The Case for a Shorter Workweek
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Re: The Case for a Shorter Workweek
#2Soon after implementation, I feel that companies would like to reduce pay as well. Maybe not by 20%, but it's an easy way to increase profitability.
Re: The Case for a Shorter Workweek
#3A couple of random and semi-related thoughts:
I'm not really good for more than 6 hours of any sort of challenging mental work in a day, anyway. I also don't think that "hours" are a particularly good thing to track for software engineers -- we have ticket tracking and project management software that track effort already.
The bit about being rewarded with a Friday off reminded me of how I'd try to get my homework done during study hall in school, so I wouldn't have to do any at home. In the real world, the reward for getting your work done early tends to be more work. Maybe that shouldn't always be the case.
Re: The Case for a Shorter Workweek
#4Soon after implementation, I feel that companies would like to reduce pay as well. Maybe not by 20%, but it's an easy way to increase profitability.
I think they might want to - but they won't be able to. Unless it's done as a cartel action (and some of the FAANGs in particular have gotten trouble for cartel labour actions before) - then one company is going to go first and lose all their valuable employees - while the companies that lag behind will scoop up all those high value employees and probably decide not to risk it after all.
People talking about macroeconomics often talk about how markets respond to certain pressures - as this gets further from the academics it gets watered down and that response is assumed to be instantaneous - but it isn't. In theory a payroll tax on the employer and income tax on the employee have the same long term economic outcomes - in practice that long term realization takes so long to work through the system that the effects of decreased take home usually end up being swallowed many times over by inflation before anyone feels any affect of it.
Re: The Case for a Shorter Workweek
#5A couple of random and semi-related thoughts: I'm not really good for more than 6 hours of any sort of challenging mental work in a day, anyway. I also don't think that "hours" are a particularly good thing to track for software engineers -- we have ticket tracking and project management software that track effort already. The bit about being rewarded with a Friday off reminded me of how I'd try to get my homework do…
When I worked in gaming the reward for getting your work done early was... attending the same mandatory overtime as everyone else because one department going home early would "hurt team morale". Granted - the same company seemed pretty oblivious to how much underbudgeting projects "hurt team morale" but that side of the equation was never changed. I thankfully changed industries but I still live with some of the consequences of doing too much OT in my youth.
Re: The Case for a Shorter Workweek
#6Soon after implementation, I feel that companies would like to reduce pay as well. Maybe not by 20%, but it's an easy way to increase profitability.
I think they might want to - but they won't be able to. Unless it's done as a cartel action (and some of the FAANGs in particular have gotten trouble for cartel labour actions before) - then one company is going to go first and lose all their valuable employees - while the companies that lag behind will scoop up all those high value employees and probably decide not to risk it after all. People talking about macroeco…
Wages might be sticky, but surely it wouldn't be difficult for employers to simply slow down the increase in wages, both by decreasing the compensation and/or number of new entry-level roles, and by decreasing and/or delaying promotions. This seems to me that in many industries/markets this could be done by employers without any sort of identifiable cartelization.
Re: The Case for a Shorter Workweek
#7I'd like to see a study on how many studies that show "X" is beneficial to humans and companies, but break the status quo in working environments actually lead to "X".
Re: The Case for a Shorter Workweek
#8I've been working a 4-day work week for over a decade now. I took the pay cut myself.
I pretty much agree with the article. Especially in knowledge-intense office jobs, people can't really be fully productive across the day or week. People have different energy cycles throughout the day, and we're biologically just not designed to focus this stretch of time. So a number of hours is "busy time", sitting out the hours. A collective form of madness that serves nobody.
Anyway, in my case I noticed that in this line of work, your work load won't scale down by 20%. You still need to output the same productivity as somebody working 5 days.
This does mean that the 4 days become more intense. There's little slack in it. Further, it forces you into a more aggressive stance in rejecting distractions, items of low importance, and so on.
One thing I learned in doing so, is that I was much too afraid before in rejecting time wasters. I now generously decline meetings, and if truly of low importance, don't even explain why. Your problem, not mine. Only my direct manager can lay a claim on my time, others must convince me of the purpose.
