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"We could pass income laws with a 35-hour cap on all positions." This is kinda what I'm working on: I recently launched https://4dayweek.io/ https://4dayweek.

"We could pass income laws with a 35-hour cap on all positions." This is kinda what I'm working on: I recently launched https://4dayweek.io/ https://4dayweek.io/ - Software Jobs with a better work / life balance.

stanrivers 5y ago
Is this essentially a place where both employers and employee agree to a 35 hour work week, and then they all agree on the compensation differences because of that arrangement... and then if all good, it just magically works? I feel like the hard part will be policing this going forward, no? "You said only 35 hours" "Yeah, but we have a deadline and it just moved closer"
- strken 5y ago
  You probably want employers who think a 35 hour work week is quantifiably better value, and understand they're harming retention and productivity by having workers work more. I'm convinced that the marginal hours between 35 and 40 are much less productive than the marginal hours between 25 and 30, and the marginal hours between 50 and 55 may actually be negative.
  - donatzsky 5y ago
    > the marginal hours between 50 and 55 may actually be negative. It has in fact been proven to be negative: https://igda.org/resources-archive/why-crunch-mode-doesnt-work-six-lessons-2005/ https://igda.org/resources-archive/why-crunch-mode-doesnt-wo... https://lifehacker.com/working-over-40-hours-a-week-makes-you-less-productive-1725646811 https://lifehacker.com/working-over-40-hours-a-week-makes-yo...
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    , the problem with that is the marginal benefit argument only works white collar workers, who still net value unless it truly goes negative. Blue collar worker value is usually tied to hours on the job. Also, having personally struggled with overwork and burnout, I can say 60 and 80 weeks can be productive.. Until they aren't.
MontyCarloHall 5y ago
I don’t see how this is enforceable. Fine, I’m only legally allowed to reply to Slack/email, or submit git commits, or do other verifiable tasks related to work within a 35 hour window each week. But I’m passionate about technology and love coding in my spare time (or perhaps I’m just a go-getter), so outside that 35 hour window I hack on the codebase just for fun, or self-study new algorithms/frameworks/technologies related to work. As a result, I work far more efficiently during my legally mandated 35 hours and get promoted faster. Other go-getters on the team also do what I’m doing, and soon the only way to advance in the company is to spend personal time beyond the legally mandated 35 hour window indirectly working on work-related things. Those who don’t do this are seen as underperforming. As an aside, this is why there’s such a culture of overwork in fields where many workers are extremely passionate about their work, like scientific research, art, and yes, software engineering. When a sizable fraction of researchers are in the lab 80 hours a week because they actually love their science that much, it precludes anyone else from treating the job like a standard 9-5, since the work level expectation is set by those who legitimately enjoy spending long hours on their passion project, and thus don’t consider those 80 hours as “work” at all.
- Retric 5y ago
  The sweet spot for maximizing productive work done in a lifetime is no where near 11+ hour days 7 days a week. It’s a common illusion that people are putting in those kinds of hours for decades, but the reality is people end up goofing off or burning out.
  - MontyCarloHall 5y ago
    The productivity/time tradeoff is a spectrum, and highly dependent on both the person and the nature of the work. Some people have a sweet spot at 40 hours for certain tasks, some at 60, and a rare few at 80. As a concrete example, think of a software engineer who works 40 hours at their day job but also spends 10-20 hours a week on successful side projects, or a mechanic who works 40 hours at the shop but obsessively tinkers with their own cars in their spare time. Even if the side projects are not directly related towards tasks at their day jobs, they still develop skills that have direct benefits at the day job. I’m emphatically not saying that expectations will implicitly rise to 80 hour workweeks across the board. For many businesses, there would not be any implicit pressure at all to go beyond the hypothetical legally mandated 35 hours. But for some companies in certain lines of work, there will most certainly be implicit pressure to go above and beyond 35 hours, simply because there are sufficient people passionate enough about their jobs that they will put in more than 35 hours and remain productive.
vergessenmir 5y ago
The EU has a cap on the work week which you can opt out of, so most businesses 'asked' you to sign a waiver to work at the company. You can't force people not to work, so you'll have some people who will choose to and some who won't, hence the people who do will have an obvious advantage. That being said, progressing isn't everyone's life goal and I hope projects like this help create a market that 4-day weeks are the norm. The CTO at my last role was seriously considering this.
froh 5y ago
There is a clear global trend to reduce the individual hopurs worked. Up to now, the US seem to not follow along the trend to ras well as e.g. the Dutch do... https://data.oecd.org/chart/6oFS https://data.oecd.org/chart/6oFS a zoom into percentiles, by country/region, is also revealing intercultural differences: https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_1_Usual_working_hours_by_gender_July2013.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_1_Usual_working_hours_b...

