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It really depends, but I could tell a story that is pretty convincing that says they will lose more than 25%. Lets say you get to work, sit down, and you veg o

It really depends, but I could tell a story that is pretty convincing that says they will lose more than 25%. Lets say you get to work, sit down, and you veg out for 30 minutes to kindof ease into the zone. Then you get going on your project, and it takes another hour or so to get fully up to speed, track down a failing test that someone committed, whatever. Then in the afternoon, you chat with a co-worker for half an hour after lunch. Now you have 6 hours of productivity in an 8 hour day, but 4 hours in a 6 hour day. The main point being that there may be some 'fixed cost' things that don't scale up or down so much.

douche 10y ago
Throw a sprinkling of strategically placed meetings, an "Agile" standup, and a smattering of impromptu "hallway chats" into either the 6 or 8 hour day, and you have 0 hours of production either way...
- tracker1 10y ago
  This++ ... I know it's hard, but would love for anything beyond a 15-minute stand up be limited to one day a week for developers.
- busterarm 10y ago
  We got rid of most of that but then we went ahead and moved to a new office building where we're the first tenant. Every day is just the constant sound of construction and I'm finding it more and more necessary to work from home and maybe find a new job entirely. I have fantastic noise-cancelling headphones and they don't help a damn bit.
stephengillie 10y ago
This is an argument for moving to a 4x 10-hour work-week. From there, you could work backwards using the same arguments as above.
- douche 10y ago
  4x10 is probably the optimal 40 hour work week - particularly if you can set it up so that you have alternating Mondays and Fridays off, such that you can get a four-day weekend half the time.
  - eximius 10y ago
    Perhaps we should realize that different people work differently, yes? I, for one, would quit my job if I had to work 10 hours every day. I would not be able to stand it. It isn't that I don't like what I do, but I like what I do outside of work to not want to be there all the time!
    - dingaling 10y ago
      You should consider the opportunity to have an entire uninterrupted day to pursue your hobbies, whilst most other people are at work. I found myself more personally productive on that one free day than in an entire month of 5x8-delimited evenings.
      - eximius 10y ago
        If I'm not careful, I just end up playing video games. It's hard to be aware from 'the grind' long enough for me to be drawn back into my productive hobbies en force.
    - VLM 10y ago
      From personal experience, being at work five eights vs four tens has very little impact on time away from home, like maybe one hour per day or something like that. While the five eights are sitting in their car for an extra 30 minutes during each rush hour commute, I'm sitting at my desk working. I suppose your local traffic patterns may vary. There are downsides. Less time commuting means less time listening to audiobooks and podcasts. Like many people, once my brain is fried I'm simply done for the day, doesn't matter if that frying happened at 9am or 7pm. So statistically a three hour staff meeting causes more total lost productivity for a ten-er than an eight-er. Scheduling people make sure meetings only happen during common time (uh, thanks?) When the weather is bad (blizzard or whatever) or go home sick a half day, obviously that's more expensive for a tener than an eighter. Of course that is balanced out, I'm more likely to have a sick day on my weekend than an eighter and if there's a blizzard on my weekend I obviously don't miss any work.
omegaham 10y ago
This is why we do 12-hour shifts at my workplace. It takes about two hours to get into the groove, and the other 8-9 hours of work are productive. Doing an 8-hour day means that you get 5 hours of decent work, which is not viable for the output that we need. With 12-hour shifts, we work 3-4 days a week and get more done than people who work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. And we get overtime!

douche 10y ago

Throw a sprinkling of strategically placed meetings, an "Agile" standup, and a smattering of impromptu "hallway chats" into either the 6 or 8 hour day, and you have 0 hours of production either way...

tracker1 10y ago
This++ ... I know it's hard, but would love for anything beyond a 15-minute stand up be limited to one day a week for developers.
busterarm 10y ago
We got rid of most of that but then we went ahead and moved to a new office building where we're the first tenant. Every day is just the constant sound of construction and I'm finding it more and more necessary to work from home and maybe find a new job entirely. I have fantastic noise-cancelling headphones and they don't help a damn bit.

stephengillie 10y ago

This is an argument for moving to a 4x 10-hour work-week. From there, you could work backwards using the same arguments as above.

douche 10y ago
4x10 is probably the optimal 40 hour work week - particularly if you can set it up so that you have alternating Mondays and Fridays off, such that you can get a four-day weekend half the time.
- eximius 10y ago
  Perhaps we should realize that different people work differently, yes? I, for one, would quit my job if I had to work 10 hours every day. I would not be able to stand it. It isn't that I don't like what I do, but I like what I do outside of work to not want to be there all the time!
  - dingaling 10y ago
    You should consider the opportunity to have an entire uninterrupted day to pursue your hobbies, whilst most other people are at work. I found myself more personally productive on that one free day than in an entire month of 5x8-delimited evenings.
    - eximius 10y ago
      If I'm not careful, I just end up playing video games. It's hard to be aware from 'the grind' long enough for me to be drawn back into my productive hobbies en force.
  - VLM 10y ago
    From personal experience, being at work five eights vs four tens has very little impact on time away from home, like maybe one hour per day or something like that. While the five eights are sitting in their car for an extra 30 minutes during each rush hour commute, I'm sitting at my desk working. I suppose your local traffic patterns may vary. There are downsides. Less time commuting means less time listening to audiobooks and podcasts. Like many people, once my brain is fried I'm simply done for the day, doesn't matter if that frying happened at 9am or 7pm. So statistically a three hour staff meeting causes more total lost productivity for a ten-er than an eight-er. Scheduling people make sure meetings only happen during common time (uh, thanks?) When the weather is bad (blizzard or whatever) or go home sick a half day, obviously that's more expensive for a tener than an eighter. Of course that is balanced out, I'm more likely to have a sick day on my weekend than an eighter and if there's a blizzard on my weekend I obviously don't miss any work.

omegaham 10y ago

This is why we do 12-hour shifts at my workplace. It takes about two hours to get into the groove, and the other 8-9 hours of work are productive. Doing an 8-hour day means that you get 5 hours of decent work, which is not viable for the output that we need. With 12-hour shifts, we work 3-4 days a week and get more done than people who work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. And we get overtime!