per year has gone up in the same time frame

Huh... I don't see that data anywhere on FRED but it would be interesting to know. You can search for yourself here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/searchresults/?st=hours%20worked

Anecdotally, I have swapped stories with my father in law who started his career as a finance worker for a large corporation in the 1980s and he worked significantly more hours than I have at any of my current or previous jobs. 10+ hours 5 days a week was the expectation, plus an hour commute both ways... hard to say if that generalizes in any meaningful way though.

tempestn• 6 years ago

Does this include part-time workers? If so, the slight increase since 2011 could just be a reflection of the lower unemployment and underemployment.

Actually even if it's only considering full-time employees, it could still be related to unemployment, since a tighter labor market would leave more positions unfilled, which would mean more overtime.

dcre• 6 years ago

The overall average per person has declined (though not really since the 80s). However, in the same time frame, the proportion of women in formal work went from 35% to 60% [1]. So the story for men and women looks very different. Note also that for women this is a shift from domestic labor to formal labor, so it's probably not much of an increase in hours worked even though it looks like that on paper. However, in the same time frame, I believe men spend a bit more time on housework than they used to, which is not included in formal hours worked.

The point of all this is simply that it is difficult to make conclusions about labor market trends from average annual hours worked.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002

lwb4• 6 years ago

Certainly, the data is inconclusive enough that you can make strong arguments either way. My issue is with NPR making a generalization and citing a source that doesn’t really back that up.

twelvechairs• 6 years ago

There's more too - an apparent rise in unpaid 'off the books' overtime [0], the rise of mobile and email creating expectations of evening/weekend work, and increasing travel times to work.

[0] An average of 4.6 hours per week in Australia across all industries according to this https://www.tai.org.au/sites/default/files/GHOTD%202019%20Fi...

notJim2• 6 years ago

I was curious for context on this, and honestly didn't find much in my brief search, but apparently it's thought that for professionals, the hours worked has gone up, while for the working class, it has gone down. I didn't research it, but I wonder if part of the explanation is that working class people tend to be under-employed, and/or government policies that kick in at say, 30 hours / week (like the ACA, for example) push the numbers down. Professionals of course tend to be salaried, so you really want to squeeze out as much as you can.

walshemj• 6 years ago

Are you forgetting overtime back in 51 I suspect there may well have been more OT worked and there would have been more factories back then

decebalus13• 6 years ago

Something felt fishy about their claim that number of hours worked has been climbing in the United States so I checked their source. It turns out that "average annual hours worked" has changed from 1,780 in 2011 to 1,786 last year. This seems like barely a rounding error...

This is a classic case of statistics being used to prove a different point. Perhaps the average annual hours worked is pretty much the same, but the way work happens has changed and it may be harder to quantify. For example, what if there are more part time jobs and people have 2-3 part time jobs? Or how are the hours worked by the flexible hours folks at Starbucks (flexible to be picked by someone else I mean, usually only at peak times). Anecdotally, there's a guy I know who holds a full time job selling insurance, then works afternoons for UPS for the health benefits. How is that reported in 'average annual hours worked' thing?

It's the same as saying that unemployment went down and being happy about it. Because there are so many jobs, some people have 3 in order to pay rent.

lwb4• 6 years ago

I believe the FRED data I cited is per person, not per job.

zulgan• 6 years ago

I don't think it is possible to compare hours worked 100 years ago and now.

Now, especially for developers and office workers, work is almost indistinguishable from life.

For example there is barely any time while I am awake that I am not thinking about work. (sometimes even my dreams are about work related tech topics)

Not to mention that modern management techniques are deeply psychological, and sophisticated propaganda.

TBH I dont think more work is being done, I just think the corporation organism consumes as much as it can.

SimianLogic2• 6 years ago

My current job is a 4-day workweek (not the whole company, just me), but it's also not the most interesting job. I've seen other jobs posted that look more interesting in the last year or two (and would likely be for higher pay), but after doing this for almost 2 years I decided that the chill work-life balance is more important than total comp or having "interesting" work.

ausbah• 6 years ago

"Natalie Nagele, co-founder and CEO of Wildbit, has heard from other leaders who say it didn't work for them. She says it fails when employees aren't motivated and where managers don't trust employees."

