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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

#241

Post by andrewmcwatters »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #6
eucryphia wrote: post #2

Same government that runs a debt to GDP ratio of 266%

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/15/spain-to-launc... (Spain to launch trial of four-day working week) 120% debt to GDP For fun, the US is at 127%. Equity, debt, fiat, just rows in a database. If it doesn’t work out, what’s the worst that happens? We go back to few more hours a week? But if it does work, it’s time work evolves further.

Say you loan someone some money, and they just… don’t pay it back. Well, who cares right? After all, it’s just a number in your bank account.

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

#242

Post by vincnetas »

Animats wrote: post #231
vincnetas wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you would treat devs like warehouse workers right now,all devs would run away. I mean force them to be 100% effective all the 8 hours and track every move they make. On the other hand allow warehouse workers flexible schedule and decent pay so they could live decent life by puting in 20 hours a week (even while measuring every move they make) and i bet there would be devs who would convert to warehouse workers.

If you would treat devs like warehouse workers right now,all devs would run away. I mean force them to be 100% effective all the 8 hours and track every move they make. CleverControl employee monitoring pitch: "This software offers powerful features: keylogging, screen recording, live viewing, remote settings, clipboard control, Skype monitoring, and more. The software records time that was spent on this or that acti…

This would trigger Italian strike in me (as a dev) immediately :)

"Another unconventional tactic is work-to-rule (also known as an Italian strike, in Italian: Sciopero bianco), in which workers perform their tasks exactly as they are required to but no better."

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

#243

Post by polm23 »

I'm skeptical this will actually see wide adoption.

I don't mean to suggest this is a universal trend, but I remember being surprised to see that Tora no Ana, a comic book shop with tech company aspirations, advertised "super engineer" positions that let you work four days a week. But it turned out this was a position with higher qualifications than a normal engineer that just gave you the option of working four ten hour days instead of five eight hour ones.

https://www.toranoana.jp/recruit/super-engineer/

While the suggested four day work week here sounds like a real four days and not longer hours, I do think that managing company expectations will be difficult.

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

#244

Post by ineedasername »

While I would like it, unfortunately it wouldn't work for things like customer-facing positions. If the business is open from 9am to 9pm then it still needs the same level of staff coverage. The company could either reduce pay proportionately, or keep paying the same salaries (and increase hourly workers' pay proportionately) and hire more people, incurring a 20% increase in labor costs.

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

#245

Post by ggm »

nkssy wrote: post #207
ggm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia calling: 37.5hr week please. It be law.

I bet you're envious of the typical US 2 weeks vacation allowance.

20 years in with two rounds of long service leave that would be "no"

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

#246

Post by bobthepanda »

franciscop wrote: post #235
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…

I fully agree with your comment overall, but as someone who lives in Japan I'd like to point out that specifically "people who fill in the holes in roads" is a running joke in Japan since small street constructions always seem way over-staffed. It's amazing because they do finish a lot faster than in western countries, but you can definitely remove 20% of the people in street-level construction and would see little d…

Japan on paper is the wealthiest (non-microstate) Asian country GDP per capita, but if you compare by PPP it's actually not great because of meh economic productivity/import tariffs, and slips behind South Korea and Taiwan.

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

#247

Post by kqr »

franciscop wrote: post #235
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…

I fully agree with your comment overall, but as someone who lives in Japan I'd like to point out that specifically "people who fill in the holes in roads" is a running joke in Japan since small street constructions always seem way over-staffed. It's amazing because they do finish a lot faster than in western countries, but you can definitely remove 20% of the people in street-level construction and would see little d…

Sometimes I think what passes for appropriately staffed in the West is actually understaffed. What's called optimal staffing in the West is just at capacity, which is a nice way of saying "with no spare capacity."

Of course, with Japan being the land of just-in-time, one could argue that spare capacity is bad -- but that's an oversimplification. Necessary spare capacity is good. What's bad is not being able to address the reasons the spare capacity is needed. Maybe when it comes to humans doing road work there's no way around the need for spare capacity?

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

#248

Post by ryandrake »

ghshephard wrote: post #120
irrational wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s insane. I’m in the states, but my company treats us like adults. I roll in when I want, work out in the gym for 2 hours during the day, leave whenever I want. I can’t imagine working for a place that tracked my hours.

You've never worked at a job where you had to submit time sheets at the end of each week? Lots of "professional" gigs where people have to do that in order to accurately track time to customers - particularly when they are billing you out at $500/hour on the contract.

Most software employers I’ve worked for had us fill out time sheets, and they didn’t do hourly consulting so no need to calculate hours for clients. I only recently found an employer who does not require a time sheet. I thought this was pretty standard, at least in the USA. There will definitely be someone who replies to this comment and says “I’ve been working 20 years and never had to fill out a time sheet.” So it’s probably not universal.

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

#249

Post by aix1 »

dopidopHN wrote: post #189
bathtub365 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your job is getting in the way of your life goals, why don’t you find one that doesn’t?

Oh. Thanks, never thought about it that way. Sarcasm aside yes: I’m not gonna keep working in the US for that specific reason.

I could be wrong, but it seems that there's no great shortage of companies offering 4+ weeks of PTO per year in the US. Or are you expecting more vacation than that? (Or are perhaps otherwise constrained as to the choice of employers?)

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

#250

Post by kyleee »

tmmx wrote: post #208
millirem wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Break times also tend to be regulated in most countries I believe. I.e. here in Japan 60 minutes break time is required if you work for more than I think about 6ish hours.

When I used to work in Japan I hated that rule. One day I feeling not so great, so I took the morning off. But we had an important release, so I still went to the office in the afternoon. The release ran into few issues, so I had to stay past the regular finish time of 6pm. I started to feel no so great again, so I wanted to finish the release and head home as soon as possible. But at 7pm, my boss came running toward…

I mean, it's a sensible regulation but there should be some leeway for edge case situations like yours (if there aren't already - since you were actually sick that should make it OK for you to leave ASAP one would hope)
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