World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
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Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
#2"productivity and service provision remained the same or improved" lmao there's no metric to quantify this.
Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
#3One of the lessons of trying to optimize worker productivity, health and happiness during the industrial revolution is that almost any change was an "overwhelming success" during the trial period, because of some combination of (1) a change of routine, (2) placebo effect -- people like the idea that someone is trying to help them and their mood improves accordingly.
Might even be true here (it would be nice!), but in a national experiment with high importance given to the outcome and a highly desirable result (fewer hours same pay) I cannot imagine that the productivity in this trial period will be the same as the steady-state outcome.
Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
#4imagine the results if people worked 0 days
Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
#5"productivity and service provision remained the same or improved" lmao there's no metric to quantify this.
I mean, there are? Is the same amount of product being delivered? Does it actually increase when the work week goes down to four days? Have you ever worked anywhere where metrics are tracked?
Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
#6"productivity and service provision remained the same or improved" lmao there's no metric to quantify this.
"We observed that customers were very happy M-Th when we were working. We have no data on Friday (because we were PTO) but we consider it reasonable to extrapolate the same results."
Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
#7I work in a field (military) where "overtime" isn't a thing. We can and do work 24+hour shifts without any extra pay. Even during peacetime, if we need to work 16-hour days every day for a month we can do that without any financial cost. We can also be sent home at noon every day without diminishing our wages a penny.
That absolute flexibility does not reduce stress. With no standard office hours we face constant negotiation over timings for basic events. It can take weeks to plan the simplest meeting. Bill doesn't work Saturdays. Alice is on leave. Ken is on a home-study course. Hank's kid is sick so he is working from home without a secure computer. I miss my civilian days back pre-2000 when everyone came to work five days a week.
And somehow the entropy always flows up to supervisors. At 0400 (4am) Sunday morning I took over a watch from my boss. All the junior people are at home enjoying their flexible work schedules while the two senior people on the team end up covering the long shifts nobody else wants. Set saturday-sunday weekends are a privilege. Don't give up on them so easily.
Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
#8One of the lessons of trying to optimize worker productivity, health and happiness during the industrial revolution is that almost any change was an "overwhelming success" during the trial period, because of some combination of (1) a change of routine, (2) placebo effect -- people like the idea that someone is trying to help them and their mood improves accordingly. Might even be true here (it would be nice!), but in…
That argument was used against a lot of things that turned out to be a good thing, like the 40 hour work week. What’s your suggesting other than naysaying this trial?
Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
#9"productivity and service provision remained the same or improved" lmao there's no metric to quantify this.
"We observed that customers were very happy M-Th when we were working. We have no data on Friday (because we were PTO) but we consider it reasonable to extrapolate the same results."
Don’t be silly, if customers were unhappy about the lack of service on Friday, they will let you know between Monday and Thursday.
Re: World’s largest ever four day week trial in Iceland ‘overwhelming success’
#10One of the lessons of trying to optimize worker productivity, health and happiness during the industrial revolution is that almost any change was an "overwhelming success" during the trial period, because of some combination of (1) a change of routine, (2) placebo effect -- people like the idea that someone is trying to help them and their mood improves accordingly. Might even be true here (it would be nice!), but in…
That argument was used against a lot of things that turned out to be a good thing, like the 40 hour work week. What’s your suggesting other than naysaying this trial?
I'm suggesting we have 0 data, and this study is nothing more than an opportunity for people to advocate for the policies they wanted anyway.
Which is fine, you can say that 4-day weeks is better b/c it's nicer! That's ok! Just don't try to dress this fluff up as science.