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We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

beaconcrm.org

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Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#331

Post by giorgioz »

twh270 wrote: post #263
giorgioz wrote: post #209

At https://www.waiterio.com we are fully remote and we introduced 32 hours work weeks except for customer support which still does 40 hours a week. We track hours with hubstaff.com which takes a random screenshot every 10 minutes. It's been a mixed bag. Half of the team kept productivity up and logged those 32 hours stably. Another half of the team, when left unchecked went down to 14 hours a week and very low output…

Some people don't have a strong enough work ethic to be productive when left without direct supervision, but there's hardly a more obvious and intrusive way to say "We don't trust you" than to take a screenshot every 10 minutes. That would absolutely demolish my desire to work.

In fact, I don't trust my employees to a full 100% degree. I didn't have time or ways to build trust (yet). They work on the other side of the planet, I've never met them in person. Many of them are literally missing the few goals I've managed to set.

> That would absolutely demolish my desire to work.

I've watched probably the screenshots 3 times in 2 years when someone was underperforming and it turned out s/he was just not working at all. If you had the desire to work to start with, I would have never checked your screenshots because you have hit goals or showed me you could do awesome stuff.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#332

Post by giorgioz »

anon2020dot00 wrote: post #224
giorgioz wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume everyone is self-oriented and wants to be autonomous and have a great work ethics and care about their privacy. There are people like that. There are also people that want a lot of guidance. There are also people that just wants to be paid and don't really care much about the current job goals. There are also people that will do the bare-minumum they can to keep the job. Understanding who is who requires g…

Taking ten minute screenshots is not a good practice. Why not just measure on output or have regular meetings? What kind of job requires ten minute screenshots? Definitely not a software development job.

I've watched the screenshots 3 times in 2 years when someone has been missing deadlines and failing to explaining why for several weeks in a row. I employee people from all over the world. Some of them have real problems. A guy from Venezuela got his computer fried from an electrical surge. I asked him a lot of proof and he did provide it immediately. It was all true and I bought him a new laptop. Another guy from Mexico said he could not work because a hail storm had damaged his computer. When asked for proof turned out that it was all completely made up. He did not wanted to provide a single photo of his damaged equipment. He played the "You don't trust me??" card. In my experience people that do the "You don't trust me?!?" card are at the last rope and have buried theirselves in a huge pile of lies. So no, I don't trust employees from the other side of the planet that I've never met in person that I just started to work with last month. Trust need to be earned over time with actual proof of being worth of trust. I give them the benefit of the doubt and I ask for proof.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#333

Post by Markoff »

it sounds all nice except you will end up with company splitted to two parts working Mo-Th and Tu-Fr, because customers/clients/partners want to reach you at least 5 days a week

so while I would not mind having 20% income cut considering I work most projects for company which embrace more likely 996 scheme this would either mean I would have on Monday twice as much work as usual or i would lose these projects

this can't work unless you are isolated company (hard to imagine the field) or there is nationwide law making this standard

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#334

Post by hardware2win »

fleddr wrote: post #130

I've been working 4 day workweeks for well over a decade now, took the pay cut myself. As for the goal to maintain 100% productivity whilst cutting back on hours, I'm confident that they will succeed. In fact, they'll succeed in this without requiring some kind of brilliant plan, as this recalibration happens automatically. When you start working one day less, nobody will reduce your workload by 20%. You'll have the…

>When you start working one day less, nobody will reduce your workload by 20%. You'll have the exact same workload as before and now need to achieve it in less time.

