16 ms·

Tech Companies with Four-Day Work Weeks

101 points by philmcp 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ghaff 5y ago
Please give me additional time I can take when I want to take it (including for three day weekends) rather than whatever trendy workplace time management is in vogue. I personally prefer to take month-long vacations than consistently shorter weeks.
- ramraj07 5y ago
  I’ve been mulling a system that would allow that but also address what I’d consider to be a somewhat unfair benefit we give parents. Of course parents need maternity/paternity time off but this seems to perversely incentivize having kids for no real reason. Another issue on the opposite side is the unfair career progression slowdown women face for taking a maternity leave. One possible solution is that we expect mandatory 3 month sabbaticals for every employee every two years (which can also be a maternity leave but that’s your choice). This is on top of regular vacations (which probably should be modest if this option exists). We can give the option of breaking it in two but no further. Such sabbaticals would also make everyone think about processes that they do that are not sustainable during such breaks and work properly around it from the beginning. definitely still a hypothesis that I’m continuing to think through, but would love to know where this can go wrong!
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Whatever the exact form, I wish sabbaticals in industry were more common—probably at longer intervals than job-hopping folks would find interesting though.
  - dasil003 5y ago
    I'm curious, do you have kids? I do, and I think that anyone who had kids in order to get the "free vacation" is in for a nasty surprise.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ramraj07 5y ago
      I do not, but I might. The point is that at we all (at least the ones who plan it) subtly factor how supportive our work environments are for having a child, and in that way the leave policies would definitely change the equation at least for some if not all parents. Further, while it might not change someone’s mind if they weren’t gonna have a child, at the least it will make them decide if they want to do it _today_ instead of a few years later. I’m also not against such leaves; while I’m not able to articulate it correctly, I feel there’s definitely something “not fair” about the system. A coworker who took a paternity leave did not necessarily have fun but they arguably ended up with something far more valuable in their life (a child), so as painful as the Time you spend in those days might be you get actual happiness from it. Again, good for you! No ill-will at all! I just wanted to propose a system that might just be better. Whether you want to have kids or not you get that much time off every two years. Have a kid, great. Don’t have a kid, also great.
      - dasil003 5y ago
        Sure, I understand the unfairness aspect, but I think there’s a limit to how fair we can actually make things for different individuals in different situations. We do make structural accommodations for people with disabilities and other disadvantages that can seem unfair to those with the privilege of not dealing with that situation. I’m not against your sabbatical proposal per se but keep in mind it’s going to cost the company at least 20-30 times what parental leave does.
        ramraj07 5y ago
        For sure! Saving money for the company was never a factor in my thought process!
  - maxov 5y ago
    I haven't been a parent so I can't be positive, but I doubt time off for maternity or paternity acts as a "positive" incentive for having children, meaning people who didn't want children before would now want them. That time off is filled pretty well caring for the baby, which is extremely tiring and time-consuming; it doesn't really function as a break. I also don't know how many people would trade a several month absence from work for the at least 18-year (more like lifetime, really) commitment of raising a child; they have children for other reasons. That said, I could see how having maternity/paternity leave would help people who want to put in the effort of raising children, but cannot/do not want to quit their job or keep working with a baby for the most demanding first few months. There is likely negative pressure on having children from not being able to take paid leave from work, and in aggregate people would probably have more children as a result if they do get paid leave. Although this is an entirely different topic, such a policy seems like a good idea to combat the lack of births many developed countries are facing, which in the long term will cause an asymmetric demography. This could be a big problem, as countries with births under replacement and little net inward migration need to support an aging population with fewer active workers (see e.g. Japan). I imagine some would argue that we should move toward smaller and more sustainable societies in order to preserve the planet's resources and reduce our total consumption, in which case they would advocate for alternate solutions to deal with societal aging.
  - atty 5y ago
    I don’t think anyone is incentivized to have a kid because they get a few weeks or months off. The only incentive i see is the opposite; if there is no parental leave, they may decide not to have children they were otherwise considering. And the few weeks/months after a child is born can be much harder work than your day job in many aspects. So it would be unfair to parents, especially mothers, who tend to spend more time on child care, to force them to use their sabbatical/vacation time as parental leave. You’d effectively be controlling people’s reproductive timelines with this sabbatical schedule. In terms of women being disadvantaged, I agree. But I think the answer is to make sure it’s illegal to discriminate based on current or future parental obligations and enforce that strongly, and to strongly incentivize both mothers and fathers to take their full allocated leave, and make it the same length for both parents.
    - techcode 5y ago
      The disadvantage due to pregnancy leave is tricky stuff - even with best intentions. (Actually same for any other longer term leave). Especially if in the X months you are away, someone needs to step in as temp replacement because you're the only person of that role in your team/unit. Basically - where does that replacement come from? And where does replacement go afterwards? It's slightly less problematic if you're 1 of say 3 or more people in the same role in the team/unit. Though even when it works out (say if not temp backfill then you have another place/team/unit to join once you're back, or you weren't only person of that role). Various changes/pivots likely lead to you coming back to something completely different from what you left, if it's even determined what exactly will you work on once you come back.