I'm in the lucky position to work in a fully output-based role, based on sprints and clear deliverables. One week before the new sprint, we agree in detail what gets delivered. And then I deliver, consistently and reliably. I take this extreme reliability very serious, as I don't want to be seen as some part-time worker or somebody not doing their part.
Once this reputation is established, barely anybody can even tell that I'm not in on Fridays.
I strongly wish for a better work balance at a societal level. We have plenty of people to divide work amongst, combined with automation it would only be a logical and humane progression.
It is a type of progress we've ignored. We work longer, not shorter. We work as a couple, not as a single breadwinner. We have less job security than ever. The combined stress of a life long quest and grind for economic relevance is the greatest source of human suffering remaining. Which is not to imply that all work is suffering, rather the long hours, conditions, insecurity and imbalance of it.
If I may rant on, a sane work life may be the only way out of the climate crisis. It will inevitably lead to pressure on our material wealth, our lifestyle, our stuff. People won't accept this sacrifice, unless...
...you exchange it for a better life in other ways. More economic security and a less existential stressful life in return for less material wealth. I'd take that deal.
Re: The Case for a Shorter Workweek
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think they might want to - but they won't be able to. Unless it's done as a cartel action (and some of the FAANGs in particular have gotten trouble for cartel labour actions before) - then one company is going to go first and lose all their valuable employees - while the companies that lag behind will scoop up all those high value employees and probably decide not to risk it after all. People talking about macroeco…
Wages might be sticky, but surely it wouldn't be difficult for employers to simply slow down the increase in wages, both by decreasing the compensation and/or number of new entry-level roles, and by decreasing and/or delaying promotions. This seems to me that in many industries/markets this could be done by employers without any sort of identifiable cartelization.
I think we can safely ignore entry-level roles here - for a while in the early 00s everyone with an MBA thought that entry level engineers were just like other engineers but at 20% of the cost - what savings! Then the industry realized that both junior employees and off-shoring come with real costs that need to be analyzed in advance - they can be the right answer, but you need to tread very carefully.
So I'd take a look at senior employees which tend to be a pretty curmudgeonly bunch that have been through wage freezes and non-monetary compensation circuses before and will jump ship if they get a wiff of it happening again. Companies won't feel any loss of revenue for a few years after work weeks are slashed - it takes a while for consumer spending to adjust to lower income - instead we'd likely eat a fair bit of inflation (which has been unhealthily stagnate for a while now) and everything would move on from there.
If the companies are responding to a natural decrease in effective revenue it'll be staggered and upstream companies will be shielded from it for longer - so you'll likely see a value shift from customer facing companies to B2B companies aaaaand - any wage slashing that goes on will just reinforce that value shift as valuable employees jump ship.
All these ripples that go through the economy do so slowly - and no MBA worth their salt is going to say (on the monday after switching to a reduced workweek) "Welp all our employees know this will eventually impact us so lets just slash their wages now". No, they'll wait and see if their business is able to ride out the shifting terrain without decreasing wages since that's a more stable approach and puts the company at less danger - and if that company happens to need to adjust employee costs it won't be evident until multi-year contracts are re-negotiated to lower rates and customers refuse to renew since their pocketbooks are empty.
Economics moves sloooow - maybe it'd be better to imagine the invisible snail of the market!
Re: The Case for a Shorter Workweek
#10I've been working a 4-day work week for over a decade now. I took the pay cut myself. I pretty much agree with the article. Especially in knowledge-intense office jobs, people can't really be fully productive across the day or week. People have different energy cycles throughout the day, and we're biologically just not designed to focus this stretch of time. So a number of hours is "busy time", sitting out the hours.…
> I'm in the lucky position to work in a fully output-based role, based on sprints and clear deliverables. One week before the new sprint, we agree in detail what gets delivered. And then I deliver, consistently and reliably. I take this extreme reliability very serious, as I don't want to be seen as some part-time worker or somebody not doing their part
Is the nature of your work very predictable, or, do you tend to work overtime if you're not able to get a task finished when you estimated you could?