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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

#41

Post by rectang »

jacquesm wrote: post #20
_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…

You can contract for 4 days per week at plenty of employers. It's called a part-time job.

For the purposes of health care in the US, 30 hours is the threshold for full time. At my last gig I was 32 hours a week and considered a full time employee.

So the question is really why some employers insist on the full 40 rather than being open to a range from 30 to 40.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#42

Post by andy_ppp »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #25
ekianjo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BBC is slightly more reliable You mean in general or only in the context of this article? because the BBC is certainly not a channel devoid of bias (just check this: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-BBC-called-British-Bullshit-Cor... )

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/bbc/ Maybe a slight left bias although personally I think it's more a bias to the current sitting government. However there is plenty of UK media that sees the BBC as unfair competition and would love to see it disappear.

To be fair the licence fee has served its purpose. The BBC should move to a £10 per month Netflix model and be available world wide. It'd be a very profitable business and would easily make more in revenue for its current output than it does now.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#43

Post by arghwhat »

hamandcheese wrote: post #36
EpicEng wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many jobs are "warming a chair". Pretty much all of retail and service jobs. In manufacturing you will absolutely lose productivity if you shave a day off of the schedule.

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.

I think the person meant that presence is a core component of the job, and reduced presence is on its own a reduced work output.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#44

Post by EpicEng »

hamandcheese wrote: post #36
EpicEng wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many jobs are "warming a chair". Pretty much all of retail and service jobs. In manufacturing you will absolutely lose productivity if you shave a day off of the schedule.

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.

Yes, for years. It has nothing to do with hard or easy; the business doesn't function without you there. Comparing that to a job like ours makes no sense. Hours worked is directly correlated with output, unlike engineering.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#45

Post by adelHBN »

This is a partial copy of my previous post re reduced work hours: A German startup that develops websites, apps and e-commerce platforms (Rheingans Digital Enabler), has a five-hour day work policy. Employees come to work at 8am (apparently 8am is not even strictly enforced) and leave at 1pm. Apparently productivity is kept up by cutting out the fat - cell phones are turned off, company emails are checked only twice a day and meetings are kept to 15 mins. The company was profitable in 2018, its first full year in business. A San Diego startup (Tower Paddle Boards) experimented with five-hour workdays and after two years limited it to the summer months only. This is all reported in the WSJ.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#46

Post by seren »

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?

This is called the Hawthorne Effect [0], which has also been criticized for not being rigorously measured.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#47

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #5
pgt wrote: post #3

Duplicate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21433710 The aha comment that made me realise why this probably won't take off by @claudeganon [^1]: > "The whole arrangement is about control, preventing workers from having the time or energy to build competing enterprises, develop skills beyond a certain level, or organize against their employers. It’s the same reason why most big corps oppose a national healthcare s…

> It’s the same reason why most big corps oppose a national healthcare system in the US: it keeps people locked in to their current positions and has the knock-on effect of putting downward pressure on wages and turnover expenses. Is this... true?

Say you or your dependents have a medical condition, and your health insurance is provided by your employer.

Your most powerful tool in negotiating with your employer is to threaten to resign. Even with COBRA, paying for your own health insurance can be a substantial burden for many people in the US. If resigning from your job poses substantial risks to your health and life, your employer holds all the cards.

A workforce that does not have mobility and security in the essentials of life creates negative externalities for society as a whole. If workers are unable to leave or report workplaces containing unethical or illegal behavior out of concern for their lives, that unethical or illegal behavior is tacitly rewarded with competitive advantage for the business.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#48

Post by agentultra »

I'm not surprised. The only empirical evidence we have for a practice that increases productivity and reduces errors, across all forms of knowledge-based work, is sleep and low stress.

As I understand it the only reason we have a 5-day, 8-hour work week is because North American rail workers' labor unions struck for it. Because workers, over tired, were losing limbs and dying on the job. It's not because it's the optimal work week for managing teams of knowledge workers.

What I am surprised by is how long it has taken the MBAs and suits to realize this.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#49

Post by isaacgreyed »

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?

Also novelty could play into it, but then again also people don't like change.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#50

Post by throwawayforme1 »

izolate wrote: post #38
_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…

Out of curiosity, why do you feel it necessary to use a throwaway? I echo your thoughts entirely and feel strongly enough about them to attribute them to my name. I think we (as a society/industry) need to start publicly having this discussion.

ADHD is considered a mental illness. That's why.
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