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Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

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Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#71

Post by arvinsim »

xwdv wrote: post #27
paxys wrote: post #17

It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…

Indeed, there’s a sort of Moneyball aspect here. Companies that can accurately pay out only for productive time instead of assuming all 40 hours of a work week are spent producing will make huge savings in payroll, increasing cost efficiency and making it feasible to hire larger cross functional teams. A software engineer probably only really works about 20 hours a week. That’s a 50% savings right there.

I would take a paycut to have much less work hours. Could be a win-win but maybe a lot of people prefer to earn more.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#72

Post by dtn »

ggm wrote: post #37
paxys wrote: post #17

It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…

Australia calling: 37.5hr week please. It be law.

It's law, but it still gets abused quite frequently (outside of tech, at least).

Anecdotally speaking, all my mates who work in private construction office jobs regularly do quite a bit of unpaid overtime. It's very much a combined cultural and managerial issue, clocking off at the correct hours gets you the stink-eye, and the volume of work assigned necessitates overtime.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#73

Post by kumarvvr »

burlesona wrote: post #12
echelon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only an owner would feel that way. Without significant equity, what's the point? The worker gets nothing except less life and more stress. The owner sucks up all the benefit.

Perhaps society would be better off if more of us were owners?

You need a healthy mix of workers and owners. Those owners need incentives, and workers need protection.

Money is a powerful drug and society needs to tame the habit. Otherwise, you will end up with conditions equal to slavery for the workers and royalty for the capital owners.

All this will lead to is revolutions and bloodshed.

Its ok to sacrifice rapid growth, in cycles, to steady but slower growth that has none.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#74

Post by EE84M3i »

I think people might be a little confused about what the government is telegraphing here.

Japanese labour regulations are very strict, in particular around hours worked. Basically all employees (yes, including engineers) need to clock in and out, the concept of a "salaried worker" doesn't really exist, although normally engineers are paid for a certain number of hours regardless if they are actually worked. Primarily it is to make sure that overtime is paid and not excessive, but I believe there are also some related to the definition of what a "full time" job is.

So, it sounds to me like the government is considering relaxing those definitions on minimum hours worked to make it easier for firms to adopt 4 day work week if they so choose.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#75

Post by cableshaft »

dragonwriter wrote: post #42
cableshaft wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's with this obsession to 'get back to where we were before'? Where we were before was broken, and the pandemic helped reveal that. Poor work/life balance, income inequality, industries built on JIT processes which fail spectacularly when the unexpected happens (see lumber, shipping containers, semiconductors, etc), an unfortunate wake-up call that even with entire industries shut down and almost no flights and c…

> What's with this obsession to 'get back to where we were before'? > Where we were before was broken, Not for the people with dominant power over society, including over the media organizations that write the narratives fed to the masses. And that's the answer to your question.

Good point, fair enough. We should push back against that narrative, then, I guess is my point.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#76

Post by throw123123123 »

kumarvvr wrote: post #66
ekianjo wrote: post #40

Why does the government need to be involved if employers actually get better productivity in the first place? Let employers experiment by themselves and see what works best. Another typical example of top-to-bottom leadership in Japan.

If the government doesn't make laws that define broad principles, capitalism will eat you alive. Employers are greedy and evil. Their focus is profit maximization. Not employee well being. Given the chance, do you really think employers will even give vacation days to employees? No way. They will want you to work 24/7 if the govt. is ok with it.

Where do you think the salary comes from in the beginning?

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#78

Post by arvinsim »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #56
paxys wrote: post #17

It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…

> Companies that shuffle things up to prioritize productivity over simply showing up will be set to succeed over the next generation. I tend to disagree, but don't argue either way for four or five day weeks, but because it seems success and productivity are only loosely coupled. Company financial success, and / or long term viability, I believe, is largely random. Large, already successful companies will, largely, c…

At least WFH would be normalized which is a big win

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#79

Post by lehi »

isatty wrote: post #25
paxys wrote: post #17

It's an open secret at least in the tech world that absolutely no one is putting in a productive 40 hours of work a week. This was true well before the pandemic and is more pronounced than ever now. Everyone needs to be "present" for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, but spends their time in pointless meetings, preparing documents and powerpoints that no one will read, faux social/teambuilding events, hour long lunches, g…

What’s wrong with an hour long lunch? Isn’t that normal?

If I ate lunch I was expected to stay from 9 to 6.

Re: Japan's government plans to encourage 4-day workweek, but experts split

#80

Post by trixie_ »

Wouldn't it be cool if in addition to a 4 day work week, that those days could be flexible. It could actually benefit the both society and the company, as in the company is operating in some form 7 days a week for customers. And for society the 'weekend' is more flexible which improves traffic during the week and the overcrowding you typically find on saturday/sunday.
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