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This is hardly a significant trial. Unilever said all 81 staff members at its offices across New Zealand will be able to participate in the trial... Only 81

This is hardly a significant trial. Unilever said all 81 staff members at its offices across New Zealand will be able to participate in the trial... Only 81 possible candidates, and not all of them might choose to participate. I'd be curious to see the results of a trial involving thousands of employees. Some subset of 81, though... almost meaningless. There's a tremendous inertia when it comes to work weeks. The five-day is locked in pretty firmly in the developed world, and a company that tries to change that risks getting out of synch with suppliers, subcontractors, and partners. "Today's Thursday. Our office is closed on Fridays, so we'll have to schedule that call for Tuesday, because one of our suppliers is closed on Mondays." I mean, they can try it, and employees might like the extra time off, but it might well slow things down and ultimately result in commensurately lower salaries and bonuses.

Jedd 6y ago
> I'd be curious to see the results of a trial involving thousands of employees. Perhaps you could run one at your company? Absent that experiment, this is the one that Unilever is running for everyone in their offices within one country for a full year. Consider the wonderful Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics [1] and how it applies to any kind of experiment or well-intentioned initiative, when presented to 'people that know better'. > The five-day is locked in pretty firmly in the developed world, and a company that tries to change that risks getting out of synch with suppliers, subcontractors, and partners. "Today's Thursday. Our office is closed on Fridays, so we'll have to schedule that call for Tuesday, because one of our suppliers is closed on Mondays." Well, a) just because it's common doesn't mean it's good, or that it's still relevant, or that it's healthy, or that it's ineluctable. b) there's no suggestion with ANY of these trials, or any organisation already offering part-time work for their staff, that they shutdown entirely for one or two days per week - rather, their workforce is spread over the (for now, common in the west) five weekdays, with varying personnel engaged. If you think organisations that are looking to reduce working hours for their staff are assuming the company is going to operate on a 4-day week, then you may have misunderstood the intent. [1] https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  To add to the point about the 8hr day/40 hour work week, it came from a serious labor movement in North America in the mid 1800s. Which brings up an interesting reality of our time, that a push to bring about sane changes is coming from companies and not the workers (which could sadly be caused by the fact that workers have been utterly wing clipped in our hyper competitive economy to ask for anything at all). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day ^^ That came about in America because average people were fighting for it. Our new changes in remote work or short work week is oddly coming from ... god knows where. What incentive does the company have here? Someone has to follow the money to find the truth if companies are the catalysts for these initiatives. I have a hunch that if a company is behind the movement, the end goal is to simply cut the reliance on labor and cut staff or freeze hiring.
  - Jedd 6y ago
    Your hunch may be right, but I'm optimistic because a) I don't believe it's a concerted initiative, and b) at least some of the toe-dipping seems to be happening for genuinely 'this is better for all of us' sentiments. This potentially wishful thinking may end up being proven wrong, but ultimately what we all have going on now simply isn't tenable over the next 10+ years, so any and all kinds of experiments are probably a good thing.
  - toyg 6y ago
    > the end goal is to simply cut the reliance on labor and cut staff or freeze hiring. One possible explanation is to reduce labor costs while still keeping around key workers (and their irreplaceable institutional knowledge) most of the time. For example, there is little point in keeping an old and experienced technician on full pay 5 days a week, when you know he's mostly overseeing others and fixing the occasional issue; might as well put him on 4 days, saving a day's wages (or moving the equivalent of his net wages to tax-efficient pension funds), and sell it to him as a quality-of-life improvement. Overall productivity is probably the same, but costs have gone down and morale up, as s/he moves towards retirement. Or take a smart developer. Instead of haggling over 20% time, unofficial side projects, conference talks etc, sell him an extra off-day that is paid as a half-day. Amateur athletes? HR people? etc etc... I mean, modern offices have people dedicated almost exclusively to organizing silly group activities; there is plenty of spare time that can be cut, to everyone's benefit. I would sign tomorrow.
bluntfang 6y ago
>"Today's Thursday. Our office is closed on Fridays, so we'll have to schedule that call for Tuesday, because one of our suppliers is closed on Mondays." Sounds like your company's bus factor is too low. This is such an obtuse and presumptuous observation. How do companies open 7 days a week exist when the work week is 5 days?! Just because your employees only work 4 days doesn't mean the company is only open for business 4 days. You can shift your employees in such a way as to avoid these pitfalls. Use your imagination a bit.
t-writescode 6y ago
This sort of mental work around days is common when you work with businesses outside your time zone. It’s not that hard to adapt to.

