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Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

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Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#51

Post by bloopernova »

savanaly wrote: post #19
bloopernova wrote: post #9

Considering the opposition to working from home from some parts of (USA) society, I have trouble seeing this get widely adopted. At least in the short to medium term. The anti-WFH people appear to fall into 3 camps: landlords and property owners, middle management who believe people are not as productive or efficient at home. And, as pointed out in a reply, there's also the group who believe that face to face communi…

I'm not even in the anti-WFH camp, but notice you've selectively omitted the most sympathetic camp (what is this argument tactic called? Strawmanning?). People who think teams will be more agile and innovative when they can have impromptu face-to-face conversations. I personally think that's true, but not a big enough deal to make me favor RTO. But it's not good to summarize an issue in such a way that the other side…

I've updated my comment with your suggestion. I completely forgot about the face to face is better folks, sorry about that.

Edited to add: I also changed the language a little bit to be more neutral.

Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#52

Post by Syonyk »

nickvec wrote: post #44
burkaman wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it aligns better with my family (the local public school is only Mon-Thu as well) This is interesting and makes me think the answer to the title's question is public schools. Most Americans are not in a position to individually ask their employer for a 4-day week, but if the local school system does it, suddenly there's a unified block of thousands of people who really need Friday off to take care of their kids. I…

Interesting. I hope the 4-day school week doesn't exacerbate the education / illiteracy crisis that we are already seeing in America. Not sure if less time in school would help with this, though difficult to comprehend the nuances associated with experiments like this until the data is available.

In general, I don't think it's "less time in school" - our local school days are a bit on the long side (for my kids, it's about 7AM to 4PM counting the bus ride), and the year extends further into the summer than a typical school year does. It's just fewer days in school any given week.

Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#53

Post by browningstreet »

If people were able to choose to work M-Th or Tu-F I will suggest that productivity will skyrocket given that people will have one day they work where some percentage of their co-workers don't. Fewer meetings and more working time will make up for the fact that some questions will have to wait one business day.

Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#54

Post by darreninthenet »

robg wrote: post #4

Curious among folks here: Are you aware of companies that allow for or even encourage four day work weeks?

My previous employer (in the UK) where I worked for 11 years happily let me work compressed hours (ie 35 hours in four days) and had every Friday off, with occasionally working a Friday by agreement if it was absolutely necessary, and I'd usually take the following Monday off in lieu.

Only left them due to compulsory redundancy due to cost cutting.

Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#55

Post by TrackerFF »

bloopernova wrote: post #9

Considering the opposition to working from home from some parts of (USA) society, I have trouble seeing this get widely adopted. At least in the short to medium term. The anti-WFH people appear to fall into 3 camps: landlords and property owners, middle management who believe people are not as productive or efficient at home. And, as pointed out in a reply, there's also the group who believe that face to face communi…

I'm from Norway, the response here is pretty much:

Left: "Sounds like great idea, we must conduct trials!"

Center: "It sounds interesting, but we need more data blablablah"

Right: "A four-day week will never work, and people must put away that ridiculous idea. We (Norwegians) already work too little compared to the rest of Europe."

We oscillate between center-left and center-right every 4/8 years, so I'm not sure I have high hopes for this becoming a thing anytime soon.

The (political) right here is especially prone to knee-jerk reactions when it comes to anything related to labor and commerce, no mater what research says.

Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#56

Post by datadrivenangel »

browningstreet wrote: post #53

If people were able to choose to work M-Th or Tu-F I will suggest that productivity will skyrocket given that people will have one day they work where some percentage of their co-workers don't. Fewer meetings and more working time will make up for the fact that some questions will have to wait one business day.

And it nicely sets us up to move to the Three Day work week!

Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#57

Post by burkaman »

nickvec wrote: post #44
burkaman wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it aligns better with my family (the local public school is only Mon-Thu as well) This is interesting and makes me think the answer to the title's question is public schools. Most Americans are not in a position to individually ask their employer for a 4-day week, but if the local school system does it, suddenly there's a unified block of thousands of people who really need Friday off to take care of their kids. I…

Interesting. I hope the 4-day school week doesn't exacerbate the education / illiteracy crisis that we are already seeing in America. Not sure if less time in school would help with this, though difficult to comprehend the nuances associated with experiments like this until the data is available.

Data is available and the results seem mixed and difficult to interpret so far, here's an article with links to a bunch of studies: https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-seven-new-studies-o.... It seems like most studies find either no effect on academics or a small negative effect, and sometimes positive social effects like reduced bullying. One point I found interesting:

> The four-day work week is an attractive work perk in rural America that may lure better teachers.

This makes sense but obviously would disappear if the four-day week became widespread.

Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#58

Post by nickvec »

Syonyk wrote: post #52
nickvec wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I hope the 4-day school week doesn't exacerbate the education / illiteracy crisis that we are already seeing in America. Not sure if less time in school would help with this, though difficult to comprehend the nuances associated with experiments like this until the data is available.

In general, I don't think it's "less time in school" - our local school days are a bit on the long side (for my kids, it's about 7AM to 4PM counting the bus ride), and the year extends further into the summer than a typical school year does. It's just fewer days in school any given week.

Ah, totally makes sense. In that case, I'm all onboard. I'm sure the kids are too. Who wouldn't want 3 days off every week?

Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#59

Post by kredd »

zooq_ai wrote: post #23

4 hour work-week ain't happening. 1) Due to AI advancements, companies and business models are going to be disrupted. The last thing a firm wants is to work 4 day / week when competition can do 60 hour per week and leap frog them (including crushing them) at a crucial period. tl ; dr -- we are entering a crunch mode for many firms (vs stability where we can think of these luxuries) 2) US is already facing labor short…

Supermajority of people would probably enjoy 4-day work week, but there needs to be a giant push from the labour side. All the needs of "big companies" and such theoretically could be ignored, if such supermajority stuck together, and pushed through legislations. But I fear, this push will resonate with the word "unionization", killing all the efforts, since there is a hate towards such movements.

Re: Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

#60

Post by Syonyk »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #34
Syonyk wrote: post #13

I've "corrupted" (from the point of view of GDP productivity and such) a lot of people into asking for (and mostly getting...) a 32h/week work schedule. I've been doing it for almost 8 years now, and at this point, it's simply a non-negotiable in any sort of employment discussions (that, and not carrying a pager). I work Mon-Thu, 8h/day, and I'm generally unreachable Fri/Sat/Sun (doesn't mean I won't put in a long we…

Wonder how many software devs would be able to do this. When I have a long weekend, a lot of times, its 'finally, no interruptions so I can get some work done', and end up working. Guess, if you have an itch, could fill it with open source projects instead.

If you're doing interesting, deep level work, I've found I'm a lot more productive when I spend my weekends doing "literally anything but computers." I'll typically spend Thursday afternoon curled up with some datasheets or architecture references related to my current project, and let my mind chew on it over the weekend in the background, while I'm doing other stuff. The distance from the problem allows a fresh perspective, and I not-really-joke that a lot of my most clever solutions to a problem came while I was banging on rocks or running a chainsaw.

But I've also built the habits, over the years, of trying to make sure I have way more than just work going on in my life.

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