I would muse that employees usually aren't motivated because they hate their working conditions, usually imposed by shitty managers / company cultures. Managers & companies may complain about "unproductive" or "motivated" employees as if its some personal failing of their employees, but news flash people aren't going to care unless they have a reason to care. If you want employees to enjoy their work and actually be motivated to some degree greater than the bare minimum, give them working conditions that they enjoy. Give them retirement benefits, less working hours, less micromanagement, more pay, remote working options, etc.

This is a problem that stems from crappy notions of how work cultures "ought to be" in America, and can only be solved by destroying those notions and getting rid of the idea "productivity above all else" in companies.

polishdude20• 6 years ago

Yeah it's almost as if when you have one hundred people, is everyone lazy? Or are you the one causing the problem?

globular-toast• 6 years ago

Unfortunately some people are just lazy. At my job they introduced 10% time to be used for personal development, but it's been abundantly clear that most employees are simply taking it as holiday.

nathan_compton2• 6 years ago

My superficial understanding of capitalism is that the only thing that motivates employees is money. If you want people to be more motivated, give them more money.

KoftaBob• 6 years ago

As another thing to try, how about making the “standard” workday 9-4 instead of 9-5? This way, it ends up being 3 hours of work, 1 hour of lunch, then another 3 hours of work.

It’s more balanced, people get an extra hour in their day to spend on themselves, and it seems that for many people, the extra hour from 4-5 is relatively low productivity compared to the rest of the day anyway.

icedchai• 6 years ago

I think it's already that way in many places. You just have to pretend to work for the other hour or two.

airstrike• 6 years ago

I've recently come up with a crazy pet theory. If we are indeed living a simulation, maybe this simulation is just to test whether 5-day workweeks make better modern civilizations than 4- or 6-day ones...

gaogao• 6 years ago

We have No Meeting Wednesdays, which being salaried and having generous work from home policies, is roughly a four-day work week if you want.

anderson7• 6 years ago

Cockroach Labs (nyc) used to have a 4 day workweek as their version of “20% time”, looks like it’s still in place: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/can-a-4-day-work-week-wor...

nbrempel• 6 years ago

Some shameless self-promotion: I run a job board for jobs like this.

https://30hourjobs.com

duxup• 6 years ago

I fear this is likely an advantage just a few will have... a lot of folks who are poor with multiple jobs will still have to muddle through.

combatentropy• 6 years ago

I'm still waiting for someone to do a study of a three-day (24-hour) work week.

tren2• 6 years ago

I've been doing this for 3 years now and it works great for me. 3/4 of our company are 4 days or less a week and in the last 5 years we've turned a loss making company into something quite profitable. We generally have one short meeting a week, outside of that we do 1 on 1s when necessary. The rest of the time we can sit down and focus 100%.

namelosw• 6 years ago

I feel burned out from time to time.

Then I found this really works for me: don't spend vacation all at once, instead, spend it on every Wednesday. It's not just one day off, it actually changes the workdays from 5 days to 2 days.

perfunctory3• 6 years ago

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and capacity. Men who, in their professional work, have become interested in some phase of economics or government, will be able to develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of university economists often seem lacking in reality. Medical men will have the time to learn about the progress of medicine, teachers will not be exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine methods things which they learnt in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.

-- Bertrand Russell

http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

jariel4• 6 years ago

This is a funny kind of bubble quote, by someone I think out of touch with most people.

I believe most people would watch TV, play cards, play video games. This is what they already do with their spare time, there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be more of it.

It's amazing what a 'schedule' and 'working with others' and 'requirements' and 'deadlines' can do - it brings people to life and is probably the only way hard things get done.

For a certain kind of person, some free time would lead to a lot of exploration but for most people it would not.

tprice7• 6 years ago

"This is what they already do with their spare time, there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be more of it."

