Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output • Hacker News Board

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#101

Post by NullPrefix » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

acomjean wrote: post #59

nick_g wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect that paying people for unused vacation would incentivize employees overworking themselves leading to reduced quality of output. In a sense, I expect that it would magnify the existing issues with unlimited PTO. It seems like this would be neither good for employee or employer.

Most companies only let you bank so many pto (Paid Time Off) hours and carry them over year to year. I think this came about because of accounting change where employee hours are considered a liability (Hours/Money owed for nothing in return), but I might be wrong on that. As a result employees can't just bank their vacation hours and get a big payday when they leave. It tends to only take a couple years to get up to…

>Hours/Money owed for nothing in return

From the business perspectice services rendered previously is "nothing", because you can't get any more value from that

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#102

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

ribfeast wrote: post #94

We should switch, not because it raises or maintains productivity, but because it's the right thing to do. Framing the debate in terms of productivity plays into the hands of those who would maintain the status quo. If laborers were properly organized, we could dictate the 4-day or 3-day workweek,

[deleted]

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#103

Post by Bartweiss » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

gallamine wrote: post #33

ryandvm wrote: post #17

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.

> they don't want to inconvenience their team This is is why it's important for team members to explicitly encourage each other to take breaks and vacations. I've often told a coworker, "stop working! Take a long weekend!".

I've seen companies set minimum time off, which can certainly simply the problem. (At risk of the Dilbert situation: "you need to get this done by end of year, and also take two weeks of holiday".) But ultimately, I think that's a road to this sort of cultural approach. Once people around you are taking time off, it becomes easy to justify taking time off. (And so, like most cultural things, you'd better have management doing it first.)

The best UPTO environment I've ever seen had managers who asked about time off in one-on-ones and pushed people who said "none" to take more. It also had a lot of acceptance for 'aimless' PTO; justifying your trip to the Andes is easy, but people take PTO more consistently if no one's expecting a better story than "sleep late and run some errands" or "play a new-release game".

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#104

Post by frosted-flakes » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

b_tterc_p wrote: post #49

lazyjones wrote: post #45

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.

Why wouldn’t it work for call centers? Just pay them for 4 days of work and hire More people.

Because work that call centre workers do can't be compressed. That means each person is working 32 hours each week (no gain in productivity), but still getting paid for 40. Whereas a computer programmer might still be able to complete 40 hours-worth of work in 32 hours by increasing productivity.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#105

Post by combatentropy » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:30 PM UTC

ribfeast wrote: post #94

We should switch, not because it raises or maintains productivity, but because it's the right thing to do. Framing the debate in terms of productivity plays into the hands of those who would maintain the status quo. If laborers were properly organized, we could dictate the 4-day or 3-day workweek,

> because it's the right thing to do

On what principle? I had always thought that a job and its pay arose strictly from negotiation. But if you say one way is "right" and another isn't, that implies some reason that transcends anyone's preference.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#106

Post by Bartweiss » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

jypepin wrote: post #14

znq wrote: post #4

At Mobile Jazz (7 years old now) and Bugfender (4-5 years old now) we always had the rule, that people could choose to work as much as they want and when they went. As long as the output and quality was there. Obviously to achieve high quality output you need to be there at certain times (overlap with other team members) and you need to do a certain amount of hours. The problems we had because of this are almost no-e…

Yes this sounds good. Have you noticed a risk of people over-working because of the lack of hours? Or feeling bad about taking vacations? (Something I've felt while having unlimited vacations). As you are saying that, as the business owner/manager you do the same, I think it shows a great example and helps people feel they actually can do this. The opposite might also be very true, where if the manager is working har…

> The opposite might also be very true, where if the manager is working harder than what is expected/accepted, people will follow and do the same too.

I think this is a serious risk for unlimited PTO. It's easy to miss, because well-meaning managers are least likely to notice the problem. Sure they were busy and came in all year, but they genuinely wanted their reports to take more time off!

