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More bosses give four-day workweek a try

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Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#321

Post by polishdude20 »

ausbah wrote: post #143

"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 "motiva…

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

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#322

Post by nmd »

SnowProblem wrote: post #320
bboygravity wrote: post #316

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 deca…

> 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.

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.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#324

Post by nlitened »

nmd wrote: post #322
SnowProblem wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

Are any of them on 4-day work week?

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#325

Post by globular-toast »

ausbah wrote: post #143

"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 "motiva…

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.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#326

Post by blablabla123 »

nagyf wrote: post #64
jacquesm wrote: post #40

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

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.

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...

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#327

Post by jinglebells »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #163
xboxnolifes wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like 4x9, because a lot of work is already 5x9 if you include mandatory lunch break.

I have a huge problem with the 5x9 expectation. 9-5 means 9-5 including a lunch. I promise any employer that demanding my presence from 8-5 (or any other 9 hours) will not result in greater productivity, and furthermore will leave me disgruntled. There's only so much development that can be done in a day before I'm in a haze from all the abstract thought, and that productivity asymptote comes well under 8 hours.

It's 4 hours for me. Doesn't matter how long the day is, maximum concentration tops out at 4 hours. The rest of the time is just admin work, emails and house keeping.

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#328

Post by tdons »

SnowProblem wrote: post #320
bboygravity wrote: post #316

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 deca…

> 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.

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

Re: More bosses give four-day workweek a try

#329

Post by Broken_Hippo »

tasuki wrote: post #156
fjp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The commute is not the problem, the car is. In Amsterdam I commuted 45 minutes by bike and it was great. I really miss it now that I work from home.

Truthfully, though, the weather in Amsterdam isn't so bad. And wow, there is some infrastructure for biking! These two things combined would make biking so much better, but then you add in the average style of bicycle you see there: Comfortable seats with some space for traveling with stuff.

I have some of the infrastructure where I live in Norway, but I'm not brave enough to bike on the snow and ice in the winter. Walking is perilous enough.

When I lived in the states, biking was often dangerous and the fastest routes weren't always available to me. I lived in the countryside for years, close enough to bike by main roads, but it not only wasn't allowed on the best path, but it would have been dangerous. No shoulder, curvy road, and cars going over 55mph (over 80kph). It was illegal to ride on sidewalks, where there were sidewalks, and few cities had bike lanes outside of downtown areas (if that).

One job literally had no entrance other than off of a 4-lane divided highway: No biking or walking to that job.

Even if I got over those hurdles, there was often no where to safely put my bike while I was at work. Heck, some of these places didn't have anywhere to store cold things for lunch.

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