I can see one reason: the benefit that you get from an activity is a nonlinear function of how much time you invest in it. This is why people tend to specialize in certain domains. If you barely have any time to practice painting for example, maybe it's not worth learning to paint in the first place. Conversely, if you have more free time, it could be worthwhile to find more creative things to do with it.

This is especially true if you consider frame-switching overhead. The amount you can get done in 6 hours of some demanding creative activity is probably more than 3 times the amount you could get done in 2 hours. And obviously people would have more long uninterrupted blocks of free time if they had to work less overall.

Also, with most schools being the way they are, I think children in general get very little opportunity to pursue their creative impulses; it's always about following the teacher's instructions. Maybe adults would have more curiosity and creativity if these traits weren't snuffed out in their formative years.

Finally, even in our current society, being just a lazy consumer in your free time is far from universal, for example: https://www.namm.org/news/press-releases/gallup-organization...

perfunctory3• 6 years ago

This is what they already do with their spare time, there's no reason to believe there wouldn't be more of it.

From the same essay

"The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part."

http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

nathan_compton2• 6 years ago

Who cares? Sounds like a win/win to me. Some people get to relax more and the curious or creative get to explore or create more.

timwaagh4• 6 years ago

honestly would be pretty bad for singles who just want to hustle and make some money to afford plans later in life. i can see the appeal for families to take some time off, but currently there are enough facilities for dad-days and the like (at least, where i am). yes you need to pay for those, as is only fair. If this becomes law i'd guess the 'solution' for a lot of people would be to take two jobs. suddenly these plans dont look so amazing anymore.

deadbunny• 6 years ago

I don't follow your logic. If you're working 4x8 rather than 5x8 for the same pay (as discussed in the article) you are not losing any money and have another whole day to "hustle".

timwaagh4• 6 years ago

Well, i made a few leaps. I will try to explain. In economics there are no free lunches. That's a pretty basic economic dogma (it might sound extreme to an outsider, but take a 101 class and it's what they will tell you). So you don't really get to have your cake and eat it too. The article's 'proposal' therefore doesn't really make sense. My reaction kind of assumes people already sort of know this, perhaps intuitively. my apologies for not explaining. What pm Medvedev (as mentioned in the article) is proposing is, to me, the only interesting thing to talk about, a reduction of the lawful workweek to 32 hours. Even if he requires (as you propose) the salaries in existing contracts to stay the same countrywide, salaries for new positions will be affected as they can be set by the employer. As for those already employed, well the country is likely to be producing less because of less input (labor productivity being mainly a function of technological progress, ie, it doesnt change in the short term) and thus their trade balance will suffer, because more needs to be imported and less is available for expot. So in the end the rubble will get cheaper to make up for it and the employees get their salary deduction anyways. Whether that is the exact way the price will be paid is not certain, but what is certain is there are no free lunches in economics. Because of the reduction in salary, employees will have reduced spending power. Which is particularly relevant if you are without a partner and/or don't own a house yet. In that case, your best (and only) option to stay competitive might be to take two jobs and work 7 days a week to make up for it. I hope I made my argument more clear now.

bash-j• 6 years ago

In Australia it's pretty common to be paid for 38 or 36 hours a week and take a RDO (rostered day off) once a month or fortnight depending on what you choose. This plus minimum 4 weeks paid annual leave for full timers, 2 weeks paid sick leave, 13 weeks paid long service leave if you have worked at the same company for 10 years, paid parental leave, carers leave, grievance leave, volunteer leave, etc. If you work casual hours then you usually receive a 17.5% more per hour. Weekends and public holidays usually attract higher wages too.

erikerikson• 6 years ago

I am using this as a company/boss/role filter and it is fantastic. Some are offended that I think I have any control (literally uncontrolled in their negative response, "how dare you ask that?"). Some seem confused ("but you're supposed to be lying to present an image of the perfect employee, aren't you?"). Others are glad for the request and appreciate my honest straightforwardness and willingness to discard convention to achieve better results. There's been sufficient discussion of this that it no longer counts as innovative but I've always been on the leading edge (sometimes, sadly so) and am obviously willing to take risks.

