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The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

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Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#31

Post by idle_zealot »

christophilus wrote: post #23
oompydoompy74 wrote: post #20

Speaking as an American, I don’t give a shit if it increases productivity or not. Productivity has gone up exponentially with technological advancement since the advent of the 5 day work week. We, as a species, should be minimizing work to 3 or 4 days a week with equal overall pay. Corporations should be fined heavily for contacting an employee after working hours. On call should require corporations to pay hefty ove…

That would be ok in a non-globalized world. In our world, any country that implements those laws will see a lot more offshoring.

Hey, if fuel gets expensive enough this will be much less of a problem! Let's all thank Trump and Iran for their great work on bringing the four day work week closer to fruition. This isn't how I would've imagined bringing industry back to the States, but it's a promise made, promise kept.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#32

Post by latexr »

zurfer wrote: post #19
ktallett wrote: post #2

Basically every study shows a four day week works best. The issue is why we never go with what the study shows.

Naive question but if it works best wouldn't companies that have a four day work week outperform theirs peers and because of that grow faster, and become more common? I see the opposite in most startups that have a 6 day work week to get ahead of the "slowly moving" 5 day work week competition.

Think of it like a sprint versus a marathon. If you run at full speed you can get farther than someone keeping a steady pace in the same amount of time, but you’re going to tire yourself out and become slower. You’ll lose in the long run despite looking very “productive” at the start.

Similarly, have you ever been “in the zone” and worked non-stop on a fun project, being super-productive for a full week or even multiple weeks, but then “crashed” (or even burned out) and your output got worse?

New companies are on a race against the clock. At the beginning everything is a cost, you’re constantly losing money. So you plough through to survive until you become stable. Then you need to scale back and take it slower to allow yourself to recuperate and keep going.

Also, keep in mind that small companies can often be very productive simply by having fewer employees and “red tape”. You can have an idea, send a message to someone else, get an immediate OK and get going. When a company gets too big and has lots of processes to keep things running, a lot of effort is wasted on even getting started.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#33

Post by idle_zealot »

han1 wrote: post #28
oompydoompy74 wrote: post #20

Speaking as an American, I don’t give a shit if it increases productivity or not. Productivity has gone up exponentially with technological advancement since the advent of the 5 day work week. We, as a species, should be minimizing work to 3 or 4 days a week with equal overall pay. Corporations should be fined heavily for contacting an employee after working hours. On call should require corporations to pay hefty ove…

Do workers really care about productivity? As long as I get paid that's what matters.

I like to feel that I'm spending my time productively, yeah. Not all of my time, mind you. People generally like to feel their work impacting their environment. Many consider it the most fulfilling part of their lives. Working purely for compensation is a great way to kill most positive energy for a solid half of your waking hours most days. People react differently, of course. For some the knowledge that they're making money alone provides the psychological reward, others find enjoyment in the moment-to-moment of things, even if they're not part of a meaningful goal, and yet others offset the meaninglessness of their work with a fulfilling home life or hobbies.

On the whole though, I'd say yes, people do care about productivity so long as they feel it's connected to their world and oriented in the right-ish direction.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#34

Post by danaris »

christophilus wrote: post #23
oompydoompy74 wrote: post #20

Speaking as an American, I don’t give a shit if it increases productivity or not. Productivity has gone up exponentially with technological advancement since the advent of the 5 day work week. We, as a species, should be minimizing work to 3 or 4 days a week with equal overall pay. Corporations should be fined heavily for contacting an employee after working hours. On call should require corporations to pay hefty ove…

That would be ok in a non-globalized world. In our world, any country that implements those laws will see a lot more offshoring.

Not if that country also legislates heavy penalties for companies that produce their goods in countries with worse labor laws.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#36

Post by sublinear »

> What success looks like differs by industry, and a rigid, one-size-fits-all measurement would have made the findings less applicable to the real world [...] Burnout emerged as a major theme in the findings.

This is the actual problem to discuss, not the days per week.

Stressors vary a lot by industry and experience level. A senior manager in IT may do more than 40 hours a week plus be on-call with almost no stress as long as their projects are doing well. Meanwhile, there may be no sane amount of overtime pay that will convince a young guy doing roofing in his first year, and he's highly stressed out either way.

Anyone spinning this as a political issue is plain ignorant.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#37

Post by latexr »

eastbound wrote: post #22
latexr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: It’s becoming ever more increasingly common on HN to get downvotes for innocuous respectful posts. If you’re downvoting, I’d genuinely appreciate if you explained what is it that you find offensive about this post. You’re not going to hurt my feelings, I sincerely want to understand what it is that you see as transgressive so I can learn from it. Thank you. Another example which baffled me: https://news.ycombin…

[flagged]

You lost me. As in, I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.

Are you saying you don’t trust climate science but you would trust them if they declared some other branch of science which has nothing to do with them as being unscientific? What does one thing have to do with the other?

Are you also saying medicine is not a science because doctors got it wrong about masks? Science isn’t about always being right, but about observation and experimentation to try to arrive at the truth and a deeper understanding. Can you name a single branch of science which has never got anything wrong ever?

Your last paragraph is particularly confusing. Is your entire post sarcastic? And if so, which group exactly are you criticising?

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#38

Post by amazingamazing »

oompydoompy74 wrote: post #20

Speaking as an American, I don’t give a shit if it increases productivity or not. Productivity has gone up exponentially with technological advancement since the advent of the 5 day work week. We, as a species, should be minimizing work to 3 or 4 days a week with equal overall pay. Corporations should be fined heavily for contacting an employee after working hours. On call should require corporations to pay hefty ove…

This will never happen for the simple reason that there are some countries whose members are poor and so they are rightfully ready to work harder and longer for opportunities.

A more important point is why is it that Americans objectively are richer yet feel poorer?

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#39

Post by nickff »

danaris wrote: post #34
christophilus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be ok in a non-globalized world. In our world, any country that implements those laws will see a lot more offshoring.

Not if that country also legislates heavy penalties for companies that produce their goods in countries with worse labor laws.

The economic motive for offshoring would remain (though slightly mitigated), unless that country’s demand (in each regulated sector) was much more than rest of the world’s. I personally doubt that most places are even willing to implement such legislation, given that they’re not even willing to protest PRoC’s use of slave labor and prison camps.
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