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    >> this seems to perversely incentivize having kids for no real reason In Canada mat/pat leave is unemployment insurance, which you pay for on every pay cheque. Even if it was "free money" nobody is having kids to get a few months off work.
  - satyrnein 5y ago
    As a parent (and former single person), the idea that society is tilted unfairly against single people really does not resonate. At a macro level, with birth rates declining the way they are, we should probably be doing even more to ease the lives of parents.
- dasil003 5y ago
  Sure, I guess all else being equal I'd rather have an extra 40+ days of PTO. However there is something to be said for shared time off where no one is working. That way you don't have to worry about landmine you're going to step on when you get back. As I get older, 4-day work week is extremely appealing.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Except that’s never going to be the case anyway because customers need to be supported. Unless sort of you can get the whole world on a 4 day work week. And even then that’s only some people. I’d take even a couple more weeks of vacation over a 4 day work week.
    - dasil003 5y ago
      That depends on the business and the role. Where I currently sit, 99% of land mines are internal. On-call is a different thing, but that's no worse on a weekday than a weekend.
      - hawaiianbrah 5y ago
        Really? My experience with on call is its worse on a weekday since that’s when there’s more traffic generally (at least for the services I’ve supported)
        dasil003 5y ago
        I work in consumer, not SaaS. Also globally so there’s a rough peak but no true off hours.
- smoe 5y ago
  Either of which is fairly common in Europe and no recent trend. 4-5 weeks paid vacation, although not always easy to take in a single block. And many people work 80% independently of company having 4 day week or no.
- slumpt_ 5y ago
  “Trendy” You know there was a time when you might have been the person saying this about the 5-day, 40-hour workweek. Think bigger. Expect more. Pro-employee is pro-you. Get your vacation. Get your longer weekends too. It’s not mutually exclusive. You’re doing the job of exploitative employers for them with this take.
- marto1 5y ago
  Well, the site clearly states "All listed jobs are for a maximum of 32 hours per week" so I'm guessing you can spread that in a flexible manner at least for some of these companies.
imposterr 5y ago
Looks like the site may be down. Here's an archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210805012839/https://4dayweek.io/blog/10-tech-companies-with-4-day-work-weeks-2021 https://web.archive.org/web/20210805012839/https://4dayweek....
- philmcp 5y ago
  Thanks for this. The traffic broke my site, oops
  - philmcp 5y ago
    Should be fixed now. Hard refresh / cache clear may be required though Added another node to the cluster :p wasn't expecting this to get so much traffic (!)
patrickthebold 5y ago
Personally, I think this is a great way to get top talent for companies that can't afford to pay FAANG salaries.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  They know they can just raise more money right?
quantum_state 5y ago
It’s the way to go …
radicalriddler 5y ago
Slightly unrelated, but it says that Buffer gives 3 months of leave time to parents ANNUALLY. That seems a little bit excessive, and surely gives a little bit of bias against hiring parents for Buffer...
- Cookingboy 5y ago
  So this may be very unpopular and controversial. I think as great as paid paternity/maternity leaves are for parents, it's a somewhat an indirect penalty against people who don't have children during their tenure. Those people are literally expected to work more hours and days for the same level of pay and responsibility, and if someone has multiple kids during their career it can really add up vs. someone who choose to not have kids. I don't have an answer for it because I think giving time off to new parents are super important, but in the name of fairness, maybe X months per Y years "paid leave time" should be universally granted to all employees?
  - anthuswilliams 5y ago
    Meh. I mostly see it as a regression to the mean. Over the years, Silicon Valley has shown itself as being willing to bend over backwards to the young and childless, sponsoring conference tickets, corporate getaways to tropical islands, happy hours, etc. All of those things are a material benefit to a certain type of person in an earlier stage of life, but are of limited or negative value to a new parent.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
    It's funny if you think that paid time off for the new parent is "holiday", usually you come back of it way more tired (but you develop lot of new skills) Think of it as a way to preserve the species. Or as a deep training session.
    - djohnston 5y ago
      We really don't need to be incentivizing people to reproduce. The world isnt having a human shortage.
orionblastar 5y ago
We tried that with a law firm I worked at. 10 hour days, 4 days a week. There is always the fifth day where someone needs you to be at work for something. When Non-IT employees learn that IT gets 4 day work weeks, they want it as well.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  We used to joke about this: "Five Tens", or you still end up working 40 hours a week for 80% pay
marto1 5y ago
What a cool idea! It would be nice to have some quick filtering feature for places in Europe, though.
Proven 5y ago
This is totally laughable because it's such nonsense and yet keeps coming up on HN. Can any of you geniuses tell me why would a company launch their product or service ~20% slower (or hire 20% more people) because their snowflake employees can't endure 5 day work weeks? And why would they pay someone to work 4 days a week, when they can get someone to work 5 days a week for the same pay?
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
Show HN thread about this site from a few months ago, from the creator https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26900533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26900533

