List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week • Hacker News Board

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#51

Post by comprev » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:29 PM UTC

Arch-TK wrote: post #45

scarab92 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proponents pretend like 4 day work weeks don’t reduce output with all sorts of dubious motivated reasoning. A lot of it is “we can be more efficient” and therefore we don’t need to work as many hours, overlooking the obvious fact that if everyone can be 20% more efficient then logical thing to do is downside headcount by 20%, not keep 100% of the workforce at 80% of capacity.

It takes so long for a woman to go through the gestation period before giving birth. But when you get 9 women you can get 9 babies in the same period. But it still takes 9 months. I think the women just aren't working at full capacity for those 9 months. It should be possible to just get the 9 women to produce 1 baby in 1/9th of the period.

This analogy doesn't work because women cannot accelerate the 9 months - mother nature has set the time period.

Reducing the hours whilst retaining output is an efficiency improvement for the businesses.

The 200 companies is simply a list of those who have successfully achieved this efficiency target.

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#52

Post by malfist » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:30 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #49

Yeul wrote: post #38

36 hours is the standard in my country- it's called progress. A century ago it was probably 80 hours for everyone over 12 lol.

However, the free market dictates that you will be outcompeted by anyone who is willing to work 40+ hours. So much for progress.

Please provide a citation for that

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#53

Post by crimsoneer » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:31 PM UTC

Just like remote work, this turns into a culture war issue every time (and the comments turn into a cesspit). I really wish people would stop arguing and let the market show us what's actually more effective.

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#54

Post by nemomarx » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:34 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #49

Yeul wrote: post #38

36 hours is the standard in my country- it's called progress. A century ago it was probably 80 hours for everyone over 12 lol.

However, the free market dictates that you will be outcompeted by anyone who is willing to work 40+ hours. So much for progress.

would you be twice as productive working 80 hours a week as you are at 40?

surely there's diminishing returns, and it doesn't seem obvious that 40 is the sweet spot.

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#55

Post by Neuronaut » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:39 PM UTC

I recently saw a company that uses the 4-day week with 9 hours a day. Skipped right there.

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#56

Post by rednafi » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:44 PM UTC

rednafi wrote: post #35

Just give me five days of remote work—that’s all I ask. My job doesn’t require me to add to the traffic, yet there are middle managers rallying for RTO to maintain their relevance.

[flagged]

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#57

Post by scarab92 » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:45 PM UTC

crimsoneer wrote: post #50

scarab92 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proponents pretend like 4 day work weeks don’t reduce output with all sorts of dubious motivated reasoning. A lot of it is “we can be more efficient” and therefore we don’t need to work as many hours, overlooking the obvious fact that if everyone can be 20% more efficient then logical thing to do is downside headcount by 20%, not keep 100% of the workforce at 80% of capacity.

... Except the obvious argument for a 4 day week is that in a knowledge economy, downtime is more critical to meaningful work. People like Tolkien don't just write 9-5, there's no reason consultants or programmers should work that way, it just doesn't scale.

Knowledge work does require time where you are mulling over the problem, rather than executing, but that isn’t downtime. Reducing working hours, in most cases, will reduce time spent doing both those tasks.

If Tolkien took an additional day off each week, it absolutely would have increased the time taken to complete his works.

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#58

Post by scarab92 » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:49 PM UTC

nemomarx wrote: post #54

amelius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, the free market dictates that you will be outcompeted by anyone who is willing to work 40+ hours. So much for progress.

would you be twice as productive working 80 hours a week as you are at 40? surely there's diminishing returns, and it doesn't seem obvious that 40 is the sweet spot.

Diminishing returns doesn’t invalidate their point.

Working more hours will always produce more output, even if the marginal increase in output decreases.

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#59

Post by swarnie » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:54 PM UTC

Neuronaut wrote: post #55

I recently saw a company that uses the 4-day week with 9 hours a day. Skipped right there.

That's the point...

You cover your normal working hours in a shorter number of days and get an extra day off.

My work offer the same scheduling option and i'd say 80% of the the tech team take it.

Re: List of 200 UK companies that moved to 4-day working week

#60

Post by amelius » Sat, Feb 01, 2025, 1:55 PM UTC

nemomarx wrote: post #54

amelius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, the free market dictates that you will be outcompeted by anyone who is willing to work 40+ hours. So much for progress.

would you be twice as productive working 80 hours a week as you are at 40? surely there's diminishing returns, and it doesn't seem obvious that 40 is the sweet spot.

You can barely even have a single income household anymore these days, thanks to the free market.

If progress exists, it's going in the wrong direction.