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Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#261

Post by mph10 »

daniel_iversen wrote: post #211
jdthedisciple wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I'm confident that I can convince you my 32 hrs are worth just as much or even more than s.o. else's 40 hrs though? I as an applicant would also not want to be ruled out only based on that, I would want to have a chance to present my own full offer to you as well.

It's not a "chance to present my own full offer" when the role explicitly states full-time. That's called trying to re-negotiate and it's not great. Also, there's no way I'll let you convince me of formally hiring you at 32 hours because of the hassles involved on my side, and more importantly the slippery slope - say the next guy thinks he can do it in 16 hours, the next person is remote, the next person doesn't wan…

I think all of those requests are reasonable.

Allowing someone to work the hours that they work most efficiently in increases productivity.

Everyone knows that meetings are a waste of time and lead to poorly thought out solutions.

Asynchronous communication is more efficient AND gives better results.

Both of these things are objectively good for the company, and a company which sees that will outperform a company that doesn’t.

Nobody wants to work 5 days a week. Most people just put up with it. The company doesn’t really have a way to measure productivity so they just say more hours worked = more hours produced. But we all know this relationship is not linear.

I know anecdotally that my productivity is vastly higher when working fewer hours.

I have had times where I get more work done in 4 days than I did in 5 days. That isn’t always going to be the case. But if the company is paying you 80% salary then the company is definitely getting more work out of you per unit salary, and that’s all that really matters in the end.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#262

Post by ronyfadel »

nazavo wrote: post #192
ronyfadel wrote: post #148

I’m a contractor working 4 days per week for a well known YC startup. I indie hack on Fridays and weekends. I found the job on Twitter, almost by mistake. The 4-day workweek was a non-negotiable for me because the indie hacking part is so much fun, and it’s making me around $60-70k/year, and I’d very much like to keep on developing the business.

Dream life! How did you go about negotiating 4-day week at a startup? From experience sturtups have been a "6 days in a 5-day week grind". Seeing a 4-day week is refreshing!

I just made it clear from the beginning that that was what I was looking for. They had no issue with it. It does feel like 5 days in a 4-day grind sometimes, but at least I get the time to indie hack.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#263

Post by schrodinger »

jononomo wrote: post #158
schrodinger wrote: post #67

I'm not, but I manage an engineer who recently asked. He's fantastic, why would I care? I just filled out a form with HR and he's now at 80% pay 4 days a week. I treat him with respect and he treats me with respect. If it ends up turning into a really difficult situation for the team, we might have a discussion about how to improve. But honestly knowing he's out every Friday will probably be a good forcing function f…

It seems like people are 95% as effective working 4 days as they are working 5, and quality of life for everyone goes up massively -- shouldn't this just become the norm.

Agreed. Maybe if I’m the CTO some day… hah.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#264

Post by icelancer »

krageon wrote: post #205
icelancer wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I would not spend one moment of my remaining short life doing something purely because a capitalist system forced me to do so. That's the ultimate, probably unachievable, goal. Given your profession, a capitalist society is by far the most likely way for you to get what you want. What do socialist-type EU countries pay software engineers again compared to the United States? How much money do you need to save to ac…

Statistically the US is also the best country to end up destitute, homeless and harassed by the police regularly. Plus - what are "socialist-type EU countries"?

>> Statistically the US is also the best country to end up destitute, homeless and harassed by the police regularly.

The first two points are false, I could present to you high double-digit countries where it's much worse than the United States. Charitably though, I assume you mean non-developing nations, in which case, you have a point.

It also does not apply to the parent poster.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#265

Post by daniel_iversen »

mph10 wrote: post #261
daniel_iversen wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a "chance to present my own full offer" when the role explicitly states full-time. That's called trying to re-negotiate and it's not great. Also, there's no way I'll let you convince me of formally hiring you at 32 hours because of the hassles involved on my side, and more importantly the slippery slope - say the next guy thinks he can do it in 16 hours, the next person is remote, the next person doesn't wan…

I think all of those requests are reasonable. Allowing someone to work the hours that they work most efficiently in increases productivity. Everyone knows that meetings are a waste of time and lead to poorly thought out solutions. Asynchronous communication is more efficient AND gives better results. Both of these things are objectively good for the company, and a company which sees that will outperform a company tha…

I do agree that modern work is quite broken and there's times we are more productive in shorter amounts of time. I don't think it's the "time" that determines it though but rather the nature of work and whether it motivates us and is in the perfect balance of flow etc. etc.

And good meetings are good meetings. That said, 2/3 meetings are considered "unnecessary" in surveys we did - so it's a matter of killing off the waste-of-time meetings and doing that async and using tech, and using the more synchronous ways of working for things that needs that (specific real-time collaborative work)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#266

Post by Mandatum »

Fr3dd1 wrote: post #180
Apreche wrote: post #19

I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story. I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week. My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview proce…

Context: I do recruiting as a team lead. I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours…

Unfortunately you're in the minority in my experience. Maybe your colleagues and yourself all act in good faith during negotiations, but they are no longer the majority in a large part of the industry. Many recruiters don't act in good faith with candidates these days, especially as KPI's are getting stretched and firms are starting to close out their recruiting efforts.

For candidates who have this as a dealbreaker with a hard-sell like this, I have one suggestion: Don't tell them it's a deal-breaker, just say you're looking at another offer with this perk and see what they can do. That way it doesn't look like you're gaming their hiring process, nor that you were interviewing in bad faith.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#267

Post by Fr3dd1 »

Apreche wrote: post #256
Fr3dd1 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

% in company not a thing here. I ask for a salary range from the candidate. If that meets the range I can potentially offer, I say so. If it is too high, I also say so. If it is lower than usual and it is a final match, our offer will be higher. If the candidate "refuses" to name it (acutally didnt happend in the last years) I can only assume that I would say my budget. Guess its fair or what would you say?

Instead of asking for range from them, why not tell them your budget first? Or at least both write them down on pieces of paper and reveal simultaneously.

99% of candidates come through some 3rd party recruiter (in our case). They know our ranges and communicate this. The other 1%, well I just dont do, no special thoughts. Its not in my intention to push compensation down. This only has future downsides if I hire the candidate and he performs well.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#268

Post by winrid »

stevenhuang wrote: post #232
winrid wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not capitalism to blame, that's just the free market. I'm not sure any system will let you live this life without a significant investment back into it, first.

Well if anything a post-scarcity system would do it.

It's an interesting idea that's fairly new to me. I guess I don't have enough communist friends. :)

It sounds nice, but will never happen on a global scale IMO because people will always fight for positions of power. Complete freedom/autonomy/no agency is not what a government wants of its citizens.

So if there was some kinda revolution, sure, but I speculate it would be quite isolated.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#269

Post by gorgabal »

Yes, I always let it be known early in the interview process. Sometimes I get rejected.

I have medical reasons. I have autism, and experience has taught me that working 40 hours simply burns me out within 3 months. I usually ask for the 4-days without mentioning the autism. But if they ask why, I won't hide it either.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?

#270

Post by vancouverwill »

tytho wrote: post #227

My input probably isn’t as valuable except as a data point, but the company I work for (around 100 employees) moved all employees over to a 32 hour/4 day work week without a change in salary. No negotiation involved technically, though there were a few employees who have been talking about 4-day work weeks for a long time. They made this change with a 6-month trial period where we would determine if we would keep it…

which company is that?
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