101 points by philmcp 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ghaff 5y ago

Please give me additional time I can take when I want to take it (including for three day weekends) rather than whatever trendy workplace time management is in vogue. I personally prefer to take month-long vacations than consistently shorter weeks.

ramraj07 5y ago
I’ve been mulling a system that would allow that but also address what I’d consider to be a somewhat unfair benefit we give parents. Of course parents need maternity/paternity time off but this seems to perversely incentivize having kids for no real reason. Another issue on the opposite side is the unfair career progression slowdown women face for taking a maternity leave. One possible solution is that we expect mandatory 3 month sabbaticals for every employee every two years (which can also be a maternity leave but that’s your choice). This is on top of regular vacations (which probably should be modest if this option exists). We can give the option of breaking it in two but no further. Such sabbaticals would also make everyone think about processes that they do that are not sustainable during such breaks and work properly around it from the beginning. definitely still a hypothesis that I’m continuing to think through, but would love to know where this can go wrong!
- ghaff 5y ago
  Whatever the exact form, I wish sabbaticals in industry were more common—probably at longer intervals than job-hopping folks would find interesting though.
- dasil003 5y ago
  I'm curious, do you have kids? I do, and I think that anyone who had kids in order to get the "free vacation" is in for a nasty surprise.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ramraj07 5y ago
    I do not, but I might. The point is that at we all (at least the ones who plan it) subtly factor how supportive our work environments are for having a child, and in that way the leave policies would definitely change the equation at least for some if not all parents. Further, while it might not change someone’s mind if they weren’t gonna have a child, at the least it will make them decide if they want to do it _today_ instead of a few years later. I’m also not against such leaves; while I’m not able to articulate it correctly, I feel there’s definitely something “not fair” about the system. A coworker who took a paternity leave did not necessarily have fun but they arguably ended up with something far more valuable in their life (a child), so as painful as the Time you spend in those days might be you get actual happiness from it. Again, good for you! No ill-will at all! I just wanted to propose a system that might just be better. Whether you want to have kids or not you get that much time off every two years. Have a kid, great. Don’t have a kid, also great.
    - dasil003 5y ago
      Sure, I understand the unfairness aspect, but I think there’s a limit to how fair we can actually make things for different individuals in different situations. We do make structural accommodations for people with disabilities and other disadvantages that can seem unfair to those with the privilege of not dealing with that situation. I’m not against your sabbatical proposal per se but keep in mind it’s going to cost the company at least 20-30 times what parental leave does.
      - ramraj07 5y ago
        For sure! Saving money for the company was never a factor in my thought process!
- maxov 5y ago
  I haven't been a parent so I can't be positive, but I doubt time off for maternity or paternity acts as a "positive" incentive for having children, meaning people who didn't want children before would now want them. That time off is filled pretty well caring for the baby, which is extremely tiring and time-consuming; it doesn't really function as a break. I also don't know how many people would trade a several month absence from work for the at least 18-year (more like lifetime, really) commitment of raising a child; they have children for other reasons. That said, I could see how having maternity/paternity leave would help people who want to put in the effort of raising children, but cannot/do not want to quit their job or keep working with a baby for the most demanding first few months. There is likely negative pressure on having children from not being able to take paid leave from work, and in aggregate people would probably have more children as a result if they do get paid leave. Although this is an entirely different topic, such a policy seems like a good idea to combat the lack of births many developed countries are facing, which in the long term will cause an asymmetric demography. This could be a big problem, as countries with births under replacement and little net inward migration need to support an aging population with fewer active workers (see e.g. Japan). I imagine some would argue that we should move toward smaller and more sustainable societies in order to preserve the planet's resources and reduce our total consumption, in which case they would advocate for alternate solutions to deal with societal aging.
