3 ms·

I'm extremely curious about this from a practical perspective. (Disclaimer: American, so probably not the best work-life perspective) As far as company / cowor

by ethbr0 6y ago

I'm extremely curious about this from a practical perspective. (Disclaimer: American, so probably not the best work-life perspective) As far as company / coworker expectations, how does this work? Are responsibilities / work adjusted to fit the hours provided? What about being on-call? It seems like something a lot of companies should be taking advantage of, but the desire to own souls fights against it.

apexalpha 6y ago
Yes, responsibilities will be adjusted accordingly. On-Call depends a bit on your sector and what the unions agreed. Most of the time one hour on call will count for 0.25 hour worked I think, at least that's how it was for someone I knew. And most people simply put their days / hours in their e-mail signature so other colleagues know when to expect a reaction. From personal experience this works fine. Half my team is off every Friday and some also on Wednesdays. Companies can and do require 36 or 40 hours though, but most of the time vacancies will list something like "24-36" to signal the possibilities. --- edit: for your curiosity: https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/dashboard-arbeidsmarkt/werkenden https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/dashboard-arbeidsmark... It's in Dutch, but as long as you know that 'uur' = 'hour' you can read the charts. As of 2020, 72% of men worked 35 hours or more (full-time) compared to 26% of women.
hectormalot 6y ago
Majority of my team works 4 days/week, but do so by working 4x9 hours (36 total) instead of 5x8 hours (40 total). We don't really do less work (or take longer for projects). Some observations: * The folks working 4 days are a bit less likely to pick-up 'side activities' (e.g. help organise an external event, lead some of the recruiting efforts, etc.), because a day away takes out 25% of active time in one go. * Ratio overhead vs work is probably better for the part of the team working 4x9 vs 5x8. It turns out they can miss many of these meetings and still be fine without additional catch-ups. (unfortunately not in my power to just remove it completely) * I believe in people having broad responsibilities ("deliver this project in the best way you see fit") rather than "work X hours". We don't downscope projects because someone works 4 vs 5 days, but no one has ever remarked on it either. This type of responsibility sometimes means people wrap-up early, sometimes they feel responsible enough to pick something really important up in the evening/weekend and take a few hours off on another day. * I think the ~10% difference wouldn't be measurable for software (or AI in our case) development anyway, we're not a call center where you can measure 'minutes called'. Final notes: * This is my European/Dutch perspective. I understand this trend is stronger in the nordics/Germany/Netherlands than in the southern countries. Having managed a team in the US in the past, I find it hard to imagine how this would work in the US culture I experienced. * I have no desire to own souls ;)
- apexalpha 6y ago
  Nice to see a reply from a managers perspective. That being said, 4x9 is not considered part-time in NL.
  - hectormalot 6y ago
    That’s fair, 4x9 is indeed more the standard these days. On real part-time: I think once it moves below 3 days a week it works better for transactional roles. E.g. I know dentists that work for a few days per week in a practice, people with 8-16h per week in chat-support, 3-day/wk secretaries, etc. Most of these roles measure their work in calls/appointments/hours rather than longer running projects though. But with the right culture it can be done in IT as well, I think Gumroad is a good example.
GordonS 6y ago
I work in the UK as a remote architect for a megacorp, working a 4-day week, 7.5h per day Mon-Thu. I work on projects all across Europe and Scandinavian. I moved to a 4-day week a long time back - something like 7 years, I guess. Honestly, I get as much done in 4 days as I did in 5 - I really think it's a sweet spot, where you are forced to focus more for a shorter time. Anyways, in terms of team working, obviously some meetings need to be either held without me, or not held on Fridays. Otherwise, it's simply never been an issue. I've worked before with developers who work similar hours, and again it's never been a problem - we just adjust our sprint capacity/staffing accordingly.
- edem 6y ago
  Do you have open positions? Sounds like something I'd do too.
  - GordonS 6y ago
    If you're in the UK or Europe (AFAIK, this applies to Europe too), by law, any company has to seriously consider requests for flexible working (e.g. part-time hours). I simply asked, and they said "yeah, OK". Obviously working 20% less hours means 20% less pay and holidays. I work for an out-sourcing and consulting mega-corp - I get to work on interesting projects, but and honestly, it's a horrible company to work for in terms of culture, power struggles, biases, bureaucracy and lay-offs. I plan on getting out soon, going full-time on my side business. As such, I'd never recommend them to anyone.
    - edem 6y ago
      Fair enough.
raphaelj 6y ago
I've been working 4d/week for 4 years for a small Belgian company. I'm a software engineer. I've never got any complain from my manager, employer or colleagues about it. I'm usually taking my day off on Friday. All my colleagues know it, so we will try to schedule meetings for which I'm required on other days. If that's not possible (it only happens a few times per year), I'm flexible enough to take my time off some other day. I might be 90% as productive compared to when I was when working full-time. This difference is probably too low to be noticeable by anybody else in the team. My gross got reduced by 20%. But considering the way taxation works in Belgium, I'm only getting about 10% less on my bank account. I also got promoted to a senior role since then, which entirely offset the difference anyway. While it has been working extremely well for me (I spent the additional free time doing physical activities and launching my personal project [1]), it might be harder/impossible to get into higher positions (team leader, project manager...) while working part-time. -- [1] https://noisycamp.com https://noisycamp.com

