4 ms·

As an employer, I can give you some color. 1) Hiring is a pain, and there's ton of friction. 2) Ideally you want to get max efficiency out of roles that serve

As an employer, I can give you some color. 1) Hiring is a pain, and there's ton of friction. 2) Ideally you want to get max efficiency out of roles that serve "business critical" functions. 3) More people on payroll (parttime or not) = more time wasted for me on management These two factors incentivize me to avoid having too many part-timers, if I could

x0x0 6y ago
Also an employer. Add health insurance and office space as costs which don't scale down. Lack of availability / presence creating difficulties for the rest of the org for meetings / getting questions answered / answering questions / etc.
- ken 6y ago
  The employer requirement for health insurance is only for full-time employees. That scales down great. Two half-time employees should be much cheaper than one full-time.
  - x0x0 6y ago
    And then I have an employee without health insurance. That's a hard no both ethically and because I don't want a sick employee.
    - tzs 6y ago
      Or you have an employee who buys their health insurance on your state's ACA exchange. There's even a decent chance that they can get an ACA subsidy. To get a subsidy they need to get their MAGI below about $49k (I'm assuming they are single...someone else can do the numbers for families). MAGI is for most people income - HSA contribution - retirement plan contribution. With an HSA and an IRA they can knock up to almost $10k off their MAGI, which means they can take a part time job paying up to $59k/year and still get a sweet ACA subsidy. If your company has a 401k, and they work enough hours to qualify to contribute to that (1000 hours/year, I believe), using that instead of an IRA would let them knock around $24k off MAGI, meaning they can take a part time job paying up to $72k/year and still get a subsidy. The way ACA subsidies work is that even if you barely come in under the MAGI limit, it is usually pretty substantial. You might expect that as you get closer to the limit, the subsidy decreases--and you would be right--but it isn't the kind of gradual decrease to 0 that you would probably expect. No, it is a slow decrease right up to the cutoff then it drops to $0.
barbs 6y ago
1. Perhaps employees would be more likely to stick around if they were happier in general with part-time hours, so less hiring would happen in the long run? 2. I think working full-time hours is not actually the same as max efficiency. 3. Understandable, but I do feel like there are ways/techonologies to reduce this friction. I don't actually have data with me atm to back this up though, just my thoughts.
- jhwang5 6y ago
  In my experience part employees have more “context switching” to deal with obviously, so it really is case by case whether or not someone’s more efficient as a part timer
  - barbs 6y ago
    In my experience, context switching is more a problem in the short-term, where you're working on two problems at once and switching between them constantly. Or, when you're working on one thing and you're interrupted by a question from someone else in the office. Also, here's one source that suggests increased productivity with a 4-day workweek (Microsoft Japan): https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-says-4-day-workweek-boosted-workers-productivity-by-40 https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-say... More here: https://30hourjobs.com/4-day-work-week/ https://30hourjobs.com/4-day-work-week/
  - Delk 6y ago
    I think that depends somewhat on what the rest of the time is spent on. When I worked about half-time and studied half-time, I found that it was difficult to get switched from one to the other after already having spent time and energy on either during the same day. Dedicating full days for one activity helped with that, but having a longer break of potentially several days between working days may of course also require more time for getting back to speed. On the other hand, at some point I worked ~30-hour weeks (also because of attempting to study at the same time, but I dropped that once I found the attempt unproductive), about 6 hours a day, Monday to Friday. I had more energy both for work and other (non-mandatory) stuff I liked to do. I'm pretty sure I was just as productive as when working 8-hour days on the same job, if not more, because I was able to focus better and more intensively. The added hours in the longer days were just empty space. My 30-hour scenario of course differed from what might be a more typical part-time arrangement in that mentally I was pretty much considering it a full-time job and not just a side gig, or as one half of something. Nevertheless, that experience (among some other, somewhat similar ones) has made me seriously question whether the 8-hour days unconditionally make sense from an efficiency point of view.

x0x0 6y ago

Also an employer. Add health insurance and office space as costs which don't scale down. Lack of availability / presence creating difficulties for the rest of the org for meetings / getting questions answered / answering questions / etc.

ken 6y ago
The employer requirement for health insurance is only for full-time employees. That scales down great. Two half-time employees should be much cheaper than one full-time.
- x0x0 6y ago
  And then I have an employee without health insurance. That's a hard no both ethically and because I don't want a sick employee.
  - tzs 6y ago
    Or you have an employee who buys their health insurance on your state's ACA exchange. There's even a decent chance that they can get an ACA subsidy. To get a subsidy they need to get their MAGI below about $49k (I'm assuming they are single...someone else can do the numbers for families). MAGI is for most people income - HSA contribution - retirement plan contribution. With an HSA and an IRA they can knock up to almost $10k off their MAGI, which means they can take a part time job paying up to $59k/year and still get a sweet ACA subsidy. If your company has a 401k, and they work enough hours to qualify to contribute to that (1000 hours/year, I believe), using that instead of an IRA would let them knock around $24k off MAGI, meaning they can take a part time job paying up to $72k/year and still get a subsidy. The way ACA subsidies work is that even if you barely come in under the MAGI limit, it is usually pretty substantial. You might expect that as you get closer to the limit, the subsidy decreases--and you would be right--but it isn't the kind of gradual decrease to 0 that you would probably expect. No, it is a slow decrease right up to the cutoff then it drops to $0.

barbs 6y ago

1. Perhaps employees would be more likely to stick around if they were happier in general with part-time hours, so less hiring would happen in the long run? 2. I think working full-time hours is not actually the same as max efficiency. 3. Understandable, but I do feel like there are ways/techonologies to reduce this friction. I don't actually have data with me atm to back this up though, just my thoughts.

jhwang5 6y ago
In my experience part employees have more “context switching” to deal with obviously, so it really is case by case whether or not someone’s more efficient as a part timer
- barbs 6y ago
  In my experience, context switching is more a problem in the short-term, where you're working on two problems at once and switching between them constantly. Or, when you're working on one thing and you're interrupted by a question from someone else in the office. Also, here's one source that suggests increased productivity with a 4-day workweek (Microsoft Japan): https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-says-4-day-workweek-boosted-workers-productivity-by-40 https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-say... More here: https://30hourjobs.com/4-day-work-week/ https://30hourjobs.com/4-day-work-week/
- Delk 6y ago
  I think that depends somewhat on what the rest of the time is spent on. When I worked about half-time and studied half-time, I found that it was difficult to get switched from one to the other after already having spent time and energy on either during the same day. Dedicating full days for one activity helped with that, but having a longer break of potentially several days between working days may of course also require more time for getting back to speed. On the other hand, at some point I worked ~30-hour weeks (also because of attempting to study at the same time, but I dropped that once I found the attempt unproductive), about 6 hours a day, Monday to Friday. I had more energy both for work and other (non-mandatory) stuff I liked to do. I'm pretty sure I was just as productive as when working 8-hour days on the same job, if not more, because I was able to focus better and more intensively. The added hours in the longer days were just empty space. My 30-hour scenario of course differed from what might be a more typical part-time arrangement in that mentally I was pretty much considering it a full-time job and not just a side gig, or as one half of something. Nevertheless, that experience (among some other, somewhat similar ones) has made me seriously question whether the 8-hour days unconditionally make sense from an efficiency point of view.