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Switching to a four-day workweek (2021)
- trwhite 5y agoI've stayed on much longer at the business I work for because of my 4 day week arrangement. Definitely golden handcuffs; I recognise that I probably wouldn't have this anywhere else. It's my life admin day mostly: chores, going to the dentist etc and when it isn't I make time for fun. Generally I feel much more rested in the week.
- draw_down 5y ago
- arrakis2021 5y agoWhy four? Why not one?
- mavelikara 5y agoSomeone responded to you when you left this same comment on a previous thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29835132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29835132
- echelon 5y agoIt's perfectly fine to ask the same question to a new audience. There might be different answers. Not everyone saw it the first time. My answer to op, assuming they're not being facetious: - We need time to recharge and let our brains work asynchronously on problems. - We need more coordination and integration points with colleagues. If we're steamrolling ahead, there's little chance to coordinate. - Quality of work begins to suffer after a certain point and reaches diminishing returns. - Expending that much effort at once, repeatedly, likely leads to incredible burnout. - Personally, the will to do Herculean tasks isn't a renewable resource you can tap into week over week. It happens, but it depletes. There have to be breaks.
- yawnxyz 5y agoI think that over time, the Overton window of what's acceptable will slowly shrink to 4 hours a week. But it'll be the optionality of work, like the 4-hour-work week, rather than a work-to-survive model we currently live in
- BuckRogers 5y agoWhat would help me at my job is just having the benefits/money to feel appreciative of the job. Instead I feel exploited. The easiest way is 4-10s. Working 8-6 daily and having a 3 day workweek would make me so much happier with my life. I would LOVE to have 3 days with my family, and would likely never leave the job.
- arrakis2021 5y agoI didn’t even know anyone responded. Thanks
- staz 5y agoWhy five ? why not a seven day week?
- wy35 5y agoI'm sure people said the same thing when we went from a 7 day workweek to a 5 day workweek.
- chasd00 5y agoSometimes it blows my mind that every 5 days I get two days off. You're off almost 30% of every week by default.
- smm11 5y agoHow about just "work," and whenever it makes sense? I've always figured that if I achieve what I'm supposed to achieve, why does it matter how or where that happens?
- xboxnolifes 5y agoHow much are you "supposed to achieve"? ----- Edit Since some of the replies seem to have missed what I was alluding to, I want to put here what I replied below: Sprint goals are based on capacity, which is loosely defined by how much your team works. Defining how much you need to work by basing it on how much you should achieve, which is based on a number defined by how much you roughly work, is circular reasoning.
- echelon 5y agoIncredibly difficult to quantify, but there are heuristics. Look at what your peers with a similar level of experience are doing. Look at what you're committing to do during sprint planning or 1:1s with your manager. (Assuming you're in a reasonable organization with a healthy workload.) Anything above that is deserving of a raise or promotion.
- k8sToGo 5y agoSprint Goals.
- xboxnolifes 5y agoSprint goals are based on capacity, which is loosely defined by how much your team works. Defining how much you need to work by basing it on how much you should achieve, which is based on a number defined by how much you (and your team) work, is circular reasoning.
- adolph 5y ago> How much Some jobs are process oriented in which the value contributed is in volume and efficiency. >> achieve what I'm supposed to achieve Other jobs are development oriented in which value contributed in defining the process or the end result of the process. It seems like the former is more amenable to "regular hours" and the latter to great swings in hours spent in effort directly related to a specific purpose.
- throwaway889900 5y agoSo is it 4/10 or 4/9 or 4/8?
- david422 5y ago4/8
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- swagasaurus-rex 5y agoI'd take any of those over 5/8
- jareds 5y agoWith two small kids I'd much rather have 5/8 instead of 4/10 so I can spend more time with them every day. I don't know how I feel about 4/9.
- deadbunny 5y agoWhy not 4x6? Seems much nicer and I'll get just as much done as 5x8.
- T-zex 5y agoNot switching yet, but evaluating the switch. Will be interesting to know how it goes.