Jedd 6y ago

> I'd be curious to see the results of a trial involving thousands of employees. Perhaps you could run one at your company? Absent that experiment, this is the one that Unilever is running for everyone in their offices within one country for a full year. Consider the wonderful Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics [1] and how it applies to any kind of experiment or well-intentioned initiative, when presented to 'people that know better'. > The five-day is locked in pretty firmly in the developed world, and a company that tries to change that risks getting out of synch with suppliers, subcontractors, and partners. "Today's Thursday. Our office is closed on Fridays, so we'll have to schedule that call for Tuesday, because one of our suppliers is closed on Mondays." Well, a) just because it's common doesn't mean it's good, or that it's still relevant, or that it's healthy, or that it's ineluctable. b) there's no suggestion with ANY of these trials, or any organisation already offering part-time work for their staff, that they shutdown entirely for one or two days per week - rather, their workforce is spread over the (for now, common in the west) five weekdays, with varying personnel engaged. If you think organisations that are looking to reduce working hours for their staff are assuming the company is going to operate on a 4-day week, then you may have misunderstood the intent. [1] https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

runawaybottle 6y ago
To add to the point about the 8hr day/40 hour work week, it came from a serious labor movement in North America in the mid 1800s. Which brings up an interesting reality of our time, that a push to bring about sane changes is coming from companies and not the workers (which could sadly be caused by the fact that workers have been utterly wing clipped in our hyper competitive economy to ask for anything at all). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day ^^ That came about in America because average people were fighting for it. Our new changes in remote work or short work week is oddly coming from ... god knows where. What incentive does the company have here? Someone has to follow the money to find the truth if companies are the catalysts for these initiatives. I have a hunch that if a company is behind the movement, the end goal is to simply cut the reliance on labor and cut staff or freeze hiring.
- Jedd 6y ago
  Your hunch may be right, but I'm optimistic because a) I don't believe it's a concerted initiative, and b) at least some of the toe-dipping seems to be happening for genuinely 'this is better for all of us' sentiments. This potentially wishful thinking may end up being proven wrong, but ultimately what we all have going on now simply isn't tenable over the next 10+ years, so any and all kinds of experiments are probably a good thing.
- toyg 6y ago
  > the end goal is to simply cut the reliance on labor and cut staff or freeze hiring. One possible explanation is to reduce labor costs while still keeping around key workers (and their irreplaceable institutional knowledge) most of the time. For example, there is little point in keeping an old and experienced technician on full pay 5 days a week, when you know he's mostly overseeing others and fixing the occasional issue; might as well put him on 4 days, saving a day's wages (or moving the equivalent of his net wages to tax-efficient pension funds), and sell it to him as a quality-of-life improvement. Overall productivity is probably the same, but costs have gone down and morale up, as s/he moves towards retirement. Or take a smart developer. Instead of haggling over 20% time, unofficial side projects, conference talks etc, sell him an extra off-day that is paid as a half-day. Amateur athletes? HR people? etc etc... I mean, modern offices have people dedicated almost exclusively to organizing silly group activities; there is plenty of spare time that can be cut, to everyone's benefit. I would sign tomorrow.

bluntfang 6y ago

>"Today's Thursday. Our office is closed on Fridays, so we'll have to schedule that call for Tuesday, because one of our suppliers is closed on Mondays." Sounds like your company's bus factor is too low. This is such an obtuse and presumptuous observation. How do companies open 7 days a week exist when the work week is 5 days?! Just because your employees only work 4 days doesn't mean the company is only open for business 4 days. You can shift your employees in such a way as to avoid these pitfalls. Use your imagination a bit.

t-writescode 6y ago

This sort of mental work around days is common when you work with businesses outside your time zone. It’s not that hard to adapt to.