Always remember that interviews are mutual.

abecedarius2• 6 years ago

I used to work 4 days during a contract job with a very long commute. I was made to stop because of a new state law requiring overtime on >8 hours. Thanks, Sacramento.

aaronchall• 6 years ago

I wonder what you'd say to the lawmakers who caused that change...

abecedarius2• 6 years ago

It's pretty small on the scale of other damage. I liked https://equilibriabook.com/ for an interesting recent perspective on this sort of thing, not limited to politics. Still, nobody made them go into that field.

theatraine2• 6 years ago

I never understand these studies. I'm bootstrapping a startup and my work output scales linearly with hours until about 60 hours per week. 60 hours per week is comfortable with 4x12 hour days and then 12 hours over two shorter days. To accomplish errands and the like I just do things before 2pm which is plenty of time.

For me personally more time working = more output. What am I missing?

I should note that I have no family, no commute, and my gym is in my home so I'm able to save some hours on those things. I could see how in those cases one would have less time for work.

quietthrow• 6 years ago

You are part of the hyperactive onsite mainstream HN crowd.single or married but no other responsibilities (children, aging parents and other such commitments). When you live the other life you will see how work just fills up and an extra day feels like a miracle.

genocidicbunny• 6 years ago

Exactly this. Once you have other responsibilities or hobbies outside of work, a 12-hour workday will leave you with absolutely no free time. Add in your typical bay area commute time, and you'd hardly have time to sleep.

incompatible• 6 years ago

I'm wondering how many people would take advantage of the 4-day work week to fit in another job in one or more of the off-days. How many people are obsessed with obtaining higher income, far beyond what they need to survive?

kharak• 6 years ago

I wonder what you do. There are plenty of things I could do for 12 hours, coding isn't one of them. Honestly, I'd say that I average about 6 hours a day of coding ability. That's an up to 4 hours before, because I changed a great deal of unhealthy habits.

theatraine2• 6 years ago

It's roughly 9 hours of coding and 3 hours of brainstorming with my co-founder. I do notice that my focus wavers quite a bit. Meditation has helped with this to a certain extent.

Health is my first priority so I make sure I'm getting enough sleep and regular exercise. When I'm feeling particularly stressed I'll go to Banya. This helps prevent burnout.

I've also reduced the time it takes to do most everything. No commute, gym in home, no time for grocery shopping (Amazon Prime Now), no drinking, and I'm single.

polyphonicist• 6 years ago

I have a regular five-day workweek but to be honest, I work productively only 4 days a week. I find it hard to work productively all 5 days. On the day's I am not working productively, I just pretend to look busy to my manager. It would be nice to formalize this working pattern as a four-day workweek.

Where can I find such four-day workweek jobs?

Ericson2314• 6 years ago

Everyone always asks "why don't well all do this". Well, let me tell you. The system doesn't reward productivity like you imagine it, profit / per time work. It rewards profit / hours. Never mind if working more makes you less productive per the first measure, as long the extra time spent offsets the loss in productivity you will be compelled to do it.

Well, almost. If you are willing to be paid less that helps. But how many people are rich enough to be able make that choice? Enough to change the cultural and mores?

We need UBI or laws to break that. There is no distributed / individual way to escape the baton of the market here.

ojbyrne• 6 years ago

I feel like the “bosses” Should work 4 day weeks. The rest of us would get more done on the 5th day than the other 4 combined.

allset_• 6 years ago

This is the work from home day each week.

toephu2• 6 years ago

What companies in the Bay Area have a 4-day work week?

stitched2gethr• 6 years ago

I would love to go to a 32 hour work week, but not for the obvious reason. I would still put in 50 hours but it would give me more of an edge over everyone else. I don't feel like I'm in direct competition with my peers, but I always hold myself to a sometimes unreasonable standard for what I "feel I should be getting done," and I use those around me as a ruler. I always just want to be better, and especially faster, but without losing the clean thought process. For as long as I have been doing things slightly outside my comfort zone, so always, I only get there with more time. Am I totally alone or does this resonate?

adapter• 6 years ago

Unpopular opinion: It's not 5 days that wear people out but the routines[0].

