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

theguardian.com

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

#231

Post by rhizome »

kokokokoko wrote: post #184
rhizome wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could get 15 days off and be fired for taking 4 days off in the year For doing something that is specified in the employment agreement? Pretty sure that would fall under fraud/misrepresentation.

Absolutely not. I would encourage you to look into "at will" employment law in the US. The employee may have a case for receiving unemployment benefits in that situation, but it is completely within the legal rights of the employer to do that in the US if the state has employment "at will".

I would encourage you to look into "at will" employment law in the US

What makes you think I haven't, are you saying that there is no fraud exception? You don't go into any detail to support your "absolute" confidence.

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

#232

Post by 1123581321 »

karlokeeffe wrote: post #26
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.

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.

What does it mean that you had to take 25 days off? What would they do to you if you didn’t?

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

#233

Post by mattharney »

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…

Hey zqn, this is an awesome deck and post. In fact, I wrote this up on my blog as a case study in using content to attract talent: https://mattharney.com/2019/02/22/talent-magnet-in-action/

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

#234

Post by 1123581321 »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #104
b_tterc_p wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It depends on the work. A call center employee is paid for a mix of availability/responsiveness, and effectiveness on the call. Availability hours are lower effort and lower energy so can be stretched—-these are typically performed at lower levels of the call center tier structure. Effectiveness is most of the work at higher levels and in more sales-oriented call center/phone roles. Six hours of intense, non-stop problem solving and pitching on the phone is plenty and if there is some cost to allowing a less than good outcome on a call or opportunity, further hours can be detrimental and it may be better to have more people on shorter rotations.

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

#236

Post by camelNotation »

oarsinsync wrote: post #80
camelNotation wrote: post #74

It may be that they were simply paid less than optimal salaries before and increasing their wages per hour actually improved their productivity, incentivizing them to accomplish in 4 days what they previously accomplished in 5. It would be interesting to do a parallel test with the same groups, have a control group, have a 4 day group that keeps the same pay, and a 5 day group with a 20% pay increase.

It depends on the salary of the employee, and their personal goals. Personally, I find a 20% decrease in working hours is worth a lot more than a 25% increase in pay. The hourly wage remains the same, but getting a full day back per week is significantly more valuable than more money that I'm already not spending

I agree. I wish there were more jobs like that, where you could work 3-4 days, at the same rate per hour. Maybe if we solve for a lot of the additional per-worker costs around healthcare and such we would be able to see that emerge in the market.
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