33 ms·

> 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 th

by 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.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    But companies would only push for this at scale (as in saving a days worth of wages across the company is noticeably profitable in comparison to output from the workers). Identifying this as a net positive towards profit leads to the harrowing conclusion that, at scale, they don’t need as many people. Not taking away anything from your point, just pondering the implications of shifts like this in the economy. Edit: I also want to add that many people in the service economy literally fight for extra shifts. The only hopeful outcome from these types of moves from companies is if they genuinely maintain salary and headcount amongst white collar workers. We have watched the blue collar economy get fleeced over and over and it’s important we remain vigilant against companies bearing perceived niceties. The incentives just don’t align.
iso1631 6y ago
"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." Last week I was surprised to find our engineering team in our Washington DC were all out of the office on the Thursday, I needed a remote machine repowered. Friday is a bad day when you work with the Middle East. I believe some countries work Saturday-Wednesday and have Thu/Fri off Of course right now in New Zealand it's 3AM on Tuesday, but it's 6AM on Monday in LA. We somehow manage to cope scheduling meetings.

by Jedd 6y ago

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.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  But companies would only push for this at scale (as in saving a days worth of wages across the company is noticeably profitable in comparison to output from the workers). Identifying this as a net positive towards profit leads to the harrowing conclusion that, at scale, they don’t need as many people. Not taking away anything from your point, just pondering the implications of shifts like this in the economy. Edit: I also want to add that many people in the service economy literally fight for extra shifts. The only hopeful outcome from these types of moves from companies is if they genuinely maintain salary and headcount amongst white collar workers. We have watched the blue collar economy get fleeced over and over and it’s important we remain vigilant against companies bearing perceived niceties. The incentives just don’t align.

iso1631 6y ago

"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." Last week I was surprised to find our engineering team in our Washington DC were all out of the office on the Thursday, I needed a remote machine repowered. Friday is a bad day when you work with the Middle East. I believe some countries work Saturday-Wednesday and have Thu/Fri off Of course right now in New Zealand it's 3AM on Tuesday, but it's 6AM on Monday in LA. We somehow manage to cope scheduling meetings.