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoSeems like the fastcompany article linked from the bottom of that press release has a bit more detail: https://www.fastcompany.com/90678612/this-tech-unicorn-just-shifted-to-a-4-day-work-week https://www.fastcompany.com/90678612/this-tech-unicorn-just-... One thing I wonder is if everyone's getting a pay cut, or if they just got a net 25% raise on their hourly rates. I guess if 94% of employees liked it[1], there was no pay cut involved... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/05/the-4-day-workweek-becomes-permanent-for-tech-company-bolt.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/05/the-4-day-workweek-becomes-p...
- chiyc 5y agoThe article says they're testing it, but it must be old. Bolt has apparently gone permanent on the four day work week now.
- red_hare 5y agoSeems to be from September. I couldn't find a published date but there's this: <meta property="article:published_time" content="2021-09-27T16:29:51+00:00" />
- matwood 5y agoMuch like microservices provide a defined enforcement of system component boundaries, a 4 day work week is a way to force the removal of 'theater' work. Neither should be required to achieve the end goal, but then there is reality.
- yawnxyz 5y agoYeah back when we lived in Sweden, Swedes are kind of known to "take lots of breaks" and "pack up when the clock strikes 5". Between coffee breaks, lunch, and fika, people barely worked... except during those precious hours they did work — they were very productive. The idea was that you get your stuff done as much as you can, up until the next break, which was always right around the corner.
- moneywoes 5y agoDo they work more hours per day?
- some_furry 5y agoI hope this change is 4 days, 8 hours per day, no pay cut.
- claytonjy 5y agoSomewhat relevant, Bolt is also paying top-of-market, e.g. 800k for an eng manager: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1479865906729730052?t=MbIuEeY2dQlt6vjXmOP8Qg&s=19 https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1479865906729730052?...
- candiddevmike 5y agoIf that's not indicative of another dotcom bubble I don't know what is. That's an insane amount of money to be paying, especially for a pre-IPO company.
- derex 5y agoI have a close friend who got Sr Engineer offer from Bolt. The 500k yearly TC is somewhat misleading because it’s assuming more than 2x growth in evaluation. While they may very well achieve that, you’re not gonna see the full 500k for an uncertain amount of time. More people should be aware of the nuances in these compensation figures.
- solarkraft 5y agoWow, I imagined stock comp would usually be based on current valuation.
- claytonjy 5y agoYup, same!
- comp_throw7 5y agoIt is, if they're offering RSUs rather than options. With options there's no meaningful "current valuation" since they're granted with a strike price that should be equal to their last valuation, there's only a potential distribution of future outcomes based on expected multiples (incl. 0).
- whoisjuan 5y ago$250k base salary. That's not top of market if the other $550k are illiquid options with no clear liquidity horizon.
- pkrumins 5y agoNo thanks, I'll take a 7-day workweek, 12 hours per day.
- jebronie 5y agoI read the related "conscious culture" manifesto and came across this "gem": "When hiring a new person, wait until their official start date to onboard them, which includes granting access to email and internal documents. Avoid letting a new hire start early because: [...] Information in Slack or Google drive could tip them away from your company"
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoOh dear, they're really telling on themselves aren't they? I mean not giving them access to e-mail and internal documents until their formal start date is pretty normal, unless they sign an NDA that kicks in earlier.
- CPLX 5y agoIt's quite possible that they're a dubious organization, but this note hardly proves it. It's really hard to get a read on internal company docs without any context whatsoever, they weren't written for an outside audience and it doesn't seem surprising that they could cause major confusion for someone unfamiliar with the local jargon and so on.
- gwright 5y agoThat seems like a silly reason -- there are lots more perfectly reasonable legal/security reasons to not have "early access" though.
- throwawayboise 5y agowe’re encouraging employees to set the following out-of-office email notification of Fridays: “I’m out of the office today because we’re working consciously here at Bolt and are currently testing out a four-day workweek. I’ll be back in touch with you on [Monday].” Ugh. Just say "I'm out of the office today and will respond on Monday" no need to tout your experimental company philosophy.
- abletonlive 5y agoHow do ideas spread if you don't tout them?
- isoskeles 5y agoWhy would you want to spread the idea of the “experiment” before gathering results? What if you conclude the experiment was a failure?
