Don't all life's comforts work this way?
I think the point being made is it's hard to go back for the organization as well, considering that 35 out of 45 of the companies participating chose not to go back to a 5-day workweek.
Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
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Re: Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
#12Wait til you try a one day workweek
That's the best!
Re: Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
#13imo life is filled with too much these days to handle in 2 days. the rest, administrative and maintenance required to keep things moving takes 2 full days.
Re: Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
#14imo life is filled with too much these days to handle in 2 days. the rest, administrative and maintenance required to keep things moving takes 2 full days.
I agree. I feel like I need at least a full day to just decompress from work and work on anything I want to, then another day to manage chores, house maintenance, etc. I end up feeling like I work 5 days for 1 day off.
Re: Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
#15Parts of US Department of Defense and their contractors do what they refer to as Compressed Work Schedule (CWS) wherein employees work 9-hour days and get every other Friday off. Some people opt to split their off day and make every Friday a half-day so that they can be on the links or at the riverside bar and grill by lunchtime. While in college I worked 10 hours a day Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Saturday was fairly productive on account of nobody being in the office to bother me.
Ever since I've taken remote jobs that have unlimited PTO I haven't missed these arrangements at all. No commute and the ability to take time off with reasonable constraints means that I'm able to catch up on chores and personal obligations much more easily.
Re: Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
#16One of the aspects that has never been discussed in those studies is the competitor's offset, which wouldn't adopt the 4-day work week.
Local companies in Germany have a very defensive business due to the nature of the market (not so internationalized, highly consolidated, a lot of small businesses that no big corporation would try to enter, and low competition in mid-sized businesses due to bureaucracy).
For local SaaS companies or local companies for sure, it can work since no big competitor can rise. Still, the real test would be Germany placing that in their industrial base (e.g. cars, industrial instruments, chemical industry, logistics), or in some other businesses where the entry barrier is low.
Re: Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
#17I work only a few hours a week. best time of my life!
everything else is modern slavery.
Re: Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
#18Once You Try a Three-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
This sort of snarky response fails to consider the actual benefits - for both the employer and the employee.
Often by the end of the week, people in complex positions are well past the point of diminishing returns - pushing them harder may work in the short-term, but it's a recipe for burnout.
It's better to have someone operating closer to their peek performance for longer - even if you sacrifice a day overall.
Re: Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
#19Don't all life's comforts work this way?
For folks who work to live, yes. Folks who live to work generally are more divided.
Re: Once You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It's Hard to Go Back
#20For workers, sure. We said the same thing about WFH, and well, employers disagreed as soon as they were able to.
Apparently for employers as well: "Employers saw benefits, too: 70% reported that recruiting workers was easier once they went to a four-day schedule—a boon in a country where many industries complain that intense competition for talent drives up costs. A dozen participants reported details of their financial performance, showing revenue and profit were stable overall."
It's not about productivity, profitability, or anything measurable like that. It's about control, about keeping "us" different from "them". "Us" being the better, more worthy people, who deserve to enjoy life, and "them" being dirty lowly workers, who should be happy they have jobs, keep their heads down and not grumble.