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Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#231

Post by ciceryadam »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #194
ciceryadam wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general you can check it here: https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=AWCOMP Example from Prague, Czech Republic = an average IT position has it's total cost of employment (part is payed pre-brutto salary from the employer side) at 55k USD, take home pay is at 30k USD a year. - this includes a social insurance (if you are let go, you'll get 750 USD up till 5 months of unemployment, if you go by yourself it'…

$55k gross -> $30k net means you lose 45% of your income ($25k is 45% of $55k) For comparison, $55k gross is roughly $43.6k net in Florida for a single tax payer before insurance. Figure $200/mo for insurance (with employer paying the rest), that leaves you at $41.2k net That's $11.2k/yr more than Prague taxes. What would I be gaining by paying $11.2k/yr more? https://smartasset.com/taxes/florida-paycheck-calculator#…

and how much is your co-pay?

you lose some (of your income), you win some (safety net, no medical expenses, free schools, higher social mobility). I don't mind to pay a higher share of my income to live in a functional society.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#232

Post by czbond »

bobly_today wrote: post #162
czbond wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - it can have that stigma. ADHD is present, however, in many entrepreneurs. It can also be a hindrance in SaaS startups, I'm mentioning it as a help. Pre-plan to have someone help with the details and keep someone on track. You either focus on opportunity, or have a project manager. I am not ADHD/ADD, but have interacted with a few in this situation..

As someone with ADHD, this is strikes me as overblown. I certainly wouldn’t require dedicated personnel to compensate for my ADHD. Especially if medicated.

You're not trying to get a startup off the ground - with a personality that squirrels every 5 mins. That is a distinct difference. SaaS are marathons of grit and will.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#233

Post by logfromblammo »

chooseaname wrote: post #40
FrankyHollywood wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reason is people don't like sharing. In democracies the majority of people don't vote for a program where they have to pay for others, even if the net result would be in their advantage. so it's money, and stupidity :)

Exactly this. I'm in the South (U.S.) and a lot of people here would benefit from national healthcare, but they continue to vote against it (rather, for politicians who are against it) because "if you don't work for it, you don't deserve it." They're so afraid of the few who would take advantage of it that they're willing to let the many who need it not get it.

I'm a Midwestern transplant into the South, and a significant proportion of the anti-welfare sentiment around here seems to me to be incredibly racist, plastered over with language that has been carefully scrubbed of any mention of race. And that poisons federal politics.

The fear is there, but to me it looks like white people afraid that some black people or brown people might earn the same money for the same work, or get equal representation in government. And it's all apparently justified in the politically segregated religious congregations.

There's that "if you didn't work for it, you don't deserve it" attitude, but it also combines with "whatever you have, you got because you deserved it" attitude. It's very fatalistic, and completely discounts the possibility that injustice exists in society, and that some humans actively create it for their own personal benefit.

It also seems like more of the social bonding activities are inherently organized around pre-existing in-groups and clique-sorting than I remember from more northerly cities. I had been accustomed to events organized around public schools, their intramural organizations, public libraries, chambers of commerce events, and city sports leagues in public recreation facilities--one thing, open to all residents--but in the South, they have entirely different networks organized through churches and private clubs, which are heavily segregated by political views, if not by race.

This leads to a lot of information asymmetry, and irrational beliefs or disinformation propagated through channels that are difficult for outsiders to monitor. So white blue-collar workers get propagandized against unions and democratic socialism. They are constantly being lied to, and subjected to rhetorical distractions. Black people go to different churches, so they aren't as politically self-defeating, but they get institutionally disenfranchised instead. Having lived in Chicago, Illinois, I recognize political corruption, and they definitely have it here.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#234

Post by bsanr2 »

Harvey-Specter wrote: post #90
hamandcheese wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever worked in retail or service? I have, and I know people who still do, and it’s hard work. Restaurants, for example, will usually send you home with no pay if there is so little to do that you are warming a chair, and I’ve worked minimum wage retail jobs that do the same.

It has nothing to do with whether or not the job is hard. I've worked retail, food service, and landscaping jobs through high school and university. I know those jobs aren't easy. The difference is that those jobs require workers to be present throughout the day in order to get work done. As a software developer I could probably cut my hours per day and produce the same amount of output. As a waiter my productivity (…

Do they? Retail is definitely subject to fairly predictable rush periods. All the while I was working at an electronics retailer, where my job was as much to educate or guide as sell, I wondered why we didn't have "sales hours" that were fully-staffed, and in between, some sort of remote assistance, where we would be on-call to help people out through video calls. When half your job is simply pointing people to items, why actually be there? And for the people who want to know about products, like the gentleman who wants to buy a full home theater set-up, shouldn't we be fresh and ready for them, not dragging after 8 hours of telling people where power cords are?

