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Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

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Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#161

Post by dspillett »

Cheezmeister wrote: post #141
quaintdev wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something that will never happen in India because no matter how bad you want 4 day work week theres always someone who will do full 5 days a week and do additional work over the weekend.

> theres always someone who will do full 5 days a week and do additional work over the weekend Good for them. If the quality bar holds, they deserve to be rewarded. Based on personal anecdata, the quality bar does not hold. Not in India, nor anywhere else. Why employers can't see this on the balance sheet is a different discussion.

> Why employers can't see this on the balance sheet is a different discussion.

Because it isn't on the balance sheet. The job gets done, the overtime is unpaid.

They assume that if the hours reduce, the job won't get done, they don't see each hour of less hours being productive because they've but been convinced to try the fewer hours option.

Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#162

Post by ghaff »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #127
jedberg wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Return-to-office mandates aren't making companies more valuable and productive, study finds: https://www.businessinsider.com/return-to-office-mandates-re... "Any one of the three economic factors described above (real estate, retention and recruitment), by itself, could justify the alleged loss in productivity. When you consider all three, it is extremely hard to imagine any organization for which the losses resultin…

I'm talking about 32 vs 40 h per week productivity, not WFH productivity. What's one have to do with the other?

Well, I suspect that--based on what I've seen from talking to people--remote makes it easier to do no-meeting, maybe do some light cleanup Fridays. So there's some relationship probably.

Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#163

Post by ghaff »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #129
bombcar wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies (currently) compete by offering more money - if the pool of applicants dried up enough, perhaps they'd begin competing by offering more time . The problem is if they pay you $x per year, they don't care how many hours you work, as long as the job gets done. So something that makes their life a bit more annoying (no replies on Friday) but makes your life amazingly better won't get done.

>Companies (currently) compete by offering more money - if the pool of applicants dried up enough, perhaps they'd begin competing by offering more time. Because more money is what most candidates prioritize when job hopping, because when buying a house they can pay it with that money but can't pay it with more time off. The only people who prioritize less hours for less money are those who are already fortunate enoug…

>Because more money is what most candidates prioritize when job hopping, because when buying a house they can pay it with that money but can't pay it with more time off.

Although you could argue that's already the case in a lot of Europe vs. parts of the US. Of course, it's an imperfect comparison because of the barriers to moving countries or even acquiring a remote job in a different country.

Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#164

Post by nickff »

ipaddr wrote: post #139
nickff wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing the number of days worked per week per individual increases (relative) overhead costs, including administrative costs, benefits (most notably including healthcare), and capital costs (because everything is being used less, but still devaluing). These are all real changes with real impacts. Also of note, the increase in these costs from going down to 4 days will be substantially larger than the prior one (due…

Capital costs spent do not go up. An opportunity for saving exist. One extra day means less electrical costs. Admin costs remain static. These costs do not change unless you are hiring someone for that one day. The costs are not going up substantially or at all for most 9/5 businesses

Capital expense is ~= depreciation, which is inversely proportional to the amount of work performed with a given capital asset.

Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#165

Post by [deleted] »

jjcm wrote: post #71

There's no doubt that there's a benefit to the employee, but for corporations to adopt this there has to be a measurable benefit to the company as well. I do think there is one clear benefit as measured in the article - employee retention. It's an extremely strong incentive to stay with the current company, and domain knowledge gained over decades really is a competitive advantage if your employees commonly have it.…

[deleted]

Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#166

Post by lolinder »

sandworm101 wrote: post #160
belval wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds mostly dysfunctional and not really a WFH issue. > Is the server not responding after the recent power outage? Too bad. The guy to turn it back on only comes in Monday-Tuesday. A reasonable company would have some rotating in-office IT or at the very least an oncall that goes to wherever the server is to fix it. > The plumbers and electricians still "work from home" half the week. Pretty much the same thi…

>> A reasonable company would have some rotating in-office IT Ya. We had that. We had 10+ people doing trouble tickets 8am to 4pm across more than a dozen buildings. They worked hard, but were never actually done. There was always a priority list. Now they work half the week from home. Stuff is piling up and we are begging for more non-at-home IT staff to be hired.

I think you missed the point—your organization is completely dysfunctional at this point and hiring won't change that.

Based on your description you don't have a WFH policy, you have a policy that incentivizes not working at all. What makes you think that these hypothetical new hires are going to actually work while the rest of their department doesn't? What sane person would put up with that treatment?

Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#167

Post by [deleted] »

sandworm101 wrote: post #160
belval wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds mostly dysfunctional and not really a WFH issue. > Is the server not responding after the recent power outage? Too bad. The guy to turn it back on only comes in Monday-Tuesday. A reasonable company would have some rotating in-office IT or at the very least an oncall that goes to wherever the server is to fix it. > The plumbers and electricians still "work from home" half the week. Pretty much the same thi…

>> A reasonable company would have some rotating in-office IT Ya. We had that. We had 10+ people doing trouble tickets 8am to 4pm across more than a dozen buildings. They worked hard, but were never actually done. There was always a priority list. Now they work half the week from home. Stuff is piling up and we are begging for more non-at-home IT staff to be hired.

[deleted]

Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#168

Post by datadrivenangel »

ausbah wrote: post #159
sokoloff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems reasonable. Take two equivalent companies, one that has a 4-day workweek and an otherwise identical one that has a 5-day workweek. Which one would you rather work for? Which one do you think will have a relative abundance of applicants (read: supply of labor)? Which other one do you think will have a lower supply of labor and might need to pay more to attract candidates? It seems logical that a company off…

if productivity is the same why should i be paid less just because # of hours is lower? which isn’t even always the case as these companies will do 9-10 hour days

Because management will be better?

Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#169

Post by sokoloff »

ausbah wrote: post #159
sokoloff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems reasonable. Take two equivalent companies, one that has a 4-day workweek and an otherwise identical one that has a 5-day workweek. Which one would you rather work for? Which one do you think will have a relative abundance of applicants (read: supply of labor)? Which other one do you think will have a lower supply of labor and might need to pay more to attract candidates? It seems logical that a company off…

if productivity is the same why should i be paid less just because # of hours is lower? which isn’t even always the case as these companies will do 9-10 hour days

It’s not a matter of philosophy (“should”) but rather of economics.

I think that the balance of supply and demand will tend to have the market-clearing comp be somewhat lower, assuming that the offered labor for four-day weeks is well in excess of the demanded labor for four-day weeks.

Re: Study: 61 UK firms tried a 4-day workweek and after a year, they still love it

#170

Post by esafak »

whatyesaid wrote: post #77
jjcm wrote: post #71

There's no doubt that there's a benefit to the employee, but for corporations to adopt this there has to be a measurable benefit to the company as well. I do think there is one clear benefit as measured in the article - employee retention. It's an extremely strong incentive to stay with the current company, and domain knowledge gained over decades really is a competitive advantage if your employees commonly have it.…

If most companies become 4 day work week, that would be the new floor and not a perk no more? You might still have 5 day work week employees who get paid more but to them the perk is money/earlier retirement.

Mission accomplished. Otherwise what's the point of increasing productivity? If we can get the work done in less time, we should be able to work less. In an ideal world, we would work as little or as much as we want and be compensated accordingly.
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