In that sense, it almost has to be a responsibility at the management level; visibly booking time off and disconnecting is part of making a PTO policy usable for everyone else. Fortunately, it's the sort of responsibility that also helps keep management and founders from burning out or already being exhausted when crunches do hit.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#107

Post by DigiMortal » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

I could do my job in 2 of the 5 workdays

(I need a new job)

I spend time learning, reading, etc at work

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#108

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

1337biz wrote: post #70

wgerard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should really know what you're doing all day. If you can't even summarize what you were doing all day, that sounds like a bad thing. The evidence is your story about what you actually did. Here's a perfectly great update that didn't result in a quick win: "I spent all day debugging that null pointer issue like we discussed. I thought maybe it was because the API was sending nulls across, but I looked at the logs…

That's the thing - this works only when you have clearly task - solution based jobs. But when it is more creative and abstract this is not feasable.

Oh, but it is.

With one of my customers, I had a week when I consistently reported "designing the new model for $thing-that-drives-our-product", sometimes additionally with "and I spend some time talking with $product-guy and $coworker about the design". As a side effect of the design process, I produced a bunch of concept documents and drawings, which once the overall goal was clear, I transformed into barebones interactive prototypes testing experimentally some design points. So the next week, my daily reports were "aaand, I also did this prototype to test out $design-concern" (to which the universal reaction was "oooh, shiny! This is how work sometimes look. A good manager will accept your vague description, trusting that something of value commensurate with time spent will come out from the other end. As long as you actually deliver, a sane manager will not mind.

(That said, if asked for details, I always could explain what my main concerns and areas of exploration were at any point in the design process. The story about what you were doing is proportional to how much work you actually put in. If you can't elaborate beyond "I was thinking about $X", maybe you weren't really thinking about it? Conversely, I find forcing myself to write down and structure my thoughts to be an excellent way to unblock myself when my mind is running circles, or feels like watching Netflix instead.)

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#109

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

jlarocco wrote: post #75

toomuchtodo wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, if it's not codified in law, there is no consistency. One person's gloriously well managed Unlimited PTO policy (congrats!) is another person's peer pressured non-usage. "Unlimited PTO" is a marketing farce, no more, no less. If you want people to take 25 days a year off, give them 25 days of PTO and be on the hook for the liability if they leave. If you want to give them more time than that through a…

> The problem is, if it's not codified in law, there is no consistency. A poorly codified policy is an implementation problem, and will be a problem for both limited and unlimited PTO policies. > "Unlimited PTO" is a marketing farce, no more, no less. If you want people to take 25 days a year off, give them 25 days of PTO and be on the hook for the liability if they leave. If you want to give them more time than that…

> It would be ludicrous to outlaw unlimited PTO policies just because some people don't like them.

I can appreciate this opinion if you've had a good experience with an Unlimited PTO policy, but regulation isn't for the best experiences. Unlimited PTO is an HR/Marketing dark pattern.

EDIT: > It's disappointing so many people want to ruin things for everybody because they've worked at crappy companies in the past.

@jlarocco: I am disappointed you prioritize protecting your arrangement than the well being of others at crappy companies. As I mention in my other comments in-thread, you can still arrive at something similar to "Unlimited PTO" while still instituting regulations to prevent worker abuse (minimum PTO days issued + a process to request additional days). I do not understand the disdain for regulation that simply enforces what is being offered.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#110

Post by tokyodude » Tue, Feb 19, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

znq wrote: post #4

At Mobile Jazz (7 years old now) and Bugfender (4-5 years old now) we always had the rule, that people could choose to work as much as they want and when they went. As long as the output and quality was there. Obviously to achieve high quality output you need to be there at certain times (overlap with other team members) and you need to do a certain amount of hours. The problems we had because of this are almost no-e…

I would hate that environment. I don't want to have to guess if I'm doing enough. I don't want to guess if I'm working 20 days more a year than another employee or 10 days less. I just want a negotiated amount of time off. If it's 10 days a year or 50 days a year at least know I can take them off 100% guilt free. If it's "take as much as you want" there will always be those who abuse the policy and those who under utilize.