61–70 of 351 posts
If you were explaining the world to an alien, it would be hard to justify the lack of diversity in working arrangements. I applaud any such non standard option in the labor market - may your office be full of good fits!
Maybe they think about how to justify their working arrangements to us humans.
Quick refresher on productivity in economic terms: decreasing inputs = decreasing outputs UNLESS tech or technique improves. During supply and/or debt driven inflationary periods (eg. now), increased productivity = increased supply and/or decreased debt. What do these maxims of economics mean for a 4 day work week? At Beacon, nothing*. But implement this at Tyson Foods, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Waste Management, the…
That seems pretty good for a 20% decline in working hours! Unless I'm missing something?
I really can't wrap my head around this four-day week trend. If the organization is focused on KPI's so why does it matter if people work one day or four-days? If the organization is focused on time spend no work (either in office or remotely) how can work be done in 80% of the time? Really don't understand how it works in day-to-day. It resembles the unlimited vacation days policy which was later found out to be unh…
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People aren't machines, they bend to their environment. Even without crunching extra hours per day, you can be essentially as productive with fewer working days per week if you are more focussed on the days do you do work.
Agreed but I’ve yet to hear the killer tactic for how a company gets every employee 100% focused 100% of the time. I think there are some roles that end up suffering. Like someone who is a product designer and now has to cram more creativity in fewer hours. Someone who is in inside or outside sales and has less time where they overlap with customers to perform demos and close deals. It may work - it may not work. The…
I’m sure everyone said similar things moving to work week with 40 hours and 5 days. Nothing magical about it, people still work over when they feel the need to because deadlines are silly in some cases.
This is a pilot for a reason. A work week with 32 hours and 4 days does improve the health of people overall, but we will see if it’s the same as 40 hours which also didn’t have merit when it was chosen.
In quite a few countries the 32 hour workweek is already very normal, it creates a bit of extra scheduling work but nothing you can't handle in a larger organization. For smaller companies this is a bigger problem because they don't usually have the headcount to fill the resulting gaps and things tend to rely more on personal relationships.
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I think its farcical to claim that a 4 day week is a 'scam' because you find it offensive for whatever reason. Its still an improvement on the 5 day week and something atypical. I am not sure what you think a 'scam' is but we have different definitions. The number of people who are working from home will not be 100% nor will the number of companies working from home exclusively be 100%. Given we have had limited time…
They have marketed this by saying they will be working 80% of the hours they use to work yet they want their employees to travel to the office? Surely the hours they've cut for their employees will now be lost travelling to the office and back instead? I'd rather work a 5 day week if I could work from home then a 4 day work week and have to travel to the office
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed but I’ve yet to hear the killer tactic for how a company gets every employee 100% focused 100% of the time. I think there are some roles that end up suffering. Like someone who is a product designer and now has to cram more creativity in fewer hours. Someone who is in inside or outside sales and has less time where they overlap with customers to perform demos and close deals. It may work - it may not work. The…
100% focussed 100% of the time is a strawman argument set up to fail, there's no killer tactic because it doesn't exist and no-one is arguing it does. You literally don't have to cram in the hours, you can just work less, enjoy a healthier work/life balance and still be productive. To argue otherwise is to suggest that we should all work 6 day weeks. If you accept that working 5 day weeks has benefits over 6 day week…
People seem to put forth the argument that "people will work more efficiently if they work less hours" to counter the argument "if less time is being worked, then less work is being done, then costs/prices go up". And, while it may be (and probably is) true that efficiency will go up, it's almost certainly true that overall work will go down (because efficiency will not go up enough to compensate for the loss of work time).
Now, the/your argument that the overall loss in work is worth it for the work/life balance benefit is one worth considering. It's just a different point from the one that that less work, overall, will be done, likely resulting in higher costs. I guess another way to look at it might be
- Am I willing to earn 10% less in exchange for working 20% less?
And, as a reverse example for the 6-day work week
- Am I willing to earn 10% more in exchange for working 20% more?
For me, at least, the answer is no to both, because I'm comfortable with my 5 day work week. For some people, the answer to one or the other of those is yes.
I wish them luck. I understand their need to have folks in the office, and this is one way to make that more attractive. But it is only one factor. Good management, strong teams, and a whole lot of "soft" stuff is even more important than beanbag chairs and foozball tables. The "good management" part is where most companies go pear-shaped. I wouldn't want to go to Buckingham Palace every day, if I hated the people I…
I still don’t understand the 100% as productive in 80% of the time. The math doesn’t check out there unless the expectation is people are working 10 hr days Mon-Thurs. Even in that scenario, not everyone has the stamina to execute at that pace and it also makes it hard to recruit anyone with a kid who needs to navigate school dropoffs/pickups etc.
You're assuming people are 100% productive each day currently. If people are told they need to keep hitting the same KPI's etc. or they go back to a 5-day week, you bet they're going to work a bit harder on those 4 days. A bit less news, Facebook, chatting etc and a bit more actual work.
I have at least one hour meeting every day that could be 30 minutes (or non-existent).