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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

#41
post #11

Australia also has a 60 year productivity low and a government that is boosting taxes on capital gains on shares/business to basically a worldwide high. So take our experiments with a grain of salt!

Tax changes that have been overdue for twenty-odd years to address house prices and attempt to level the playing field between labour and capital.

Pity they didn't also change the gas tax.

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

#42
Working based on time i.e. 5 days a week is already problematic. We all see the pay by the hour workers like pool cleaners, vendor machine stocking people etc spending lots of time dragging out their work as they get paid by the hour. It makes perfect sense from their perspective and yes not everyone drags the work.

Fixing the work week to just 5 days have similar issues. Some weeks will be less work and other weeks more work but you spend the same five days there. So the what you learn that matters is to spend 5 days physically there and perform a minimum workload so you don't get fired. You drag the weeks with less work and pick up inefficient habits as a result. That is what a 5 day working week teaches. Again there will be exceptions.

Now assuming this study is correct I am not surprised with the results. You just incentivized workers to get the same amount of output done with the condition that you gain 1 day off. Off course workers will find better and quicker ways of working to get that day off.

Even if we did a 4 working day week the problem of working based on time either fixed or paid by the hour remains. The incentivisation is the problem.

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

#43
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mak…

I work remotely at companies until they fire me for doing the minimum. I still get paid for the two to three weeks, so I couldn't care less because the money goes towards my hobbies.

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

#44
post #11

Australia also has a 60 year productivity low and a government that is boosting taxes on capital gains on shares/business to basically a worldwide high. So take our experiments with a grain of salt!

Tax changes that have been overdue for twenty-odd years to address house prices and attempt to level the playing field between labour and capital. Pity they didn't also change the gas tax.

House tax changes... strong yes

Share tax changes... ugh

My hope was cashed up bogans would start betting on shares instead of housing/crypto. At least it could be funnelled into something productive

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

#45

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…

[flagged]

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

#46
post #42

Working based on time i.e. 5 days a week is already problematic. We all see the pay by the hour workers like pool cleaners, vendor machine stocking people etc spending lots of time dragging out their work as they get paid by the hour. It makes perfect sense from their perspective and yes not everyone drags the work. Fixing the work week to just 5 days have similar issues. Some weeks will be less work and other weeks…

What's the actual problem? Most people don't live for work.

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

#47

Now do 3, 2, 1, and perhaps 0 days... but seriously, this probably just resulted in employees squeezing out some of the slack time they would otherwise have with an extra day.

3 days off is infinitely better than moments of stress induced slacking spread throughout the week, so I don't see the downside.

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

#48

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?

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

I thought about this a lot. Some of it is expectation wrapped up in the American Dream. You work hard, and get those rewards. But that isn’t true because life isn’t fair and capitalism isn’t particularly humane or ethical.

Some of it is perceived. The people who strike gold without hard work expect to keep striking more gold, and when the yield shrinks you’re appalled because that’s not how things should be.

US is a deeply individualistic society, now more so than ever. We don’t always sacrifice for the common good, because they’re supposed to work hard just like me.

Anyway if you read all that, thank you.

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

#49

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 all sounds great until you've actually had your own small business and experienced things from the other side.

Employees are expensive, good employees are hard to find, and sometimes things need to be fixed outside 9-5 to avoid having an angry client on your hands.

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

#50

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…

People should realise that they will be the ones paying for it. Prices will increase a lot. People need to be aware of that. Personally I'm okay with that trade-off. Also corporations - when checks and balances work properly, which is frequently not the case unfortunately - are great and net benefit for humanity.
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