6 ms·

Who’s Afraid of the Four Day Work Week?

21 points by tnorthcutt 5y ago

philmcp 5y ago
It's just around the corner imo as 4 day jobs are becoming more popular % of 4 day week job listings on ZipRecruiter: 2018: 0.06% 2019: 0.4% 2020: 0.7% 2021: ?
killingtime74 5y ago
4 day week with 5 day pay?
- Arrath 5y ago
  This is the way. I was a lead on a project that due to some fortuitous circumstances was able to start ahead of schedule. Management told us, though, that until the scheduled start date, we could only work 40 hours a week. Well, being hourly (the important distinction) the whole team unanimously voted to work 4/10s for the duration. Management was happy we were only working 40, we were doubly happy because we got 3 days off and some overtime!
  - killingtime74 5y ago
    That’s great management
phnofive 5y ago
It seems like this experiment is primarily measuring the productivity of knowledge workers, which is a notoriously tricky thing to pin down. Obviously, the work doesn't take more than twenty percent less time - folks are staying on task and cutting unneeded meetings and hoping the experiment is a success so they can go on with a permanent three day weekend. Where else can we try this? Gas stations? Hospitals? Schools? Will students learn faster or remember longer? I would think comparing courseloads for freshmen could give us some insight here, because there's something to the idea that fitting the time to the task would bring clarity to the sufferers of boreout.
pharmakom 5y ago
There is an overhead to having an employee that is almost the same whether they work 4 or 5 days. Employers want value, so they would rather employ 4 people for 5 days than 5 people for 4 days. In most markets, labour is cheap, employers have the leverage and we work 5 days. Now, in competitive employment markets (e.g. strong software developers) there might be enough leverage for 4 days. Also, the higher salaries get, the less the overhead matters.
- loonster 5y ago
  Maybe its time to decouple all non salary benefits.
  - pharmakom 5y ago
    There's also things like desk space, parking spot, hardware, time dealing with contracts...
    - loonster 5y ago
      Not exactly equal. If two employees work different shifts, most of those issues could be solved by not having separate resources for each employee.
      - atatatat 5y ago
        Gross.
  - hansvm 5y ago
    Maybe. Those benefits are usually more efficient for the employee and the employer via tax/accounting advantages and economies of scale. Eliminating such benefits directly impacts the bottom line of the employee, and increasing cash sufficiently to result in the same effective pay results in higher employer costs. Are the benefits of decoupling worth that increased friction? For some examples like health benefits I think the answer is probably yes -- the fact that worse health care is twice as expensive without an employer (even if you personally pay the full cost) seems like an artifact of a broken system as opposed to some real benefit being provided -- even people who disagree with universal healthcare should agree on that point. Other examples like free food and a gym/shower at the office aren't as clear cut in my mind. It's really nice to be able to bike to the office, not smell like ass when I start working, and have breakfast ready when I get there. Plus I'm not sure eliminating those benefits would actually result in a 4-day work week. You still have per-employee overhead purely from hiring/retention efforts and whatnot, and there's a lot of inertia to the 5-day week.

21 points by tnorthcutt 5y ago

It's just around the corner imo as 4 day jobs are becoming more popular % of 4 day week job listings on ZipRecruiter: 2018: 0.06% 2019: 0.4% 2020: 0.7% 2021: ?

killingtime74 5y ago

4 day week with 5 day pay?

Arrath 5y ago
This is the way. I was a lead on a project that due to some fortuitous circumstances was able to start ahead of schedule. Management told us, though, that until the scheduled start date, we could only work 40 hours a week. Well, being hourly (the important distinction) the whole team unanimously voted to work 4/10s for the duration. Management was happy we were only working 40, we were doubly happy because we got 3 days off and some overtime!
- killingtime74 5y ago
  That’s great management

phnofive 5y ago

It seems like this experiment is primarily measuring the productivity of knowledge workers, which is a notoriously tricky thing to pin down. Obviously, the work doesn't take more than twenty percent less time - folks are staying on task and cutting unneeded meetings and hoping the experiment is a success so they can go on with a permanent three day weekend. Where else can we try this? Gas stations? Hospitals? Schools? Will students learn faster or remember longer? I would think comparing courseloads for freshmen could give us some insight here, because there's something to the idea that fitting the time to the task would bring clarity to the sufferers of boreout.

pharmakom 5y ago

There is an overhead to having an employee that is almost the same whether they work 4 or 5 days. Employers want value, so they would rather employ 4 people for 5 days than 5 people for 4 days. In most markets, labour is cheap, employers have the leverage and we work 5 days. Now, in competitive employment markets (e.g. strong software developers) there might be enough leverage for 4 days. Also, the higher salaries get, the less the overhead matters.

loonster 5y ago
Maybe its time to decouple all non salary benefits.
- pharmakom 5y ago
  There's also things like desk space, parking spot, hardware, time dealing with contracts...
  - loonster 5y ago
    Not exactly equal. If two employees work different shifts, most of those issues could be solved by not having separate resources for each employee.
    - atatatat 5y ago
      Gross.
- hansvm 5y ago
  Maybe. Those benefits are usually more efficient for the employee and the employer via tax/accounting advantages and economies of scale. Eliminating such benefits directly impacts the bottom line of the employee, and increasing cash sufficiently to result in the same effective pay results in higher employer costs. Are the benefits of decoupling worth that increased friction? For some examples like health benefits I think the answer is probably yes -- the fact that worse health care is twice as expensive without an employer (even if you personally pay the full cost) seems like an artifact of a broken system as opposed to some real benefit being provided -- even people who disagree with universal healthcare should agree on that point. Other examples like free food and a gym/shower at the office aren't as clear cut in my mind. It's really nice to be able to bike to the office, not smell like ass when I start working, and have breakfast ready when I get there. Plus I'm not sure eliminating those benefits would actually result in a 4-day work week. You still have per-employee overhead purely from hiring/retention efforts and whatnot, and there's a lot of inertia to the 5-day week.