by ethbr0 6y ago

apexalpha 6y ago

Yes, responsibilities will be adjusted accordingly. On-Call depends a bit on your sector and what the unions agreed. Most of the time one hour on call will count for 0.25 hour worked I think, at least that's how it was for someone I knew. And most people simply put their days / hours in their e-mail signature so other colleagues know when to expect a reaction. From personal experience this works fine. Half my team is off every Friday and some also on Wednesdays. Companies can and do require 36 or 40 hours though, but most of the time vacancies will list something like "24-36" to signal the possibilities. --- edit: for your curiosity: https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/dashboard-arbeidsmarkt/werkenden https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/dashboard-arbeidsmark... It's in Dutch, but as long as you know that 'uur' = 'hour' you can read the charts. As of 2020, 72% of men worked 35 hours or more (full-time) compared to 26% of women.

hectormalot 6y ago

Majority of my team works 4 days/week, but do so by working 4x9 hours (36 total) instead of 5x8 hours (40 total). We don't really do less work (or take longer for projects). Some observations: * The folks working 4 days are a bit less likely to pick-up 'side activities' (e.g. help organise an external event, lead some of the recruiting efforts, etc.), because a day away takes out 25% of active time in one go. * Ratio overhead vs work is probably better for the part of the team working 4x9 vs 5x8. It turns out they can miss many of these meetings and still be fine without additional catch-ups. (unfortunately not in my power to just remove it completely) * I believe in people having broad responsibilities ("deliver this project in the best way you see fit") rather than "work X hours". We don't downscope projects because someone works 4 vs 5 days, but no one has ever remarked on it either. This type of responsibility sometimes means people wrap-up early, sometimes they feel responsible enough to pick something really important up in the evening/weekend and take a few hours off on another day. * I think the ~10% difference wouldn't be measurable for software (or AI in our case) development anyway, we're not a call center where you can measure 'minutes called'. Final notes: * This is my European/Dutch perspective. I understand this trend is stronger in the nordics/Germany/Netherlands than in the southern countries. Having managed a team in the US in the past, I find it hard to imagine how this would work in the US culture I experienced. * I have no desire to own souls ;)

apexalpha 6y ago
Nice to see a reply from a managers perspective. That being said, 4x9 is not considered part-time in NL.
- hectormalot 6y ago
  That’s fair, 4x9 is indeed more the standard these days. On real part-time: I think once it moves below 3 days a week it works better for transactional roles. E.g. I know dentists that work for a few days per week in a practice, people with 8-16h per week in chat-support, 3-day/wk secretaries, etc. Most of these roles measure their work in calls/appointments/hours rather than longer running projects though. But with the right culture it can be done in IT as well, I think Gumroad is a good example.

GordonS 6y ago

I work in the UK as a remote architect for a megacorp, working a 4-day week, 7.5h per day Mon-Thu. I work on projects all across Europe and Scandinavian. I moved to a 4-day week a long time back - something like 7 years, I guess. Honestly, I get as much done in 4 days as I did in 5 - I really think it's a sweet spot, where you are forced to focus more for a shorter time. Anyways, in terms of team working, obviously some meetings need to be either held without me, or not held on Fridays. Otherwise, it's simply never been an issue. I've worked before with developers who work similar hours, and again it's never been a problem - we just adjust our sprint capacity/staffing accordingly.

edem 6y ago
Do you have open positions? Sounds like something I'd do too.
- GordonS 6y ago
  If you're in the UK or Europe (AFAIK, this applies to Europe too), by law, any company has to seriously consider requests for flexible working (e.g. part-time hours). I simply asked, and they said "yeah, OK". Obviously working 20% less hours means 20% less pay and holidays. I work for an out-sourcing and consulting mega-corp - I get to work on interesting projects, but and honestly, it's a horrible company to work for in terms of culture, power struggles, biases, bureaucracy and lay-offs. I plan on getting out soon, going full-time on my side business. As such, I'd never recommend them to anyone.
  - edem 6y ago
    Fair enough.

raphaelj 6y ago

I've been working 4d/week for 4 years for a small Belgian company. I'm a software engineer. I've never got any complain from my manager, employer or colleagues about it. I'm usually taking my day off on Friday. All my colleagues know it, so we will try to schedule meetings for which I'm required on other days. If that's not possible (it only happens a few times per year), I'm flexible enough to take my time off some other day. I might be 90% as productive compared to when I was when working full-time. This difference is probably too low to be noticeable by anybody else in the team. My gross got reduced by 20%. But considering the way taxation works in Belgium, I'm only getting about 10% less on my bank account. I also got promoted to a senior role since then, which entirely offset the difference anyway. While it has been working extremely well for me (I spent the additional free time doing physical activities and launching my personal project [1]), it might be harder/impossible to get into higher positions (team leader, project manager...) while working part-time. -- [1] https://noisycamp.com https://noisycamp.com