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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

#231

Post by jtr1 »

statquontrarian wrote: post #89

I've been doing a 20-hour 3 day work week (50% of total pay) for a few years now and I love it. I'm outperforming a full-time colleague in total output. Edited to add that the 3 day work week totals 20 hours.

I did this for a few months while I was transitioning back from parental leave and was similarly insanely productive. It just made me absolutely ruthless about prioritizing. Part of it was motivation to keep up with ft colleagues while knowing I had a hard deadline when I would be back on baby duty, so not sure how replicable it is now, but it was wild to go through a few workdays with all the day trimmed out, and then have a very full extended weekend with family every week.

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

#232

Post by statquontrarian »

jtr1 wrote: post #231
statquontrarian wrote: post #89

I've been doing a 20-hour 3 day work week (50% of total pay) for a few years now and I love it. I'm outperforming a full-time colleague in total output. Edited to add that the 3 day work week totals 20 hours.

I did this for a few months while I was transitioning back from parental leave and was similarly insanely productive. It just made me absolutely ruthless about prioritizing. Part of it was motivation to keep up with ft colleagues while knowing I had a hard deadline when I would be back on baby duty, so not sure how replicable it is now, but it was wild to go through a few workdays with all the day trimmed out, and th…

I also suspect ruthless prioritization is my main driver of increased productivity.

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

#233

Post by theendisney4 »

Jedd wrote: post #203

> One important finding, researchers say, is that there is no one-size-fits-all recipe when it comes to the four-day workweek. Didn't we already know this is the case with a five-day workweek? Five days is such an arbitrary situation, obtained only through a LOT of effort by a LOT of people to reduce that down from a 'perfectly normal and reasonable' six-day workweek. We're persistently lumbered by the inertia of per…

Haha, ik wanted 5 days but got only 3, it took me a long time to figure out why i wanted 5, it seemed so self evident. It was every bit as dumb as you make it out to be.

A coworker did eventually get 5 days, after 6 months he said, what have i done, My life is just work now.

I remember working 5, i made more money. It was just as easy to spend as it is now. Nothing changed.

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

#234

Post by strken »

sincerely wrote: post #230
spacemark wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screwed in a monetary sense, perhaps. But this is just one thing people gain from work. For some it's not even that important.

Ok, so just consider a world where jobs paid no money. How many people do you think would have a job? 10% of the amount now? 1%? Even if there are some very rare individuals that go to work primarily for companionship or for personal fulfillment that doesn't mean it's even worth bringing up in a discussion like this

This is a bit of a misdirection because it equates jobs, which are work done for someone else, with all work. I am sure that the majority of people would still do something that can be considered work in a world without jobs.

It's obvious that few people are going to subordinate themselves in a world where they don't get paid for doing so, and if they did it would look more like volunteer associations (only emergency response involves much hierarchy, most volunteers are only loosely associated with the org, individuals choose which shifts to turn up to, local leaders are elected and view it as a burden rather than a privilege) and less like work (you don't get to choose anything).

Edit: I should add that I'm in no way against jobs, I just think that people who are doing largely unproductive work for free are still working, even though it'd be better for everyone if they were getting paid to do something more useful.

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

#235

Post by statquontrarian »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #214
statquontrarian wrote: post #89

I've been doing a 20-hour 3 day work week (50% of total pay) for a few years now and I love it. I'm outperforming a full-time colleague in total output. Edited to add that the 3 day work week totals 20 hours.

This is exactly what I'd like to do now that I'm in my 60s. I'd still like to work for several more years, but not full time. How did you arrange this? It seems to not be common in tech.

It was mostly accidental: first, I took a 3 month leave of absence to explore a midlife crisis. I came back announcing I'd like to go half-time to do a masters degree which my company was okay with, and when that was over, I just never went back to full time and my company was okay with it.

I guess and hope that simply directly asking for this is another strategy (and what I plan to do if I ever lose this job); otherwise, performing the above sort of misdirection, consciously, might also help justify the exception for management and peers.

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

#236

Post by statquontrarian »

op00to wrote: post #187
statquontrarian wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean to give the impression that I was boasting or that I bring this up with him or my management, but just that there's a somewhat objective relative measurement that shows that it's possible to keep up high output for some jobs. I was surprised that my _total_ output stayed so high after transitioning from 40 to 20 hours. No backlash or retaliation so far after more than 2 years.

I didn’t mean to insinuate you were boasting! I apologize if that was the case. I do my required work in 20 hours most weeks. I spend the rest of the 40 hour work week resting, learning, and working on myself. I am careful not to publicize this because I am concerned at backlash from colleagues who find they have to spend more time than me. People work at different paces and provide different value to the company for…

I think that's a good strategy.

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

#238

Post by giantg2 »

belval wrote: post #150
sandworm101 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with a large organization (government, military) that also implemented a hybrid model under covid and decided to keep it going. But not a day goes by that someone doesn't scream for it to end. We have too many people "working from home" all the time and never getting done the stuff that cannot be done from home. Is the server not responding after the recent power outage? Too bad. The guy to turn it back on only c…

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…

You speak a lot about "reasonable" things. The parent probably could have made things a little more clear, but concerning "government, military" work policies it's almost expected a high percentage will be unreasonable.

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

#239

Post by giantg2 »

spacemark wrote: post #227
ghaff wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with people looking after themselves. A lot of of the people committed to a mission are going to end up getting screwed. (Not everyone, but probably most.)

Screwed in a monetary sense, perhaps. But this is just one thing people gain from work. For some it's not even that important.

If money is not that important, then it must have been important to them at some point for them to have obtained and retained it.

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

#240

Post by giantg2 »

ghaff wrote: post #206
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your employees are so disfranchised that their install scripts to wiggle their mouse while they watch Netflix the battle is already lost. That would be a lot of companies and workers out there, dare I say the vast majority even. Believe it or not, many workers don't actually enjoy their work, their company, their boss or their job, but they put up with it because housing in expensive and it was the least horribl…

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with people looking after themselves. A lot of of the people committed to a mission are going to end up getting screwed. (Not everyone, but probably most.)

I agree. I started out mission driven, now I'm a coaster after getting screwed.
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