And, of course, we're paid the same or more, as we're making the company the same amount of money, if not more.

There is certainly room for innovation that makes sense for productivity AND for worker morale. But the people making the decisions are risk-averse and don't have to deal with the downsides of their heel-dragging.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#235

Post by not_a_cop75 »

_hn_throw_away wrote: post #12

(This is a duplicate of a story posted this past weekend. I want to copy my comment from it for greater visibility.) Fuck everything about 5 day work weeks. I'll gladly switch to any job that offers a 4 day work week. It's one of the best perks. As someone with ADHD, work days are entirely spent getting work done. There isn't any extra slack or allotment for personal tasks. They're 100% owned by the employer. Weekend…

It's easy to say that, but the competition that exists IS slave labor and is from countries that don't care about people dying, organ harvesting, etc. I won't name them out of fear of censorship but if you've been around you know who they are.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#236

Post by transitionnel »

nhumrich wrote: post #28

While I really appreciate the conclusion and goals of the study, I wonder how accurate this test really is. Imagine your boss told you, "we are going to test out 4 hour work weeks". You are naturally going to be productive during the entire experiment because you want to keep the 4 day week. If left as a permanent perk for longer than a year, does productivity slink back down below the 5 day?

Great question. No study is going to answer this sufficiently. But, remember history. The generation that goes through war remembers that hell and appreciates the following peace because they know the contrast. The following generations generally don't have this anchor. It makes intuitive sense when it's framed in basic mammal psychology, which is how we tend to act, despite attempts to ascribe higher meaning.

There's no reason to rely on imperfectly controlled-for studies when we can generally predict a compounding chain of essentially true things.

Furthermore, less work is more freedom and is preferable, whatever the rationalization of the era is.

We'll probably all be better off when we see tenacious belief in "work ethic" as Stockholm Syndrome's cousin, and realize we're still getting things done because we want to be creative and useful.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#237

Post by anticensor »

armagon wrote: post #155
jackcosgrove wrote: post #85

We should switch everyone to rolling weekends. It makes no sense that everyone gets the same two days off. It is such a hassle scheduling doctors appointments, receiving repairmen, going to the DMV, etc. on a weekday. The only reason we have the same two days off is for historical religious reasons. And a rolling schedule could still accommodate that for those who care. For everyone else, just put them on a rolling s…

Russia tried this 90 years ago. It was awful. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_calendar#Five-day_weeks : "Eighty per cent of each factory's workforce was at work every day (except holidays) in an attempt to increase production while 20% were resting. But if a husband and wife, and their relatives and friends, were assigned different colors or numbers, they would not have a common rest day for their family an…

France too.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#238

Post by LordDragonfang »

riffraff wrote: post #197
me_me_me wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that has always came true throughout my life is a phrase: "If you don't know why, its money." Why there is no national healthcare - money, someone makes a ton of it by preventing nationalization of healthcare system. Everything that doesn't make sense, has better alternatives (somehow not adopted) always boils down to money :(

I am not saying the general idea is wrong, and probably it is true in the US. But. You could equivalently say "why is there national healthcare almost everywhere in Europe" and answer "money", reversing your point.

Except we know why there's national healthcare in Europe: because it's more cost effective per citizen (economies of scale and collective bargaining for prices with no profit motive), and the US effectively subsidizes research costs.

I suppose in a way that is "money", but not in the sense that he meant (ie money directly exerting political power)

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#239

Post by loco5niner »

dang wrote: post #195
_hn_throw_away wrote: post #12

(This is a duplicate of a story posted this past weekend. I want to copy my comment from it for greater visibility.) Fuck everything about 5 day work weeks. I'll gladly switch to any job that offers a 4 day work week. It's one of the best perks. As someone with ADHD, work days are entirely spent getting work done. There isn't any extra slack or allotment for personal tasks. They're 100% owned by the employer. Weekend…

Please don't copy/paste comments on HN. Threads are supposed to be conversations. In conversation, people don't play recordings of previous conversations. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

> In conversation, people don't play recordings of previous conversations.

Although, sometimes we wish we could.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#240

Post by bobly_today »

czbond wrote: post #232
bobly_today wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with ADHD, this is strikes me as overblown. I certainly wouldn’t require dedicated personnel to compensate for my ADHD. Especially if medicated.

You're not trying to get a startup off the ground - with a personality that squirrels every 5 mins. That is a distinct difference. SaaS are marathons of grit and will.

I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t know what I’m working on :). Anyway I agree that adhd posses obstacles and I’ll consider your advice to avoid some of them should I be in the situation you’ve outlined
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