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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.
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.
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…
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.
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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.
How about a compromise? 4x9 hours.
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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.
True, but you'll spend less of your life commuting, because you spend less days at work.
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 decide…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 :)
And most would be profoundly happier people.