stanrivers 5y ago

Is this essentially a place where both employers and employee agree to a 35 hour work week, and then they all agree on the compensation differences because of that arrangement... and then if all good, it just magically works? I feel like the hard part will be policing this going forward, no? "You said only 35 hours" "Yeah, but we have a deadline and it just moved closer"

strken 5y ago
You probably want employers who think a 35 hour work week is quantifiably better value, and understand they're harming retention and productivity by having workers work more. I'm convinced that the marginal hours between 35 and 40 are much less productive than the marginal hours between 25 and 30, and the marginal hours between 50 and 55 may actually be negative.
- donatzsky 5y ago
  > the marginal hours between 50 and 55 may actually be negative. It has in fact been proven to be negative: https://igda.org/resources-archive/why-crunch-mode-doesnt-work-six-lessons-2005/ https://igda.org/resources-archive/why-crunch-mode-doesnt-wo... https://lifehacker.com/working-over-40-hours-a-week-makes-you-less-productive-1725646811 https://lifehacker.com/working-over-40-hours-a-week-makes-yo...
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  , the problem with that is the marginal benefit argument only works white collar workers, who still net value unless it truly goes negative. Blue collar worker value is usually tied to hours on the job. Also, having personally struggled with overwork and burnout, I can say 60 and 80 weeks can be productive.. Until they aren't.

MontyCarloHall 5y ago

I don’t see how this is enforceable. Fine, I’m only legally allowed to reply to Slack/email, or submit git commits, or do other verifiable tasks related to work within a 35 hour window each week. But I’m passionate about technology and love coding in my spare time (or perhaps I’m just a go-getter), so outside that 35 hour window I hack on the codebase just for fun, or self-study new algorithms/frameworks/technologies related to work. As a result, I work far more efficiently during my legally mandated 35 hours and get promoted faster. Other go-getters on the team also do what I’m doing, and soon the only way to advance in the company is to spend personal time beyond the legally mandated 35 hour window indirectly working on work-related things. Those who don’t do this are seen as underperforming. As an aside, this is why there’s such a culture of overwork in fields where many workers are extremely passionate about their work, like scientific research, art, and yes, software engineering. When a sizable fraction of researchers are in the lab 80 hours a week because they actually love their science that much, it precludes anyone else from treating the job like a standard 9-5, since the work level expectation is set by those who legitimately enjoy spending long hours on their passion project, and thus don’t consider those 80 hours as “work” at all.

Retric 5y ago
The sweet spot for maximizing productive work done in a lifetime is no where near 11+ hour days 7 days a week. It’s a common illusion that people are putting in those kinds of hours for decades, but the reality is people end up goofing off or burning out.
- MontyCarloHall 5y ago
  The productivity/time tradeoff is a spectrum, and highly dependent on both the person and the nature of the work. Some people have a sweet spot at 40 hours for certain tasks, some at 60, and a rare few at 80. As a concrete example, think of a software engineer who works 40 hours at their day job but also spends 10-20 hours a week on successful side projects, or a mechanic who works 40 hours at the shop but obsessively tinkers with their own cars in their spare time. Even if the side projects are not directly related towards tasks at their day jobs, they still develop skills that have direct benefits at the day job. I’m emphatically not saying that expectations will implicitly rise to 80 hour workweeks across the board. For many businesses, there would not be any implicit pressure at all to go beyond the hypothetical legally mandated 35 hours. But for some companies in certain lines of work, there will most certainly be implicit pressure to go above and beyond 35 hours, simply because there are sufficient people passionate enough about their jobs that they will put in more than 35 hours and remain productive.

vergessenmir 5y ago

The EU has a cap on the work week which you can opt out of, so most businesses 'asked' you to sign a waiver to work at the company. You can't force people not to work, so you'll have some people who will choose to and some who won't, hence the people who do will have an obvious advantage. That being said, progressing isn't everyone's life goal and I hope projects like this help create a market that 4-day weeks are the norm. The CTO at my last role was seriously considering this.

froh 5y ago

There is a clear global trend to reduce the individual hopurs worked. Up to now, the US seem to not follow along the trend to ras well as e.g. the Dutch do... https://data.oecd.org/chart/6oFS https://data.oecd.org/chart/6oFS a zoom into percentiles, by country/region, is also revealing intercultural differences: https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_1_Usual_working_hours_by_gender_July2013.pdf https://www.oecd.org/els/family/LMF2_1_Usual_working_hours_b...