So why pay cut

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#335

Post by Termitiono »

fleddr wrote: post #130

I've been working 4 day workweeks for well over a decade now, took the pay cut myself. As for the goal to maintain 100% productivity whilst cutting back on hours, I'm confident that they will succeed. In fact, they'll succeed in this without requiring some kind of brilliant plan, as this recalibration happens automatically. When you start working one day less, nobody will reduce your workload by 20%. You'll have the…

I'm quite surprised how much I can do in my spare time on my small startup than often enough in my day to day job.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#336

Post by anuraj »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #308
anuraj wrote: post #104

What I don't understand about Europe is 1. They are facing a huge negative demographic dividend. 2. They are facing steep inflation, low energy and food security and lower economic growth. 3. High social security costs may not be sustainable in the long term. 4. Finance is crumbling and real economy is taking over. Monetary expansion had its run and is no longer the panacea. How will they handle this and still emerge…

>How will they handle this and still emerge unscathed while competing with China and India and Indonesia and the likes. This isn't even accurate. What is EU competing with China and India on? It should the reverse if anything, how will India and China compete in High Tech and Precision Manufacturing with the West when they are suffering massive brain drain?

Sheer numbers and growth rate. China and India are huge markets and growing. Europe is a mature market which is stagflated. US has some more growth left.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#337

Post by JackMorgan »

tschellenbach wrote: post #233
yrgulation wrote: post #64

Strange how many orgs discover that working less hours or remote increases productivity for most people. It’s almost as if unstressed “workers” produce better quality work. There was an experiment whereby cows were shown to give more milk if not stressed. Certainly the same applies to humans. When will companies learn that milking their “workforce” of their energy doesnt yield the expected results but quite the oppos…

If this approach works startups will leverage it to gain an upper hand. We've seen this with remote work. Startups identified this gap and used it to outcompete other larger companies. Personally I believe in remote and that it will get even better as tech to facilitate it improves. I don't believe in working 4 days for engineering specifically. The field changes rapidly, there is a large learning curve and it takes…

I spend personal time learning, and would welcome more time to do so without having to waste more time "learning" things like "why didn't the OP put a foreign key on this column, was it intentional or ignorance?"

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#338

Post by papito »

eertami wrote: post #49
papito wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually WANT to go to the office, especially when it's nice out. My body is craving the walking and the activity, and the positive stress of being in a different environment is actually helping my mood significantly. I've become puffy, lazy, and slow. But not 5 days a week, no.

I've never understood this. If you work from home you can also just... go walking outside? In fact you could even go walking for longer, since nobody is checking for your presence and you haven't wasted time commuting. I'd rather walk to the lake and go for a swim during the afternoon, than walk to a train to walk to an office.

I have a giant park near me, and a lake. I love it and I go there almost every day, sometimes more than once. But it's monotonous over time, same routine, same routes. It engages your autopilot and then you are just cruising through the day with no positive stress.

It's different. I may not enjoy being with people, but I like being around them. Maybe because Manhattan is just so different from everywhere else, and provides a special level of intensity.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#339

Post by adamsmith143 »

anuraj wrote: post #336
adamsmith143 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How will they handle this and still emerge unscathed while competing with China and India and Indonesia and the likes. This isn't even accurate. What is EU competing with China and India on? It should the reverse if anything, how will India and China compete in High Tech and Precision Manufacturing with the West when they are suffering massive brain drain?

Sheer numbers and growth rate. China and India are huge markets and growing. Europe is a mature market which is stagflated. US has some more growth left.

But that's not a direct competition. Europe can't possibly match their growth rates

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#340

Post by michaelcampbell »

hansworst wrote: post #179
michaelcampbell wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a Wall St. firm in the 90's and wore suit and tie every day, even though my job was neither customer facing nor even in New York. I quickly realized I didn't mind it at all once I found correctly fitting shirts. If you consider a tie to be too constricting, you have the wrong shirt. Even as borderline OCD (self diagnosed, so likely wrong), I never found particular clothes to be a hinderance to me typing (…

I don’t think it’s really about the clothes being uncomfortable, but just the idea of being forced to wear certain kinds of clothes

That's a valid point, but all of us, every day, are subject to rules, mores, peer pressure, etc. No one TRULY does exactly what they want, all the time.

Different people can value these rules in different amounts, and to your point, I didn't value "what I'm wearing" as much as some other people do, so I get you.

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