- atty 5y ago
  I don’t think anyone is incentivized to have a kid because they get a few weeks or months off. The only incentive i see is the opposite; if there is no parental leave, they may decide not to have children they were otherwise considering. And the few weeks/months after a child is born can be much harder work than your day job in many aspects. So it would be unfair to parents, especially mothers, who tend to spend more time on child care, to force them to use their sabbatical/vacation time as parental leave. You’d effectively be controlling people’s reproductive timelines with this sabbatical schedule. In terms of women being disadvantaged, I agree. But I think the answer is to make sure it’s illegal to discriminate based on current or future parental obligations and enforce that strongly, and to strongly incentivize both mothers and fathers to take their full allocated leave, and make it the same length for both parents.
  - techcode 5y ago
    The disadvantage due to pregnancy leave is tricky stuff - even with best intentions. (Actually same for any other longer term leave). Especially if in the X months you are away, someone needs to step in as temp replacement because you're the only person of that role in your team/unit. Basically - where does that replacement come from? And where does replacement go afterwards? It's slightly less problematic if you're 1 of say 3 or more people in the same role in the team/unit. Though even when it works out (say if not temp backfill then you have another place/team/unit to join once you're back, or you weren't only person of that role). Various changes/pivots likely lead to you coming back to something completely different from what you left, if it's even determined what exactly will you work on once you come back.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  >> this seems to perversely incentivize having kids for no real reason In Canada mat/pat leave is unemployment insurance, which you pay for on every pay cheque. Even if it was "free money" nobody is having kids to get a few months off work.
- satyrnein 5y ago
  As a parent (and former single person), the idea that society is tilted unfairly against single people really does not resonate. At a macro level, with birth rates declining the way they are, we should probably be doing even more to ease the lives of parents.
dasil003 5y ago
Sure, I guess all else being equal I'd rather have an extra 40+ days of PTO. However there is something to be said for shared time off where no one is working. That way you don't have to worry about landmine you're going to step on when you get back. As I get older, 4-day work week is extremely appealing.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Except that’s never going to be the case anyway because customers need to be supported. Unless sort of you can get the whole world on a 4 day work week. And even then that’s only some people. I’d take even a couple more weeks of vacation over a 4 day work week.
  - dasil003 5y ago
    That depends on the business and the role. Where I currently sit, 99% of land mines are internal. On-call is a different thing, but that's no worse on a weekday than a weekend.
    - hawaiianbrah 5y ago
      Really? My experience with on call is its worse on a weekday since that’s when there’s more traffic generally (at least for the services I’ve supported)
      - dasil003 5y ago
        I work in consumer, not SaaS. Also globally so there’s a rough peak but no true off hours.
smoe 5y ago
Either of which is fairly common in Europe and no recent trend. 4-5 weeks paid vacation, although not always easy to take in a single block. And many people work 80% independently of company having 4 day week or no.
slumpt_ 5y ago
“Trendy” You know there was a time when you might have been the person saying this about the 5-day, 40-hour workweek. Think bigger. Expect more. Pro-employee is pro-you. Get your vacation. Get your longer weekends too. It’s not mutually exclusive. You’re doing the job of exploitative employers for them with this take.
marto1 5y ago
Well, the site clearly states "All listed jobs are for a maximum of 32 hours per week" so I'm guessing you can spread that in a flexible manner at least for some of these companies.

