Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
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Re: Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
#2Jason Fried is a master at managerial science. Hopefully some day we will look back on him as a pioneer in treating employees well, and we'll wonder why we were decades behind him on employee satisfaction and retention.
Re: Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
#3[deleted]
Re: Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
#4Why not 35 or 30 hours or even 25 hours? That last hour or two or three at work are near worthless for me and just about everyone I know. Having parents leaving between 2-4 means they'll be able to pick up their kids directly from school or limit "latch key" alone time. Non-parents will certainly enjoy less time at work and more sunlight and time for physical activities while its still light out.
Seems to me, the dominating narrative, driven by some questionable characters, is longer school hours to match business hours. No, we should be lowering business hours to match existing school hours. We can't compete via hard nose puritanical work ethic turned up to 11. The puritans were, frankly, miserable creatures and 'hard work' environments universally create miserable people who ultimately aren't any more competitive than the less working competitors. Its time to consider the emotional experience of being human and as we have more and more automation options, to consider eliminating a few work hours per week and perhaps eventually replace work as we know it.
There's a fight for the future that's particularly ugly. The "to compete with China/India/whoever, we must become them" vs the "we can do better with less human labor and with more automation." If the former camp wins, it'll be horrific for our quality of life and will not produce the gains these people expect. If the latter wins, we will all have better lives and we'll change our society to handle high levels of unemployment and under-employment.
Re: Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
#5[deleted]
Re: Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
#6We encourage developers to work 20 hours a week. Our experience is any engineer worth their salt is as productive in 20 hours as they were in 40 --- if anything, they're more productive. We also have an unlimited vacation policy, but we enforce a minimum of two weeks a year, which has really helped ensure people actually use their vacation time.
Re: Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
#7Why not 35 or 30 hours or even 25 hours? That last hour or two or three at work are near worthless for me and just about everyone I know. Having parents leaving between 2-4 means they'll be able to pick up their kids directly from school or limit "latch key" alone time. Non-parents will certainly enjoy less time at work and more sunlight and time for physical activities while its still light out. Seems to me, the dom…
Actually they have "Summer hours".
"4-day Summer Work Weeks: May 1 through August 31, we work a Monday-Thursday 8-hour day work week, aka “summer hours”, for a total of 32-hour weeks. Brand new employees may have to complete a training program per their team lead to be eligible. Note: The customer support team staggers their days off so we always have 24/7 coverage."
https://m.signalvnoise.com/employee-benefits-at-basecamp-d2d...
Re: Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
#8We encourage developers to work 20 hours a week. Our experience is any engineer worth their salt is as productive in 20 hours as they were in 40 --- if anything, they're more productive. We also have an unlimited vacation policy, but we enforce a minimum of two weeks a year, which has really helped ensure people actually use their vacation time.
Can you tell us what is your company?
Re: Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
#9Why not 35 or 30 hours or even 25 hours? That last hour or two or three at work are near worthless for me and just about everyone I know. Having parents leaving between 2-4 means they'll be able to pick up their kids directly from school or limit "latch key" alone time. Non-parents will certainly enjoy less time at work and more sunlight and time for physical activities while its still light out. Seems to me, the dom…
I have rarely had a job for which, after a year or so, 3 to 4 concentrated hours daily weren't enough to accomplish what was expected of me.
Re: Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty
#10We encourage developers to work 20 hours a week. Our experience is any engineer worth their salt is as productive in 20 hours as they were in 40 --- if anything, they're more productive. We also have an unlimited vacation policy, but we enforce a minimum of two weeks a year, which has really helped ensure people actually use their vacation time.
What and where is this land you speak of?