The Five-Day Office Week Is Dead • Hacker News Board

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Is Dead

#11

Post by naveen99 » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

lusus_naturae wrote: post #9

How do these attitudes towards work ensure productive output, which is related to economic activity and thus national security. Is the idea that some modern work is more mentally tasking, and so 4-day work week prevents burnout?

Nurses and er doctors have been on a 4 or 3 day work week for a long time. But they have to work nights and weekends.

Maybe when chic fil a moves to serving chicken only 4 days a week.

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Is Dead

#12

Post by smodo » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

lusus_naturae wrote: post #9

How do these attitudes towards work ensure productive output, which is related to economic activity and thus national security. Is the idea that some modern work is more mentally tasking, and so 4-day work week prevents burnout?

In my European country there is a somewhat common view that there are other kinds of work that also need doing. For instance, taking care of the young and elderly is often done by women in their ‘own’ time. When paid, this is considered work. When unpaid, it is not. However the net benefits to the community are more or less the same and the work needs doing. It may be that society is actually better off when people are wealthy enough to allocate resources to unpaid labor as needs demand.

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Is Dead

#13

Post by patrick451 » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 8:07 PM UTC

lusus_naturae wrote: post #9

How do these attitudes towards work ensure productive output, which is related to economic activity and thus national security. Is the idea that some modern work is more mentally tasking, and so 4-day work week prevents burnout?

So much specious reasoning here. Is there even a correlation between economic output and national security across large numbers of countries? If there is, how do we know the relationship is causal? How do you quantify better or worse national security?

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Is Dead

#14

Post by SkyPuncher » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 8:39 PM UTC

naveen99 wrote: post #11

lusus_naturae wrote: post #9

How do these attitudes towards work ensure productive output, which is related to economic activity and thus national security. Is the idea that some modern work is more mentally tasking, and so 4-day work week prevents burnout?

Nurses and er doctors have been on a 4 or 3 day work week for a long time. But they have to work nights and weekends. Maybe when chic fil a moves to serving chicken only 4 days a week.

Shift work isn’t really a fair comparison. They’re generally still putting in full time hours. Just grouped differently.

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Is Dead

#15

Post by lusus_naturae » Sun, Oct 22, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

patrick451 wrote: post #13

lusus_naturae wrote: post #9

How do these attitudes towards work ensure productive output, which is related to economic activity and thus national security. Is the idea that some modern work is more mentally tasking, and so 4-day work week prevents burnout?

So much specious reasoning here. Is there even a correlation between economic output and national security across large numbers of countries? If there is, how do we know the relationship is causal? How do you quantify better or worse national security?

This is a well-studied field, but you're right to question the underlying assumptions. This paper models human capital, future investment and national security [1], this paper [2] talks about the complementarity of consumption and national defense. This book starts out with the same assumptions I am making, but I can't speak to its overall conclusions bc I haven't read it [3]. More accessible article https://www.industryweek.com/finance/software-systems/articl...

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10242694.2018.14...

[2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10242694.2014.89...

[3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/26268663?seq=1

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Is Dead

#16

Post by pschuegr » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 2:31 AM UTC

glitchcrab wrote: post #10

java-man wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every worker saying "Friday is off".

My company dropped down to a 4-day week with everyone getting to choose their day off - I went for Wednesday because it gives a nice mid-week break. And Monday and Friday are great for focussed work because the majority of people picked those two days.

What's the company?

Re: The Five-Day Office Week Is Dead

#17

Post by glitchcrab » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 6:11 AM UTC

pschuegr wrote: post #16

glitchcrab wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company dropped down to a 4-day week with everyone getting to choose their day off - I went for Wednesday because it gives a nice mid-week break. And Monday and Friday are great for focussed work because the majority of people picked those two days.

What's the company?

Giant Swarm, we've published a few blog articles on the decision (such as this one https://www.giantswarm.io/blog/nouveau-travail-project-32) if you're interested.