Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

marketwatch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–198 of 198 posts

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

#191

Post by _glass »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #105
_glass wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was nomadding in Istanbul, working 4h per day, whenever I wanted to. This was the perfect setup. Unfortunately, as one gets older the classical developer role is not really possible anymore. Now I work 8 to 9 hours, 2 days in the office per week, 3 days at home. While it is better than the normal 9 to 5, quality of life really suffers. But I think it is mostly about that the 4 hours I could do whenever I wanted wit…

I'm in my 50's, was nomadding around SE Asia when I turned 50. So yeah, age isn't it ;) Getting into management is definitely more of a hours thing. But manager productivity is different; it's about talking to lots of people and not maintaining focus on one thing for hours. It's a shit-load easier to do from anywhere. But at the same time, it's definitely time-intensive. When I was CEO of a 200+ organisation I worked…

Thanks for the comment, this sounds actually kind of great. This year I'll enter my 40s so maybe in the next five years I'll start to switch to smaller companies. I really miss the builder schedule.

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

#192

Post by from-nibly »

diarrhea wrote: post #58
roughly wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point of this is that productivity does not go down in a 4 day workweek and retention goes up. As an employer, you get the same amount of output, happier employees, and better retention. Everyone says they’re a data driven business until the data tells them something they don’t believe.

Companies generally follow decision-driven data principles.

After having worked at a few companies I can tell you that they generally do not.

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

#193

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

Doxin wrote: post #133
harperlee wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are in areas where overtime is common, and a longer official schedule protects them from unofficial overtime.

So we should make everyone schedule 24/7, that way there is no unofficial overtime at all. Unofficial overtime is a problem, but clearly the solution is not to make the official schedules longer. The solution is to actually do something about unofficial overtime.

I guess it's a stopgap solution so that more of the hours get paid at least, though I agree the problem is unofficial overtime issues should be solved to begin with.

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

#194

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #35

Here in the Netherlands plenty of companies already switched to a 36 hour fulltime workweek, and I know of at least one large company (15.000+ employees) went to a 34 hour workweek. And all those companies pay the same as 40 hour companies.

Was it actually applied? I find work in Europe had more social breaks during the day, but my 35h schedule (working 40 and getting paid catch-up days off to be used monthly) still ended up looking like 70h weeks reported as 40 with no extra catch-up days and no overtime pay.

Contrast to Canada, my 40h week does average to 40h and if I do overtime it is paid (provided I get it approved ahead of time) and I get to take that back as unpaid time off later. Though I am told to report my real hours in my timesheet provided they are 8h per day. So not my real hours.

A lot of this comes from being salaried vs. hourly, but I'm not really hourly other than on paper. As salaried I was expected to do a lot more unpaid overtime though under the guise of flexibility. Oddly the flexibility was rarely in my favor :p

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

#195

Post by hkt »

Jensson wrote: post #107
hkt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why people also talk about retention. Personally I'd think of the extra day as rent paid on not having to hire and onboard someone new.

Why would retention change if everyone works 4 days a week? At that point it is no longer a perk, you get it everywhere, so retention should be as before and the advantages of 4 day weeks is now gone.

I am a little baffled by the idea that job satisfaction is comparative. Three days a week to do what one wants and needs to do is life enhancing for me, even if everyone else has it and retention is a function of happiness.

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

#196

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

whythre wrote: post #30
jvm___ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens to the economy when the contract janitor and the coffee cart lady have their hours cut and now can no longer afford rent. They only have one free day a week so they can't find a second job.

Uh… telling them they should have to get 2 jobs seems like the absolutely wrong solution, here.

There's already people with 2-3 part time jobs. I don't imagine if a 4 day work week became the norm, that suddenly it would become the only available option either...

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

#197

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

throttlebody wrote: post #11

> great as a retention tool. Until it becomes standard then its 3 days a week. Im all for it, if you can increase productivity, but it's likely too many people won't be able to.

Productivity is already increased, employees just never got the benefits from it.

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

#198

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

Roark66 wrote: post #84

Yes, 4 day work week... Especially for contractors that are paid by the day (and the amount of work to be done stays the same). I'd love a 4 day week if the daily rate went up so the pay doesn't change. Somehow I'm not holding my breath.

Pretty sure this would be a FTE only benefit.
Post reply on HN