Ask HN: Would you rather work 4 days per week for 80% salary?

Employer wants as much done as possible ASAP. Physical & biological & social realities mean one person can be expected to produce 40 hours per week, 60 on occasion. There isn't an endless supply of quality knowledge workers, so (assuming the "80% movement" takes hold) filling that additional productivity expectation becomes difficult as businesses compete for a limited pool - more so as it's hard to fill a 20% gap when there's only "80%" or "100%" workers to fill it with (you don't get good knowledge workers part-time long-term).

Ergo (roughly speaking) you're asking employers to cut cumulative productivity 20%, and thus revenue/profits 20% for ... what? while other employers race forward with "100%" employees, producing 25% more per week.

40-50 hour weeks seems about the limit before employee productivity & availability ends. Claims of how productive ("refreshed! rested! alert!") employees are on shorter work weeks doesn't translate to comparable results, i.e.: 80% work time doesn't produce near 100%.

My personal goal is productivity. Give me more time at home, yes, I'll be productive there ... but I can be more productive via an employer (that's why I'm employed) than growing/building what I need on a farm. Cutting work hours means less work getting done, both for my own ends and my employer's bottom line.

Yes, but the main benefit of 4 day weeks is having 3 days where you can do whatever you want. It’s not about not being “into” working. Of course, the employer will want you for as many days as possible, since even if you’re sitting there doing nothing 80% of the day on Friday, why not have you obliged in case something comes up.

Definitely would. I have done so in the past. Had to move on from that job, sadly, and I'm back to 5 day weeks. The key is the company needs a good way to handle overtime/extratime during emergencies and crunches. For example, if I were to work 40+ hours in an emergency week, I should get an extra day off the next week (or after the crisis).

Some feedback for your site: Require salary range to be listed.

Just playing devil's advocate:

* People don't work effectively for 40 hours every week 100% of the time. Perhaps 2 people working 20 hours allows greater utilization of the time with less waste because each person is fresh for greater parts of the work week. (We'd need multiple well designed studies and attempts to find the right amount of time).

* All the onboarding and upfront costs you mentioned are legitimate, but small in the grand scheme of things. Once onboarded, hopefully they are creating value. Two people onboarding together could also take some of the load off a mentor as they could help each other.

* Not all engineers are equivalent. Some might have a ton of database experience, another could be more ops oriented, and a third might have great algorithmic thinking. All can be good engineers for the role. But if you had 2 or all 3 then maybe the increased diversity of experience and skills can make the work progress faster with a higher quality.

* More people meaning more communication channels is a real concern. It's also something you have to deal with at some point. Management in general is about finding ways to work efficiently, and just like any other scenario you'd take this one into account when deciding how to work. Figure out smaller specializations, or chunk work in ways that compliment the team, or structure documentation/ideas/communication in a way that can be picked up by others.

I think it's very common in Europe to adapt your working hours to your situation in life. Many of my European friends decrease their hours for a small pay cut since they have children now or have to take care of elderly. Just call HR and discuss the deal. Done.

I recently worked for a Belgium startup in the NY office. Many of my coworkers in the old world had an agreement to work less for less pay. When I asked my HR in US to reduce hours for less pay due to Covid-19 the answer was exactly like OP listed: "we have always done it this way... it's not possible in US ... if you decrease your hours by one hour you will count as half-time employee and lose all benefits".

In an instant I would give up 20% pay for an extra day off. Covid-19 is far from over and lots of parents are still juggling all sorts of issues.