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Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#81

Post by tomp »

jacquesm wrote: post #16
notus wrote: post #2

> In contrast, Jack Ma, co-founder of Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba, has championed 12-hour working days. In April 2019, he described the "996" pattern, in which workers do 09:00-21:00 shifts, six days a week, as "a blessing". Yikes, that sounds depressing. > A report commissioned by the Labour Party in the UK suggested a four-day working week would be "unrealistic". The report seems to be missing the point o…

Fortunately, the Labour Party doesn't control businesses and every company is free to negotiate whatever contracts it feels like within the law , so a subset, such as 4 days instead of whatever the legal maximum is is perfectly possible.

Is this entirely true? A lot of state benefits are linked to hours worked, e.g. if you don't work full time, you might not get full state pension, employement insurance, etc... (Although admittedly these benefits are quite minmal in the UK, at least for London.)

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#83

Post by ewhanley »

It’s somewhat common in oil companies to offer salaried employees a 9/80 schedule. The employee works 80 hours in 9 days and gets every other Friday off. Typically people are split into A and B crews so half the office is in on any given Friday. I enjoyed this scheme for two reasons: 1) every other weekend being three days long is magical and 2) even on your Fridays on, you can usually work meeting-free since half the office is out.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#84

Post by redblacktree »

chrshawkes wrote: post #69
redblacktree wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd consider myself a Democrat, and I'm willing to pay more taxes for it. If people take a good look at their paychecks, I think most folks would be better off. Instead of paying (made up numbers) $800/mo to an insurer, you may pay an additional $600/mo in taxes. That's a win. And like someone above said, it makes people less tied to their jobs, which I think all workers should support.

Just curiously asking, how does one pay for it if they don't have a job or lose their job? I think people should be less tied to their employers but how do they get coverage if they have no job? Who is paying for it?

Consider the case of my Mother-in-law. She has enough funds to retire, except that she can't afford insurance plans on the open market, (where they are generally more expensive and less effective) so she has to wait until full retirement age when she'll be able to get coverage from her former employer and ultimately Medicare.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#85

Post by jackcosgrove »

We should switch everyone to rolling weekends.

It makes no sense that everyone gets the same two days off. It is such a hassle scheduling doctors appointments, receiving repairmen, going to the DMV, etc. on a weekday.

The only reason we have the same two days off is for historical religious reasons. And a rolling schedule could still accommodate that for those who care.

For everyone else, just put them on a rolling schedule of five (or four) days of work per week, any days, with some predictability.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#86

Post by bumby »

I'm a big fan of non-traditional work schedules but I think it takes strong leadership to implement well.

At one company, I noticed Fridays were probably the least productive day as people would take breakfast breaks immediately upon showing up, extra long lunch breaks etc. Everybody was itching for the weekend. When they moved to 4 day work weeks, that same mentality just shifted to Thursday. Leadership wasn't good about holding people accountable and then suffered enormous backlash at the mere idea of moving back to a 5 day workweek to help meet the mission goals.

I guess the moral is to ensure there are at least good management practices in place. Shorter workweeks aren't necessarily a productivity panacea.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#87

Post by [deleted] »

chrshawkes wrote: post #69
redblacktree wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd consider myself a Democrat, and I'm willing to pay more taxes for it. If people take a good look at their paychecks, I think most folks would be better off. Instead of paying (made up numbers) $800/mo to an insurer, you may pay an additional $600/mo in taxes. That's a win. And like someone above said, it makes people less tied to their jobs, which I think all workers should support.

Just curiously asking, how does one pay for it if they don't have a job or lose their job? I think people should be less tied to their employers but how do they get coverage if they have no job? Who is paying for it?

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#88

Post by koonsolo »

notus wrote: post #2

> In contrast, Jack Ma, co-founder of Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba, has championed 12-hour working days. In April 2019, he described the "996" pattern, in which workers do 09:00-21:00 shifts, six days a week, as "a blessing". Yikes, that sounds depressing. > A report commissioned by the Labour Party in the UK suggested a four-day working week would be "unrealistic". The report seems to be missing the point o…

You should check out the youtube video with Jack Ma and Elon Musk. Anything that comes out of his mouth is complete bullshit and crazy. It puts anything he says in perspective.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/videos/comment...

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#89

Post by higeyuki »

realbarack wrote: post #35
drakythe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gonna borrow OP's mindset for a second: Fuck this. In the United States the benefits of full time employment are mandatory if you want to live a much less stressful life. Tying benefits to employment has given employers far too much control over their employees lives, without a huge savings or secondary income source anyone without insurance is one bad day away from bankruptcy (and too many people /with/ benefits…

I agree with your sentiment regarding benefits in the U.S. Couldn't companies provide the important benefits (healthcare, 401k matching) to employees who worked a 4-day week as well? One potential issue is that I think there are fewer legal requirements, but competitive employers already provide benefits that exceed the legal minima.

My only question is why do employers have to be responsible for healthcare?

Retirement makes sense as this is your source of income. I feel that company resources would be better spent elsewhere than on healthcare.

This would, of course, require universal healthcare or direct market healthcare. This would help new businesses thrive, especially the "mom and pop" types.

I guess I am jaded on this as my parents lost their business when I was growing up due mainly to the cost of healthcare. Not all companies have monolithic budgets.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#90

Post by Harvey-Specter »

hamandcheese wrote: post #36
EpicEng wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many jobs are "warming a chair". Pretty much all of retail and service jobs. In manufacturing you will absolutely lose productivity if you shave a day off of the schedule.

Have you ever worked in retail or service? I have, and I know people who still do, and it’s hard work. Restaurants, for example, will usually send you home with no pay if there is so little to do that you are warming a chair, and I’ve worked minimum wage retail jobs that do the same.

It has nothing to do with whether or not the job is hard. I've worked retail, food service, and landscaping jobs through high school and university. I know those jobs aren't easy.

The difference is that those jobs require workers to be present throughout the day in order to get work done. As a software developer I could probably cut my hours per day and produce the same amount of output. As a waiter my productivity (and earnings) was dependent on customers showing up to the restaurant. If I only worked 6 hours instead of 8, or 4 days instead of 5, then I served fewer customers and earned fewer tips.

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