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'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

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Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#41

Post by card_zero »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #40
card_zero wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that guy could be two guys, working four day weeks. I guess they'd overlap on Thursdays, but that's a detail.

We're pretty much at full employment. Labor force could get a few percentages bigger but I dont see where all these new people will come from

How is that happening - is a lot of that already gig jobs, part time, and so on?

Edit: it's an increase in full-time workers, with less increase in part-time workers.

https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2017/08/a-glass-half-full-or...

I don't know if this covers everyone. Anyway you may be right, employers just want all the work from all the people, at the moment.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#42

Post by hinkley »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #4

I am working 75% since about 7 years now. However, I did not chose 4 days, but 6 hours (and 5 days). I like this much more because I can more evenly distribute my workload and I have a more regular schedule, including recovering from work on a daily basis. 6 hours is the maximum I found I can concentrate and be productive. Afterwards, my output always decreased significantly and I was mainly wasting time.

I never got it to work during various economic cycles where they owed me more than they could afford, but I tried once or twice to go to 30-some hours and it seemed to me the best solution would be to come in late on Mondays.

That was an at age when I still tried to take weekend trips and if anything unplanned happens it can make the return trip very stressful, which colors the entire experience if you don’t have to be in until noon you get to use more of Sunday without worrying about logistics.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#44

Post by raffraffraff »

esafak wrote: post #10

I wonder if productivity is ever going to increase to the point where we work one day a week.

Probably not. Not for skilled jobs anyway, unless you mean that "productivity increase" will negate the need for serious skills. School isn't where you learn your craft, it's at work. I can't make myself learn a new programming language outside of work. I've tried, but I glaze over very quickly. There must be a need for me to do something, and "I'd like to learn Rust" isn't a need. "My team needs this tool and are relying on me to build it" is a need. If I'm trying to do that and learn Rust at the same time, one day a week is useless. At that rate I'd be lucky to get it done in a quarter, and from one week to the next I'd have forgotten most of what I "learned" the preview week.

For me, 4 days is perfect. I get a three day weekend every weekend, but I don't actually dread Thursdays because I feel like a failure in work.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#45

Post by spoiler »

sk11001 wrote: post #33
azinman2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently. I don’t see why that’d be necessarily true. In that scenario, it’s kind of like a part time worker and I can see many businesses finding appeal in that.

> Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently. It should be. Most people won't accept less pay even if it comes with reduced hours.

Isn't the idea behind the 4 day week that you'd work a bit harder/longer on the days you're in?

If I remember correctly, a few pilots in the past highlighted there wasn't a drop in output, but it remained the same or in some causes increased.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#46

Post by quickslowdown »

from-nibly wrote: post #22

No, the market cant handle that right now. A 4 day work week happens because of market forces. Companies don't need to offer perks unless they cant attract enough applicants or retain their top talent. We just saw this last year that companies done need anymore applicants. We are also seeing now that companies don't even care which part of their talent they keep. There might be a class divide coming that would includ…

I know there are multiple ways this could be implemented, but the thing I'm hearing most is you'd probably work longer hours during those 4 days, which is a tradeoff I might be cool with. Otherwise, just chopping a day off the work week and not reducing my pay sounds great, too. I'm less motivated and productive on a Friday as it is, because my cherished 48 hours is finally within reach.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#47

Post by re-thc »

spoiler wrote: post #45
sk11001 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently. It should be. Most people won't accept less pay even if it comes with reduced hours.

Isn't the idea behind the 4 day week that you'd work a bit harder/longer on the days you're in? If I remember correctly, a few pilots in the past highlighted there wasn't a drop in output, but it remained the same or in some causes increased.

> highlighted there wasn't a drop in output

Most likely the bottleneck in those were elsewhere. It was mentioned that they reduced meetings and other time-wasting overheads.

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#48

Post by jghn »

spoiler wrote: post #45
sk11001 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently. It should be. Most people won't accept less pay even if it comes with reduced hours.

Isn't the idea behind the 4 day week that you'd work a bit harder/longer on the days you're in? If I remember correctly, a few pilots in the past highlighted there wasn't a drop in output, but it remained the same or in some causes increased.

Sometimes. And sometimes it means you get 80% pay. I’ve known a bunch of people who had 4 day schedules in 5 day offices and it varies

Re: 'It's better for humans in general': The 4-day workweek is closer than you think

#49

Post by Ferret7446 »

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #13
esafak wrote: post #10

I wonder if productivity is ever going to increase to the point where we work one day a week.

No, we're not going to reach that point outside of sci-fi utopias. I don't believe even the 4-day workweek is going to become a thing. Any increase in productivity will be captured by the owners, it makes no sense to give it back to the workers in the form of free time.

There's an unfortunate mistake there

> Any increase in productivity will be captured by s/the owners/society/

The population will grow to the limits set by our productivity.

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