imposterr 5y ago

Looks like the site may be down. Here's an archived link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210805012839/https://4dayweek.io/blog/10-tech-companies-with-4-day-work-weeks-2021 https://web.archive.org/web/20210805012839/https://4dayweek....

philmcp 5y ago
Thanks for this. The traffic broke my site, oops
- philmcp 5y ago
  Should be fixed now. Hard refresh / cache clear may be required though Added another node to the cluster :p wasn't expecting this to get so much traffic (!)

patrickthebold 5y ago

Personally, I think this is a great way to get top talent for companies that can't afford to pay FAANG salaries.

908B64B197 5y ago
They know they can just raise more money right?

quantum_state 5y ago

It’s the way to go …

radicalriddler 5y ago

Slightly unrelated, but it says that Buffer gives 3 months of leave time to parents ANNUALLY. That seems a little bit excessive, and surely gives a little bit of bias against hiring parents for Buffer...

Cookingboy 5y ago
So this may be very unpopular and controversial. I think as great as paid paternity/maternity leaves are for parents, it's a somewhat an indirect penalty against people who don't have children during their tenure. Those people are literally expected to work more hours and days for the same level of pay and responsibility, and if someone has multiple kids during their career it can really add up vs. someone who choose to not have kids. I don't have an answer for it because I think giving time off to new parents are super important, but in the name of fairness, maybe X months per Y years "paid leave time" should be universally granted to all employees?
- anthuswilliams 5y ago
  Meh. I mostly see it as a regression to the mean. Over the years, Silicon Valley has shown itself as being willing to bend over backwards to the young and childless, sponsoring conference tickets, corporate getaways to tropical islands, happy hours, etc. All of those things are a material benefit to a certain type of person in an earlier stage of life, but are of limited or negative value to a new parent.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
  It's funny if you think that paid time off for the new parent is "holiday", usually you come back of it way more tired (but you develop lot of new skills) Think of it as a way to preserve the species. Or as a deep training session.
  - djohnston 5y ago
    We really don't need to be incentivizing people to reproduce. The world isnt having a human shortage.

orionblastar 5y ago

We tried that with a law firm I worked at. 10 hour days, 4 days a week. There is always the fifth day where someone needs you to be at work for something. When Non-IT employees learn that IT gets 4 day work weeks, they want it as well.

skeeter2020 5y ago
We used to joke about this: "Five Tens", or you still end up working 40 hours a week for 80% pay

marto1 5y ago

What a cool idea! It would be nice to have some quick filtering feature for places in Europe, though.

Proven 5y ago

This is totally laughable because it's such nonsense and yet keeps coming up on HN. Can any of you geniuses tell me why would a company launch their product or service ~20% slower (or hire 20% more people) because their snowflake employees can't endure 5 day work weeks? And why would they pay someone to work 4 days a week, when they can get someone to work 5 days a week for the same pay?

ChrisArchitect 5y ago

Show HN thread about this site from a few months ago, from the creator https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26900533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26900533