4 ms·
WFH Fridays Off
I currently work for a medium-large SaaS where all employees are WFH during the pandemic.
During the summer months, we were given Friday's off as it was recognized that each employee was probably putting in more hours during the workday and it would be a good initiative for mental health (hot take: it was great!).
When September rolled around, the company decided to switch to every other Friday off. This seemed like a fair compromise to balance productivity, an aggressive cadence and remain competitive. It's been pretty good for the most part.
End of October and this policy of every other Fridays off is due to expire. Management is looking for feedback as to why we should keep it, what are the benefits, how it has personally impacted us, etc. So we submitted feedback up the chain.
This got me thinking, I have seen several SaaS companies have kept these reduced work hours (mostly large ones, but several medium and many small). Are reduced hours (i.e. 4 day weeks, or every other Fridays) something your company is working with? have they kept/removed the policy? Did it impact your release cycle, quality or productivity?
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the time off and in a good position overall. Just curious as to where the industry is headed.
- raptorraver 6y agoI'm a software developer and lately I've been thinking that if I would change to work 6 hours a day my productivity would be at least what it is now. It's just hard to make an argument why they should still pay me the same amount when I'm sitting less on my computer and I can't afford a pay cut currently.
- redmaple 6y ago> if I would change to work 6 hours a day my productivity would be at least what it is now. > It's just hard to make an argument why they should still pay me the same amount You have already put up a valid argument. If you continue producing the same Value in same Time, your pay should actually go up :D
- shevenal 6y agoYeah, I think the productivity metrics are a key sticking point here. If you can prove you are delivering the same quantity (i.e. the release cycle and throughput isn't impact) and similar quality (i.e. which you could probably measure with bug tracking), its probably easier to then go on to make the case of the additional benefits of reduced hours (i.e. mental health, more time for company culture, etc). Granted, I am not totally aware of your situation with your employer; more just expressing my own strategy in trying to work this out.
- litebro 6y agowhat company is this? love the initiative from your management.
- shevenal 6y agoI am a little hesitant to call them out publicly. It might be suffice to say that our engineering is based on Canada and we are in the NPM/APM space. If you are interested further, feel free to reach out via the email in the bio.
- aynyc 6y agoMy company is doing summer Friday for the entire year and will probably extend it. They didn't use productivity which is a difficult thing to measure as the primary reason. They were worry about employee mental health aspect.
- shevenal 6y agoIt's good to hear other companies are doing this too. Whats the company size? How are you and others finding it? Do you think the morale/productivity is better overall?
- probinso 6y agoI would suggest pushing them for a 9/80. it's an appropriate compromise on both sides of the fence
- shevenal 6y agoAdvice taken. That seemed to me to be the fair compromise too, especially given the stat holidays that tend to fall on certain sprints leading to 2 days off. Does your company user 9/80s?
- probinso 6y agoWhen I worked at JPL they did 9/80s. It was really nice
- shevenal 6y agoSounds nice. Was that pre-pandemic? Or was it already policy when you got there?
- probinso 6y agoI left before the pandemic started. Apparently it has been very popular within aerospace as an industry. I think that it has become less popular in the past decade, but that's where it started