[0] same commuting, same people, same updates, same stand-ups, same gossiping, same negativity, same office politics

bboygravity• 6 years ago

These recurring 4-day work week discussions on HN show how non-European this site is.

4-day work weeks have been completely normal for lots of people in Europe for decades. In the Netherlands it's almost the norm to chose whether you want to work 4 or 5 days. 4 day work weeks are not always accepted everywhere, but usually they are in most places.

In France the standard work week has been 35 hours for the past 2 decades, which may or may not equate to a 4 day work week depending on how you organize your work days.

The Netherlands and France are still alive and kicking. They have plenty of successful businesses.

Conclusion: no, 4 day work weeks will not destroy your country, economy, business or lifestyle. The one and only reason to have 5 day or longer work weeks is: greed. IMHO.

Having said that IMO a more important factor in time savings would be remote working or not. Assuming a commute of an hour a day to and from work (2 hours total per day, reality for lots of people) you waste 10 hours per week of your life commuting. Unpaid.

5 days a week without commute = -10 unpaid hours spent on work related things (vs with commute)

4 days a week with commute = -2 unpaid hours spent on work related things.

SnowProblem2• 6 years ago

The Netherlands and France are still alive and kicking. They have plenty of successful businesses.

Are they? I can't think of a single technology company coming out of either.

nmd• 6 years ago

Booking.com, TomTom GPS are both from Amsterdam. As is Adyen, the payments provider used Linkedin, Uber, Spotify, Microsoft. Philips is also from the Netherlands.

tdons• 6 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding

the-dude2• 6 years ago

Gitlab

breakintheweb• 6 years ago

I'm sure you have just didn't realize they were French. Schneider Electric, Technicolor, Atos, etc.

hylaride3• 6 years ago

The famous French 35 hour workweek only applies to certain categories of workers though. And even then it’s only where overtime kicks in. Every French white collar worker I’ve known (probably about a dozen or so) was on salary and had similar working hours to me (in Canada).

Also, French productivity can be overstated in statistics. They have relatively high unemployment amongst youth and the low-skilled. This essentially removes the least productive from the stats, making it look higher.

Not to say that a 4 day week would be bad, but careful what you base it on.

torgian• 6 years ago

Four day work week sounds great, but how do you prevent employers from taking advantage of that and saying, "Hey, as an hourly employee working four days a week, we don't have to cover your insurance because reasons".

I'm sure there are a lot of loopholes or rules that companies can't wait to exploit to pay people less money or fork over less money overall.

hkt• 6 years ago

I'm just about to start a job where I'll be working 30 hours a week. This is nominally over 4 days, but I'll have the right to do it over three. I haven't been so excited about work in years, and I'm sure it'll be challenging but the rewards - time for hobbies, study, side projects and family - promise to be massive.

I was a pretty high earner before and have given up 60% of pay to do this. The premium I place on my time is huge. It'd be lovely to see more companies who understand this and offer the same kind of arrangement.

eatbitseveryday• 6 years ago

Also, he did away with open-floor office plans and saw workers spending far less time on social media.

While mentioned as an aside late in the article, I wonder how much this contributed to overall productivity. The author may be undervaluing this change in the work environment.

barbs• 6 years ago

As a software developer, how do I advocate for a 4-day work week in my current and future workplaces?

Can I demand a 4-day work week in my future contracts?

yosito• 6 years ago

Apart from occasional experiments, I can't imagine this ever catching on as the "norm". Another reason to become a freelancer though. If you're a freelancer, you could alternate between 4 day workweeks and 3 day workweeks, and take a few months off every year.

More bosses give four-day workweek a try

Related Stories