41–50 of 236 posts
If I'm going to believe anything, I'd need a longitudinal study of about 5 years. I find 5 years to be a good hallmark to see whether something had an actual strong impact in my own life (e.g. regarding reading self-help books such as Search Inside Yourself [1] or Steve Pavlina's blog post on how to rock at university [2] -- sorry for being slightly off-topic but these two things changed my life). [1] https://www.ama…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't work there, but it seems pretty clear to me. Morning slack message (which isn't the same thing as a standup): "Hey, I'm going to do X,Y,Z today but I'm also going to run a few errands after lunch so I'll be MIA from 12-2 CET but available after until 6 CET". "Work when you want" doesn't have to mean "I have no idea when you'll be available today".
> "Work when you want" doesn't have to mean "I have no idea when you'll be available today". People confuse the two all the time! Flexibility and reliability have to go hand in hand, if you cannot be reliable when left unsupervised, you need to expect I cannot leave you unsupervised. On the plus side, when people are given this explanation they often self manage into a good routine.
The work-when-you-want is easily leading to a - show me the evidence on why I should trust you to have done something productive today.
It forces someone to just push for quick wins and avoid anything that is not leading to directly accountible results.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is actually the downside of these "you decide" plans and why I absolutely hate "unlimited PTO" policies. Whenever it's up to me I end up taking less vacation than if I just had an allotted amount. People shortchange themselves because they don't want to inconvenience their team. And as an added insult, the company gets out of paying you for unused vacation when you finally burn out.
When I worked a Geckoboard they had a great system where you had unlimited paid time off, but you had to take at least 25 days off each year. This, combined with colleagues visibly taking advantage of the time off available, helped ensure a healthy approach to unlimited time off.
Thats doing it right. Or pay people for the vacation time they don't use.
If I'm going to believe anything, I'd need a longitudinal study of about 5 years. I find 5 years to be a good hallmark to see whether something had an actual strong impact in my own life (e.g. regarding reading self-help books such as Search Inside Yourself [1] or Steve Pavlina's blog post on how to rock at university [2] -- sorry for being slightly off-topic but these two things changed my life). [1] https://www.ama…
Thorough studies would evaluate other models as well, like 6, 7 or 3-day weeks.
As a former entrepreneur I can guarantee that my output would suffer greatly in a 4 day week, since I'd rediscover hobbies and other distractions.
I can believe that there would be no cut in output if people said "okay we're going to get the same amount of tasks done, just in four days instead of five", so everyone would work 20% more each day. I don't know what side-effects that might have, but I don't find it impossible. However, it seems very unlikely to me that you'd work at the same rate for fewer days and still get the same done. I also don't know why people who work fewer days would increase their rate of work, but it's certainly plausible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What science got us the 40h work week? It seems to me we just went from making people work as much as humanly possible to less and less (to 40 today in the US) as workers got more power through unions. I don't think science was much involved here.
40h was first most widely implemented by Henry Ford, because of equal productivity with fewer mistakes than the 10-16 hour days that were then the norm. So there is some empirical evidence that it's better than more hours, and some empirical evidence that it's better than fewer hours in some cases, and plenty showing no change with fewer hours. The fairest characterisation is that there was considerable back and fort…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I worked a Geckoboard they had a great system where you had unlimited paid time off, but you had to take at least 25 days off each year. This, combined with colleagues visibly taking advantage of the time off available, helped ensure a healthy approach to unlimited time off.
>When I worked a Geckoboard they had a great system where you had unlimited paid time off, but you had to take at least 25 days off each year. Thats doing it right. Or pay people for the vacation time they don't use.
Obviously, even if the study is to believed, this won't work for all jobs (try callcenters or POS ...). Thorough studies would evaluate other models as well, like 6, 7 or 3-day weeks. As a former entrepreneur I can guarantee that my output would suffer greatly in a 4 day week, since I'd rediscover hobbies and other distractions.
It worked, but it was HARD! The difference between an 8 hour day and a 10 hour day is having to find a second wind, on demand, 4 days in a row.
Every time I would say I was going to drop, and then the three day weekend hit and I had time to get personal stuff done, time to relax without feeling like I had to prepare to start work again, and then I thought it was all worth it. Then the cycle would repeat.
Now I'm in a tech job with far more flexibility. I think a similar schedule would still be hard: some 10 hour days are easy, but to do it on demand, repeatedly?