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Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

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Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#221

Post by speedgoose »

nickff wrote: post #180
dopidopHN wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss vacation so much. I just fly home from the US. And … I still have to work instead of just spending time with my parents that I haven’t seen in years. I earn more than 200k. ( not west coast ) it’s a decent salary right? Why can’t I have vacation, too? I asked and putted and asked again… All that will accomplish one thing: one day in the next 2 years I will wake up, look at my bank account. And quit. To have ac…

How much were you willing to sacrifice in salary in exchange for additional vacation? Was it a net-positive deal for your counter party (employer)? I ask because I hear this kind of thing all the time who want to make the same money, for less time at work.

Most people need spare time to be happy, productive, not burn out. And as a company or society, you don't want to encourage people to work too hard for money because most people are stupid and will actually work too hard for money, and not be happy, become less productive, and burnout.

That's how it works in Europe. It's common that a boss will ask an employee to work less, because the amount of time they work is not even legal sometimes, or to force people to go on vacation for weeks to use their vacation days. It's also more fair and don't put pressure for other employees that value their life outside work.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#222

Post by dopidopHN »

jobigoud wrote: post #206
nickff wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By ‘net positive’ I mean willing to take a cut larger than is directly proportional to the reduction in hours worked. The reality is that reducing each person’s annual work will increase costs for the company overall, as it needs to pay additional overhead and benefits, which are related to employee count, rather than hours worked. I think that everyone is a bit wary of setting difficult precedents in employment situ…

Except that it increases employees morale and motivation and thus productivity, and reduces chances of burnout. There are benefits for the company too.

Exactly. I stay longer in a previous company with unlimited PTO ( real one ) for that reason.

It’s crazy how they don’t realize it’s just alienate workers.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#223

Post by jobigoud »

hn8788 wrote: post #28
reidjs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it makes sense to have people available for regular hours, just so that if I ask someone a question I can expect a response today-ish. But, I agree that a lot of meetings should be emails, teambuilding events are usually poorly done, and procrastination is hard to avoid when you've got access to the internet. Minor nitpick: Is an hour long lunch really that bad?

Yeah, and hour long lunch is pretty long. Most people I know take less time than that to eat at a restaurant, let alone just grabbing your sandwich from the fridge.

> grabbing your sandwich from the fridge

Get out of the building, take the bicycle to a park to eat, take a small nap and read a book, come back to the office fresh and mind reset.

This was my routine before I switched to WFH. Official hours where 9h to 12h, then 14h to 18h. 35h workweek, 2h lunch break, (France).

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#224

Post by dopidopHN »

nkssy wrote: post #202
dopidopHN wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss vacation so much. I just fly home from the US. And … I still have to work instead of just spending time with my parents that I haven’t seen in years. I earn more than 200k. ( not west coast ) it’s a decent salary right? Why can’t I have vacation, too? I asked and putted and asked again… All that will accomplish one thing: one day in the next 2 years I will wake up, look at my bank account. And quit. To have ac…

Yeah if a boss said I couldn't have 4 weeks off per year I'd probably tell them they're functionally incompetant. Its always interesting to see how other people live.

Good for you! I will cash a few years more of that sweat US money and go back retire at home. Where every gas station attendant has 5 weeks of PTO.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#225

Post by jstummbillig »

dopidopHN wrote: post #192
nickff wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much were you willing to sacrifice in salary in exchange for additional vacation? Was it a net-positive deal for your counter party (employer)? I ask because I hear this kind of thing all the time who want to make the same money, for less time at work.

Of course I would be willing to reduce my yearly salary for 2 or 3 weeks of extra time. Should not be that hard. It’s worth more than the proportional time I would take off. It’s very valuable to me. Like 5k / week would be a good price tag. I have no debt and more stuff than I need. Now let’s me enjoy life while I still can ( and keep working on that job that I actually enjoy ) I’m not sure to understand about the n…

The crux here is, of course, that one week of your time is a lot more valuable than 5k to your employer if they pay you 3.7k per week, and probably a lot more than you would be willing to part with or find reasonable (think 20k+ a week)

It's a pretty infuriating setup. From the employers perspective, the amount of money you lose by having someone not work is so obscene, so quickly, that you have to fight your monkey brain pretty hard to not be a total asshole about it.

Even in this well paying industry, you could give everyone obscene raises, before time off makes any financial sense for the average employer. I don't think enough employees realise this.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#227

Post by syockit »

square_usual wrote: post #195
failwhaleshark wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was his favorite keyboard. He would've cried, TBH. Consider it was a place where one guy hoarded 15 years of WSJ in his office. When staff are excellent professionals in the field, they get to do all sort of weird things.

Weekly Shounen Jump or Wall Street Journal?

This question comes to my mind as well everytime I see that abbreviation.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#228

Post by legulere »

onion2k wrote: post #213

I think a lot of the replies in the thread so far have focused on tech (understandably, this is HN after all) but that's missing something obvious - the 4 day week would apply to everyone. In tech it's very likely someone going from 5 days to 4 days could still achieve the same amount of actual work. As other commenters have said, many tech workers don't do productive work all the time they're present. Retail workers…

People are still going to work more efficient when they work 32 instead of 40 hours in many jobs as fatigue sets in at some point.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#229

Post by misterremote »

> For employers, while people working four days a week may become more motivated, this may not improve their productivity enough to compensate for the lost workday.

But why do we have to "compensate for the lost workday"? Let's just say that at this point in history we appreciate work-life balance more than before and we'll switch to 4-day weeks with the same paycheck.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#230

Post by ryanSrich »

jasonzemos wrote: post #214
ryanSrich wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s certainly not perfect, but I genuinely think it’s much better than being an FTE anywhere else. Of course I’m biased. I mentioned benefits in another post, so I wouldn’t say it’s gig economy. What other environment could give a developer $100+/hr, ability to make their own schedule, and essentially all legal protections to work on side projects, work for other companies, etc. at the same time? Is it for everyone?…

You've forgotten the core tenet of every engineering discipline is the master-apprentice relationship. The reason why what you describe is really the gig economy is because you've turned contractors into autodidacts to cut costs. You're not only expecting engineers to work for you, you're expecting them to learn their craft without capitalizing that yourself. Someone has to pay for that too; it probably won't be your…

I really don’t understand this comment.

At what point did I say or lead anyone to believe that we 1.) expect developers to be autodidacts? Because we don’t have meetings? Seems an odd way to measure engineering culture and 2.) this had anything to do with cutting cost? Our hourly wages are high enough to where the cost savings is negligible compared to fully loaded salaries. I’d be happy to share the numbers over email.

Your idea of the master-apprentice relationship seems overtly romantic. I never said we don’t train staff, or haven’t brought on younger engineers. I literally onboarded an intern last week. They’ll likely make more working less than any intern at any FAANG is making this summer.

> Your success in this direction to turn software development into some kind of cattle feedlot is only a mirage.

I have to straight up disagree on the premise that it’s a mirage. Nevertheless, this is certainly an experiment, and one where we’ll adapt as needed.

I feel as if you’re focusing too much on the contractor concept. Would you be as opposed to this model if say I hired FTEs at 20 hours per week? So essentially half salary. How is this any different (note my previous comments about benefits).

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