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We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

beaconcrm.org

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Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#191

Post by roflyear »

coldcode wrote: post #182
fleddr wrote: post #130

I've been working 4 day workweeks for well over a decade now, took the pay cut myself. As for the goal to maintain 100% productivity whilst cutting back on hours, I'm confident that they will succeed. In fact, they'll succeed in this without requiring some kind of brilliant plan, as this recalibration happens automatically. When you start working one day less, nobody will reduce your workload by 20%. You'll have the…

When I was working before my retirement I routinely had to work 60 hr weeks since I was lead (went to every meeting) and wrote code full time along with my team. Most of our projects started with a hard deadline (estimates were only used for budgeting, the time was predetermined) and constant change was endemic during every project. No way this would fit in 32 hr weeks. Yet we still had sprints (which assumed 40 hrs…

Absolutely. Almost every org treats engineers as an expendable resource. They do this because they fear the alternative, which requires treating people with respect, because those people are valuable to your organization.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#192

Post by gargs »

jacquesm wrote: post #113
gargs wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is fine. The goal of the trial is to reward employees for increased productivity (historical trends tell an impressive story) by offering them the opportunity to keep their existing salaries by working (and therefore stressing themselves) less. Sure, high performers should be rewarded using subjective metrics, which is already the case for blue collar workers. This trial gives people the opportunity to not be p…

It's already a success elsewhere, I really don't see the point of a trial, they should just do it. In NL I don't know all that many people that still have regular 40 hour work weeks, the vast majority are 32, 28, 24 or even 20 hour workweeks, which incidentally helps a lot with leveling the pay gap between men and women.

I don't think you realize the difference.

You interview for a job -- the offer is €X @ 40hrs/wk; you tell the HR that you'd like to only work for 80% of the time since you have childcare responsibilities. HR either writes back that the job requires you to work 40hrs or they revise their offer to €0.8X.

When 80% is the new 100%

You interview, get an offer for €X @ 32hrs/wk; you tell HR that you'd like to work extra since you're really passionate. HR either writes back that you could take extra time off or they revise their offer to €X + conditional bonus of €Y.

Like you said, working more doesn't mean more productivity, and so if a company is paying more just for you sitting in front of your computer more, we're not talking about the same jobs.

And if all of this normalizes, sure, salaries would be rebased, but the negotiation changes, as described above.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#193

Post by l33t2328 »

galangalalgol wrote: post #149
isodev wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Belgium is missing as well, by law you are allowed to choose a 4d work-week and many, many people do it, including myself :-).

If you can choose to work %20 fewer hours dor the same pay, who doesn't choose to do so?

The pay is not the same

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#194

Post by seti0Cha »

heretogetout wrote: post #172
rhino369 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quick phone calls are often more efficient than emails. For status updates, downloads of information, sure email works. But if you want a back and forth exchange of ideas, talking is often much faster.

Talking is indeed faster but if you're not recording the result in some document to share with others not on the call there's risk that valuable information will be lost.

I'd say talking is best at straightening out misunderstandings. In those cases there's not necessarily any extra information generated. It's kind of like attaching a debugger to your communication stream.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#195

Post by MisterBastahrd »

heretogetout wrote: post #147
fleddr wrote: post #130

I've been working 4 day workweeks for well over a decade now, took the pay cut myself. As for the goal to maintain 100% productivity whilst cutting back on hours, I'm confident that they will succeed. In fact, they'll succeed in this without requiring some kind of brilliant plan, as this recalibration happens automatically. When you start working one day less, nobody will reduce your workload by 20%. You'll have the…

> Let's say you do need to attend a meeting. It's a 1 hour meeting. You're needed in the meeting. Go in and say you only have 20 mins. Every time I've tried this or seen it tried the meeting gets rescheduled and everyone's time is wasted. I wish it worked this way.

I wonder what percentage of meetings occur because someone in leadership is disorganized and / or unable to properly communicate with staff while they're performing their jobs on a daily basis.

Gonna say that, excluding standup, this has to be at least 50%.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#196

Post by imjared »

We've been doing this (4day x 8hr) at Monograph (monograph.com) for much longer than I've been at the company. I like to think we're a bit of an outlier since we take Wednesdays off. While this seems strange, it means that I never work more than two days at a time, I have time in the middle of the week to recharge, and I don't totally lose context on problems I'm working on. We could argue that this means it's not a true "off" day which may be true but I'm completely happy with this setup.

Tuesdays are the new Fridays, y'all.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#197

Post by anon2020dot00 »

yrgulation wrote: post #188
matsemann wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you only said you don't want other's needs to affect you, that would be a valid opinion. (Albeit not very altruistic) But what you're saying is also that those wanting to be at the office are friendless, need this as a substitute for a normal life etc. That's unnecessary, and just you being a total dick. Please present your arguments here in a better way.

i never said that. please be more mindful when making accusations and try and reread what people write here if english is not your strength, instead of being a pretentious prick.

> most pro office folks are seeking to substitute gaps in their personal lives with onsite work

> you're saying is also that those wanting to be at the office are friendless, need this as a substitute for a normal life etc

What did he characterize wrong?

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#198

Post by cecilpl2 »

fleddr wrote: post #130

I've been working 4 day workweeks for well over a decade now, took the pay cut myself. As for the goal to maintain 100% productivity whilst cutting back on hours, I'm confident that they will succeed. In fact, they'll succeed in this without requiring some kind of brilliant plan, as this recalibration happens automatically. When you start working one day less, nobody will reduce your workload by 20%. You'll have the…

My company does max 30 minute meetings. It's great and somehow everything still gets discussed. Occasionally we run a bit long but everyone knows you can only rely on people to be there for the first 30 minutes.

I'm in a Staff role with my fingers in multiple projects across several teams, and I still only have 2-3 hours of meetings a day.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#199

Post by marcosdumay »

hansworst wrote: post #179
michaelcampbell wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in a Wall St. firm in the 90's and wore suit and tie every day, even though my job was neither customer facing nor even in New York. I quickly realized I didn't mind it at all once I found correctly fitting shirts. If you consider a tie to be too constricting, you have the wrong shirt. Even as borderline OCD (self diagnosed, so likely wrong), I never found particular clothes to be a hinderance to me typing (…

I don’t think it’s really about the clothes being uncomfortable, but just the idea of being forced to wear certain kinds of clothes

Are you sure you aren't just unconsciously repeating the same prejudice, but from a different click?

How will the people around you react to you using a suit? If it's badly, you are as much forced to wear a certain kind of clothes as the GP was.

Anyway, just because there is a dressing code, it doesn't mean that the culture normally associated with it dominates. Those are two different things, where one is a huge problem, and the other mostly irrelevant. It's always better if you react to problems that are rally there, instead of noisy proxies.

Re: We're moving to a four-day work week at Beacon

#200

Post by jacquesm »

gargs wrote: post #192
jacquesm wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already a success elsewhere, I really don't see the point of a trial, they should just do it. In NL I don't know all that many people that still have regular 40 hour work weeks, the vast majority are 32, 28, 24 or even 20 hour workweeks, which incidentally helps a lot with leveling the pay gap between men and women.

I don't think you realize the difference. You interview for a job -- the offer is €X @ 40hrs/wk; you tell the HR that you'd like to only work for 80% of the time since you have childcare responsibilities. HR either writes back that the job requires you to work 40hrs or they revise their offer to €0.8X. When 80% is the new 100% You interview, get an offer for €X @ 32hrs/wk; you tell HR that you'd like to work extra si…

How do you think we made the change from 6 days to 5 days? Do you feel like you are getting 100% pay for 0.86 time worked?
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