9 ms·

I started a consulting/services company a few years ago, and this year was finally in a position to start hiring. I'm a big proponent of this type of thinking,

by jhummel 10y ago

I started a consulting/services company a few years ago, and this year was finally in a position to start hiring. I'm a big proponent of this type of thinking, so while I couldn't offer the best salary, or the best benefits - I could offer a better work/life balance. I knew it was a win-win for us and the new employee. We landed on a 36 hour work week. 8-5 Mon-Thurs, then 8-12 on Friday. We had more applicants than I ever dreamed of, and scored a great hire that was coming from the 70-hr-a-week startup life. Everyone's been extremely happy over the past six months, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on any productivity what-so-ever.

tdees40 10y ago
I've always wondered why more companies don't do this. Offer a 30 or 35 hour work week and watch the top-notch candidates roll in, even though you can't offer a top-notch salary.
- ncallaway 10y ago
  We went more extreme and went to 20 hours a week, though we're a little crazy when it comes to our philosophy about work. It did exactly as you described, though. We're able to attract top talent engineers even though we're a tiny consulting company that nobody has ever heard of.
- ashark 10y ago
  There's a ton of pressure to work more hours, from all over the place. It's way more visible than other metrics. Project fails, the team Fred was leading was averaging 30 hours a week and everyone knows it? Fred's gone, doesn't matter how productive they were, and everyone on that team had better watch out. You tell the client features X and Y aren't gonna make the next deadline before [industry trade show], then client finds out all your people are putting in sub-40-hour weeks? Client's gone and telling anyone who'll listen that your shop is full of entitled, lazy scam artists who will take your money and fail to deliver what you asked for. Flip that, same thing but the teams were averaging 60-hour weeks. It does not matter if that's worse for the product or if it's the cause of the failure, or it two of your best people quit over it—it means "not working enough" is off the table when the blame game comes around, and a smaller chance of getting a pink slip or passed over for a promotion or raise. Any place where this sort of thing isn't a concern is like the eye of a storm—everything around is horrible chaos & destruction and the calm is fragile, precious, and could end at any moment.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    Countering this will require a concerted effort. Providing an answer to the naysayers is what all these articles about productivity are for. Also, track something abstract like "velocity" for everything except billing.
acangiano 10y ago
This is great, but isn't that a 40 hour work week? Most places consider 9-5 to be 8 hours (lunch and coffee breaks count towards the total). If we accept this convention, your workers are technically there for 9 hours a day for 4 days and 4 hours on Friday. Still clocking in 40 hours. Nevertheless, I'm sure they enjoy their half day off on Friday and the work culture that put it in place.
- mc32 10y ago
  Regardless whether you count lunch breaks or not as working hours, the fact they get to leave at twelve on Friday is different from most companies. I'd certainly prefer that schedule over the normal schedule.
- kirykl 10y ago
  lunch and coffee breaks count towards 8 hour work day? usually 8 hour work day = 4 hours work before lunch and 4 hours work after
  - vtlynch 10y ago
    It should, yes.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Difference between US and Europe, maybe? In Europe so far I haven't seen the case where lunch time doesn't count into work time (assuming you get lunch time at all - many employers in low-skill fields use every dirty trick in the book to extract work out of people).
      - vtlynch 10y ago
        It is certainly common practice to not include lunch as work time in the US. But I think that is unfair to the employee. In the US almost all Low-skill jobs that pay by the hour dont count lunch as work time. At those jobs you usually explicitly "clock out" for lunch. At salaried jobs it is less common, though I'd guess 50% or more don't count lunch as work time. If that is the case, then workers should also be allowed to eat at their desk (or otherwise eat while working - reading emails on phone, etc) and leave early if they spend less than an hour at lunch.
chinstorff 10y ago
That's still a 40 hour work week, just with the hours distributed differently. 9h Mon-Thurs (36h total) 4h Friday (4h total) It's definitely still an improvement over 70 hours.
- joncrocks 10y ago
  I think this presumes that there's no lunch-time....
- cstejerean 10y ago
  As a consultant I never considered lunch as work because I could not bill a client for it. So to me at least 8-5 is 8 hours of work plus 1 hour break for lunch.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Asooka 10y ago
    Consultant is a bit different than a salaried employee. I'm not sure how the language is structured in the US, but in Europe as a salaried employee, you're not producing X, you're providing labour. As in, you're hired to provide labour for 8 hours per day to an employer. The language used in our labour law is something like "employee is considered at work when present at location during time specified by employer and is providing his/her labour for use by the employer". You could skip lunch break if required, but most of the time it isn't.
    - qw 10y ago
      That doesn't apply to all of Europe. In Norway salaried workers have a 40 hour week, but are only paid for 37,5 hours. The work day is 8 hours long, but you are not paid during the 30 minute lunch break. It is also common to work from 8 to 4, but developers and others who are not too dependent on the outside world can have a bit more flexibility. It is funny to see the shock in some foreigners when "nobody" is at the office after 4, when in fact they have already been at work for 8 hours.
outworlder 10y ago
> We landed on a 36 hour work week. 8-5 Mon-Thurs, then 8-12 on Friday. Oh yes please! The great thing about taking off early on Fridays is that you can use the time to run errands that can only be done in business hours, or you can use the time for travel and extend the weekend considerably. This is a great perk. EDIT: Is your company in the monthly "who's hiring" threads?
riboflava 10y ago
Unless Friday is work from home day, and I can productively work from home, dealing with a commute for 4 hours in the office sounds terrible... Though I guess compared to the 70+ hour life it's not bad.
jtrtoo 10y ago
> so while I couldn't offer the best salary, or the best benefits - I could offer a better work/life balance That is a valuable recruiting reminder right there. For some reason, it is easy to forget that hiring is a marketing problem. It requires critical thinking about positioning and presentation. I want to poke my eyes out when I hear complaints from fellow business owners and managers saying they can't find qualified candidates. Usually they're recruiting practices suck. And it's not always about starting salary either.

