11–20 of 82 posts
People working 40+ hours a week just robotically wall off entire areas of ways to spend their time rewardingly. My 0,02€.
I find it interesting when employees ask for this without reducing pay. They then think it’s a 20% reduction as it’s 20% less work. But then you factor the overhead including normal overhead like benefits, HR, office space and additional overhead like management (a manager can only many so many people so now we need two managers for a group) and your at around a 40% reduction in pay to support one less day of output.
- The employer pays salaries based on negotiation, not on merit or some scientific measurement. An employee is allowed to do the same.
- Unless the employee is privy to all the details and math pertaining this overhead and is the one who asked for this overhead, then it's appropriate that the employee doesn't care about the overhead at all.
- There is also overhead in the employees side that is not taken into account by the employer. Commuting to that "office space" also spends the employee's time and money, for example.
- A 20% reduction of work time never amounts to a 20% reduction of productivity or work output, unless the work consists solely of sitting in a chair (and that's not counting bathroom breaks).
The 4-day work week is long overdue. Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week thanks to productivity gains, but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking. Lots of people are overworked and underpaid. I've been working a 4-day week for well over a decade (also because I've got kids, but I did this well before I had kids), and I strongly recommend it for everybody.
I find it interesting when employees ask for this without reducing pay. They then think it’s a 20% reduction as it’s 20% less work. But then you factor the overhead including normal overhead like benefits, HR, office space and additional overhead like management (a manager can only many so many people so now we need two managers for a group) and your at around a 40% reduction in pay to support one less day of output.
Getting a significant raise is not unheard of, in particular when switching jobs, and a 4 day work week is basically the same.
Basic negotiation strategy suggest that "labour shortage" is the right time to ask for this.
Some companies have extremely fat margins and regular employees may very well feel that some of that money is better spent on their salaries than dividends, C-suite compensation or stock buybacks.
The 4-day work week is long overdue. Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week thanks to productivity gains, but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking. Lots of people are overworked and underpaid. I've been working a 4-day week for well over a decade (also because I've got kids, but I did this well before I had kids), and I strongly recommend it for everybody.
And I bet he was quite right, but there is an important nuance: it's true for the 1940s level of consumption. If you reduce your level of consumption to 1940s level, you could easily manage to have 15-hour week.
> but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking
You seem to gravely underestimate the huge gap in economic value between what people were consuming in Keynes' times and what they consume now. The productivity gains are embodied in goods in services like Uber, Amazon, Netflix, computers and stuff, computerized cars.
The newly built 1940s-level goods and services would cost a fraction of price.
The 4-day work week is long overdue. Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week thanks to productivity gains, but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking. Lots of people are overworked and underpaid. I've been working a 4-day week for well over a decade (also because I've got kids, but I did this well before I had kids), and I strongly recommend it for everybody.
The 4-day work week is long overdue. Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week thanks to productivity gains, but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking. Lots of people are overworked and underpaid. I've been working a 4-day week for well over a decade (also because I've got kids, but I did this well before I had kids), and I strongly recommend it for everybody.
> Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week And I bet he was quite right, but there is an important nuance: it's true for the 1940s level of consumption. If you reduce your level of consumption to 1940s level, you could easily manage to have 15-hour week. > but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking You seem to gravely underestimate the huge gap in economic value between…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Lots of blue collar workers are already furious about things like working from home, 'email jobs', flexible schedules, etc. Sorry, I don't understand this part. Are the blue collar workers forced to work from home, use email and have a flexible schedule ?
Blue collar workers might think that the WFH or flex time are good benefits, which they don't have, and that their own pay should be adjusted accordingly.
The 4-day work week is long overdue. Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week thanks to productivity gains, but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking. Lots of people are overworked and underpaid. I've been working a 4-day week for well over a decade (also because I've got kids, but I did this well before I had kids), and I strongly recommend it for everybody.
Four day week as in four days of ten hours or as in 32-ish hours a week?