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California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

cnbc.com

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Re: California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

#21

Post by _fat_santa »

Obviously this will depend on the industry and work environment, but I feel like the "4.5 day workweek" is already a thing for many office workers. What I'm talking about is the culture around slacking on a Friday.

At least at my company, it's an unwritten rule that you never schedule a meeting after 12PM on a Friday. You can see from slack statuses that folks most all leave early and take longer lunch breaks. And any calls usually end with "lets finish hashing this out monday".

Again just my personal experience, but where I've worked I've noticed that's consistently been the culture.

Re: California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

#22

Post by lolinder »

hw-guy wrote: post #14

Unless I'm missing something, this would have no impact on engineers and other professional employees who are "exempt" from overtime. My nominal 40-hour work week meant nothing if there was a crisis or schedule slip that required putting in many extra hours. The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. Also, it's weird that it only applie…

> The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational.

It also assumes that non-exempt employees are spending 8 hours a week in unnecessary meetings. Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt, since they'll tend to be either professional or administrative?

Re: California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

#23

Post by dghughes »

I see various websites show Canada as having an average of 32.5 hours per week for working hours. I don't think that is accurate. Most business here use a 40 hour week and most government departments have a 37.5 work week.

Most European countries I see are well under 30 hours most mid to low 20s. I wonder if that is accurate as well.

I do see videos of people from the US living in various European countries who say people are less stressed from work. They say most people want to go out after work compared to the US where everyone is so stressed they just crash at home after work.

Re: California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

#24

Post by shagie »

hw-guy wrote: post #14

Unless I'm missing something, this would have no impact on engineers and other professional employees who are "exempt" from overtime. My nominal 40-hour work week meant nothing if there was a crisis or schedule slip that required putting in many extra hours. The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. Also, it's weird that it only applie…

Exempt (and non-exempt) are orthogonal to salaried vs hourly.

An exempt hourly worker still gets paid for over time, just at 1.0x rather than the mandated 1.5x.

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The "improve productivity through fewer meetings" assumes that the loss in productivity is through meetings. Things like tech support, facilities, and office administrative work generally don't encounter wasteful meetings to the degree that the professional staff does.

Re: California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

#26

Post by usrn »

_fat_santa wrote: post #21

Obviously this will depend on the industry and work environment, but I feel like the "4.5 day workweek" is already a thing for many office workers. What I'm talking about is the culture around slacking on a Friday. At least at my company, it's an unwritten rule that you never schedule a meeting after 12PM on a Friday. You can see from slack statuses that folks most all leave early and take longer lunch breaks. And an…

That's actually a written rule for us, complete with the "no meeting" meeting scheduled in Outlook.

Re: California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

#27

Post by shagie »

lolinder wrote: post #22
hw-guy wrote: post #14

Unless I'm missing something, this would have no impact on engineers and other professional employees who are "exempt" from overtime. My nominal 40-hour work week meant nothing if there was a crisis or schedule slip that required putting in many extra hours. The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. Also, it's weird that it only applie…

> The claim that this law would force companies to be more efficient by having fewer meetings assumes management are rational. It also assumes that non-exempt employees are spending 8 hours a week in unnecessary meetings. Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt, since they'll tend to be either professional or administrative?

> Aren't most meeting-heavy jobs by definition exempt

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co...

> However, Section 13(a)(1) and Section 13(a)(17) of the FLSA provide an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $684* per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour.

If you're a computer programmer making less than $27.63/hour (and I have been that situation living in low cost of living area), you are a non-exempt professional worker. I got 1.5x overtime, and since the company had it as policy, working evenings or weekends got a shift differential too.

Re: California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

#28

Post by ErikVandeWater »

_fat_santa wrote: post #21

Obviously this will depend on the industry and work environment, but I feel like the "4.5 day workweek" is already a thing for many office workers. What I'm talking about is the culture around slacking on a Friday. At least at my company, it's an unwritten rule that you never schedule a meeting after 12PM on a Friday. You can see from slack statuses that folks most all leave early and take longer lunch breaks. And an…

I would say that .5 is more like .75 - still gotta go through traffic to get to work, and people are still in a place they (apparently) rather not be. Eliminating the day entirely is still quite valuable compared to leaving it as-is.

Re: California considers a shortened, 32-hour workweek for larger companies

#29

Post by debacle »

jader201 wrote: post #4

Curious why this isn’t bigger news? Seems like every other day, HN has some front page article about dreams of a shorter work week. It’s finally a possibility, and seems like HN is pretty apathetic about it (e.g. this article is from 5 days ago). Is it that we’re still not optimistic it will actually take hold?

When ACA was passed (Obamacare), it expanded healthcare benefits to millions of part-time workers based on a new definition of "full time" that meant >=30 hours.

The result was simply that many employees had their weekly hours cut to less than 30 hours.

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