by jhummel 10y ago

tdees40 10y ago

I've always wondered why more companies don't do this. Offer a 30 or 35 hour work week and watch the top-notch candidates roll in, even though you can't offer a top-notch salary.

ncallaway 10y ago
We went more extreme and went to 20 hours a week, though we're a little crazy when it comes to our philosophy about work. It did exactly as you described, though. We're able to attract top talent engineers even though we're a tiny consulting company that nobody has ever heard of.
ashark 10y ago
There's a ton of pressure to work more hours, from all over the place. It's way more visible than other metrics. Project fails, the team Fred was leading was averaging 30 hours a week and everyone knows it? Fred's gone, doesn't matter how productive they were, and everyone on that team had better watch out. You tell the client features X and Y aren't gonna make the next deadline before [industry trade show], then client finds out all your people are putting in sub-40-hour weeks? Client's gone and telling anyone who'll listen that your shop is full of entitled, lazy scam artists who will take your money and fail to deliver what you asked for. Flip that, same thing but the teams were averaging 60-hour weeks. It does not matter if that's worse for the product or if it's the cause of the failure, or it two of your best people quit over it—it means "not working enough" is off the table when the blame game comes around, and a smaller chance of getting a pink slip or passed over for a promotion or raise. Any place where this sort of thing isn't a concern is like the eye of a storm—everything around is horrible chaos & destruction and the calm is fragile, precious, and could end at any moment.
- nitrogen 10y ago
  Countering this will require a concerted effort. Providing an answer to the naysayers is what all these articles about productivity are for. Also, track something abstract like "velocity" for everything except billing.

acangiano 10y ago

This is great, but isn't that a 40 hour work week? Most places consider 9-5 to be 8 hours (lunch and coffee breaks count towards the total). If we accept this convention, your workers are technically there for 9 hours a day for 4 days and 4 hours on Friday. Still clocking in 40 hours. Nevertheless, I'm sure they enjoy their half day off on Friday and the work culture that put it in place.

mc32 10y ago
Regardless whether you count lunch breaks or not as working hours, the fact they get to leave at twelve on Friday is different from most companies. I'd certainly prefer that schedule over the normal schedule.
kirykl 10y ago
lunch and coffee breaks count towards 8 hour work day? usually 8 hour work day = 4 hours work before lunch and 4 hours work after
- vtlynch 10y ago
  It should, yes.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Difference between US and Europe, maybe? In Europe so far I haven't seen the case where lunch time doesn't count into work time (assuming you get lunch time at all - many employers in low-skill fields use every dirty trick in the book to extract work out of people).
    - vtlynch 10y ago
      It is certainly common practice to not include lunch as work time in the US. But I think that is unfair to the employee. In the US almost all Low-skill jobs that pay by the hour dont count lunch as work time. At those jobs you usually explicitly "clock out" for lunch. At salaried jobs it is less common, though I'd guess 50% or more don't count lunch as work time. If that is the case, then workers should also be allowed to eat at their desk (or otherwise eat while working - reading emails on phone, etc) and leave early if they spend less than an hour at lunch.

chinstorff 10y ago

That's still a 40 hour work week, just with the hours distributed differently. 9h Mon-Thurs (36h total) 4h Friday (4h total) It's definitely still an improvement over 70 hours.

joncrocks 10y ago
I think this presumes that there's no lunch-time....
cstejerean 10y ago
As a consultant I never considered lunch as work because I could not bill a client for it. So to me at least 8-5 is 8 hours of work plus 1 hour break for lunch.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Asooka 10y ago
  Consultant is a bit different than a salaried employee. I'm not sure how the language is structured in the US, but in Europe as a salaried employee, you're not producing X, you're providing labour. As in, you're hired to provide labour for 8 hours per day to an employer. The language used in our labour law is something like "employee is considered at work when present at location during time specified by employer and is providing his/her labour for use by the employer". You could skip lunch break if required, but most of the time it isn't.
  - qw 10y ago
    That doesn't apply to all of Europe. In Norway salaried workers have a 40 hour week, but are only paid for 37,5 hours. The work day is 8 hours long, but you are not paid during the 30 minute lunch break. It is also common to work from 8 to 4, but developers and others who are not too dependent on the outside world can have a bit more flexibility. It is funny to see the shock in some foreigners when "nobody" is at the office after 4, when in fact they have already been at work for 8 hours.

outworlder 10y ago

> We landed on a 36 hour work week. 8-5 Mon-Thurs, then 8-12 on Friday. Oh yes please! The great thing about taking off early on Fridays is that you can use the time to run errands that can only be done in business hours, or you can use the time for travel and extend the weekend considerably. This is a great perk. EDIT: Is your company in the monthly "who's hiring" threads?

riboflava 10y ago

Unless Friday is work from home day, and I can productively work from home, dealing with a commute for 4 hours in the office sounds terrible... Though I guess compared to the 70+ hour life it's not bad.

jtrtoo 10y ago

> so while I couldn't offer the best salary, or the best benefits - I could offer a better work/life balance That is a valuable recruiting reminder right there. For some reason, it is easy to forget that hiring is a marketing problem. It requires critical thinking about positioning and presentation. I want to poke my eyes out when I hear complaints from fellow business owners and managers saying they can't find qualified candidates. Usually they're recruiting practices suck. And it's not always about starting salary either.