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Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

theguardian.com

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Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#201

Post by [deleted] »

wutbrodo wrote: post #135
ryandvm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually the downside of these "you decide" plans and why I absolutely hate "unlimited PTO" policies. Whenever it's up to me I end up taking less vacation than if I just had an allotted amount. People shortchange themselves because they don't want to inconvenience their team. And as an added insult, the company gets out of paying you for unused vacation when you finally burn out.

I've just started my first job with unlimited PTO, and I've never understood complaints like these. I can see how it isn't as amazing as a naive what's-on-the-tin reading would imply, but it seems to me that you can just set your bar at what a normal amount of vacation would be, plus a little bit if you feel like, since they're marketing it as "unlimited PTO". Eg, decide that three weeks is an appropriate, comparable…

[deleted]

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#202

Post by izacus »

corobo wrote: post #139
jlarocco wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is, if it's not codified in law, there is no consistency. A poorly codified policy is an implementation problem, and will be a problem for both limited and unlimited PTO policies. > "Unlimited PTO" is a marketing farce, no more, no less. If you want people to take 25 days a year off, give them 25 days of PTO and be on the hook for the liability if they leave. If you want to give them more time than that…

There has to be a limit somewhere though. Say I booked the entirety of June off this year. Are they still cool with that? How about if I also decide I'd like July off too. That's an extreme I know but there's a limit somewhere.

Booking those whole two months wouldn't even blow through standard 25 day allotment of PTO :) Which makes it even more obvious just how shortchanged you get with unlimited.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#203

Post by izacus »

Bartweiss wrote: post #103
gallamine wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't want to inconvenience their team This is is why it's important for team members to explicitly encourage each other to take breaks and vacations. I've often told a coworker, "stop working! Take a long weekend!".

I've seen companies set minimum time off, which can certainly simply the problem. (At risk of the Dilbert situation: "you need to get this done by end of year, and also take two weeks of holiday".) But ultimately, I think that's a road to this sort of cultural approach. Once people around you are taking time off, it becomes easy to justify taking time off. (And so, like most cultural things, you'd better have managem…

> Once people around you are taking time off, it becomes easy to justify taking time off. (And so, like most cultural things, you'd better have management doing it first.)

Also once teams and management get used to people taking time off, the business processes also become more resilient to people missing for a week or two and taking PTO becomes less of a problem for everyone. Suddenly someone missing for a week is just not a big deal.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#204

Post by ken »

nemesisj wrote: post #120
williamdclt wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. how did you start the experiment? Did you apply it to everybody from the start or did you run it on a small sample? 2. What do you mean "buy all 5 days" and "moonlight on the 5th day"? (not a native speaker)

Good questions! 1. We started by doing some research, actually - I spent some time finding studies that supported my thesis that productivity would go up (thus making sure our output would stay the same, more or less). Then I discussed with our management team, who thought I was nuts, but was supportive. Then I presented it to our board, who was also supportive. We applied it to everyone at the start, but some teams…

What does "give you one of them back" mean, if it doesn't mean I can do what I want with that time?

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#205

Post by ken »

combatentropy wrote: post #25

This is not the first article about how people get the same amount of work done, even more, in four days instead of five. But another thing they have in common is that they never ask the question, what about three? Or what about two? One? Surely at zero, productivity will not match the old standard of 40 hours a week. But it seems like the next logical question to me. If employees are just as productive at 32 hours a…

It depends on the person and job, of course. I've worked with people who added net negative productivity for the company, so for them, the breaking point would actually be 0.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#206

Post by Aeolun »

michaelt wrote: post #89
jlarocco wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is, if it's not codified in law, there is no consistency. A poorly codified policy is an implementation problem, and will be a problem for both limited and unlimited PTO policies. > "Unlimited PTO" is a marketing farce, no more, no less. If you want people to take 25 days a year off, give them 25 days of PTO and be on the hook for the liability if they leave. If you want to give them more time than that…

The entire point is that the employer doesn't care how many days off people take each year. Of course they do. Just they call it "abusing the policy" or "not getting your work done" and don't tell you what the lines you shouldn't cross are.

I don’t know about you, but any time off (even when unlimited) is still subject to approval by my manager.

If I take one day off 30 times a year nobody raises an eyebrow, but if I take 30 days off in one go it might.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#207

Post by Aeolun »

dilap wrote: post #142
ryandvm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually the downside of these "you decide" plans and why I absolutely hate "unlimited PTO" policies. Whenever it's up to me I end up taking less vacation than if I just had an allotted amount. People shortchange themselves because they don't want to inconvenience their team. And as an added insult, the company gets out of paying you for unused vacation when you finally burn out.

As others have mentioned, having a company minimum is a good idea. But you can also just give it to yourself: pick a number and make sure you take that many days off. Current place I work has unlimited PTO, and I really like it. You do need to be careful not to fall into the trap of not using it, though.

I don’t understand this. Why would you not use it? There would be so many days where I just wake up and go: ‘No... not today.’ and stay in bed.

Then there’s still normal vacation trips to consider.

I can easily see myself using 40 days of PTO in a year.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#208

Post by nickonline »

corobo wrote: post #156
jlarocco wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this was common sense, but can't you just ask? "Unlimited PTO" does not mean "do whatever you want". Your manager can deny requests when you have limited PTO, too, so I don't see what you're getting at. FWIW we did have somebody take an entire month off to visit family in China. He was responsible for tons of code and functionality, and it worked fine because management knew about it and planned around it.…

I've never worked at a place with unlimited PTO. I don't know. This is me asking :P Only ever worked at UK companies where we get 5.6 weeks PTO as standard. Never had a request denied as long as I've given 2 weeks notice of a long'un

You're probably requesting with a degree of sense.

If you requested your 5.6 weeks off all at once and over an go-live date that you were 100% responsible for, you might receive a request to see if you could move those holidays a bit later

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#209

Post by Aeolun »

ken wrote: post #204
nemesisj wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good questions! 1. We started by doing some research, actually - I spent some time finding studies that supported my thesis that productivity would go up (thus making sure our output would stay the same, more or less). Then I discussed with our management team, who thought I was nuts, but was supportive. Then I presented it to our board, who was also supportive. We applied it to everyone at the start, but some teams…

What does "give you one of them back" mean, if it doesn't mean I can do what I want with that time?

They pay you for not working during that day. Without any requirement to be in the office to not work.

To be honest, it seems a bit disingenuous to me. A day off should be a day off. What I do with that time is nobodies business.

Re: Four-day week trial: study finds lower stress but no cut in output

#210

Post by Aeolun »

lowkeyokay wrote: post #36
combatentropy wrote: post #25

This is not the first article about how people get the same amount of work done, even more, in four days instead of five. But another thing they have in common is that they never ask the question, what about three? Or what about two? One? Surely at zero, productivity will not match the old standard of 40 hours a week. But it seems like the next logical question to me. If employees are just as productive at 32 hours a…

Exactly! I think of this every time this subject comes up and I always come to think of the scene from Something About Mary [1] [1] https://youtu.be/rnso4nfdM9w I also think the productivity gain or lack of loss comes from excitement and a feeling of responsibility for having the extra day off. It's mentioned in the article >“The biggest concern from an employer point of view is ensuring that the full-time introducti…

Sounds like a win to me!

At that point we can start experimenting with a 3 day workweek, and find that it too doesn’t reduce productivity.

At some point in time, we’ll find out that all our work is essentially automated, and the step from one to zero days of work will seem reasonable.

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