- yboris 5y agoPre-registration of studies is a virtue ;)
- abletonlive 5y agoSo people can learn about what other people are experimenting w/? Seems pretty straightforward to me.
- edoceo 5y agoThey made a blog post, we're currently commenting on it.
- cebert 5y agoWhen I first graduated college in 2008, I got a job at Lockheed Martin which offered flexible working schedules. I loved it, but was so naive to think this was commonplace. Adopting flexible working arrangements seems like an easy way for organizations to improve morale. At Lockheed, they let you pick if you wanted to work the standard 5x8 days 40 hour week, 4x10 days 40 hour week, or the 9x9 80 hour two-weeks with every other Friday off. This worked great. Everyone was aware that not everyone on the team could be counted as being available on Fridays depending on their schedule. Unfortunately for me when I left there, I realized how unusual this working arrangement is.
- dgs_sgd 5y agoI find the 9x9 80 hour two-weeks option very interesting. How common was this choice among employees?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jcims 5y agoNow that my kids are grown I would absolutely love this. You can stay in the pocket, get a quieter few days over the working weekend and it would help enforce good comms/docs when you wrap up your week. The only issue is that I would try to pack too much into the 5 day 'weekend' and be exhausted when I start back up.
- DerArzt 5y agoI may be mistaken, but for this 9x9 they may mean five 9 hour days, the weekend, four 9 hour days, three day weekend.
- jcims 5y agoCould be. My step-dad was just telling me about his night shift at AT&T in the 70's doing operations for switching sytems. They would to 10 8's in a row b/c it was hard for them to stay on the night shift schedule over the weekends, so this just let them stretch the weekend. He really liked it.
- woah 5y agoThis is basically like the famous "20% time" but way better
- perfunctory 5y agoI love this development. Especially since as a bonus it might help solving climate change . https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/27/four-day-working-week-would-slash-uk-carbon-footprint-report https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/27/four-day...
- skeeter2020 5y agothat's pretty optimistic/naive thinking when you see they have seven(!) open postings for Crypto developer roles.
- atarian 5y ago4 day work week is the new remote.
- yboris 5y ago"Brits to quit jobs if not offered four-day week, say researchers" link: https://employernews.co.uk/news/brits-to-quit-jobs-if-not-offered-four-day-week-say-researchers/ https://employernews.co.uk/news/brits-to-quit-jobs-if-not-of... On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29877234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29877234
- shtopointo 5y agoSmart move – Bolt just jumped to the top of the work-for list for me.
- yboris 5y agoJapan’s Panasonic Joins Global Trend Toward Four-Day Week https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-10/japan-s-panasonic-joins-global-trend-toward-four-day-work-week https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-10/japan-s-p... Let's make 2022 the year Four-Day Workweek spread like wildfire ;) Talk to your coworkers -- I suspect many of them would love for this to happen.
- simonswords82 5y agoCheck out this comment on a Reddit thread about this announcement, apparently it's not as legit as Panasonic would like us to believe which is a shame if true: https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s0i0cx/comment/hs37f19/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s0i0cx/comment/hs...
- gumby 5y agoNote that in California, hourly people will be getting two hours of overtime per working day. About a decade ago the unions got a law passed that overtime was after 8 hours in a day not 40 hours in a week. This ended up screwing people who had been able to move their schedule to four ten hour days.
- ModernMech 5y agoProposal: switch to a four day work week, but everyone has to do community service of their choice once a month on the 5th day. Thoughts?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ren_engineer 5y agothis would be fine for factory work, but I don't think it would be effective for knowledge work where most people can only consistently grind out maybe 3-5 hours of "real" work in terms of coding/writing/whatever. I think this is pretty commonly acknowledged on HN that nobody is grinding out 8 hours of hardcore coding every day Working 4 days for 10 hours is going to result in reduced output for the company, but better for the individual who wants to work on their side project with a fresh mind 3 days per week. I'd love it as an employee. Other obvious issue is that the rest of the world is pretty much working 5 days, so you risk losing deals and delaying all sorts of stuff over weekends and things like that
- supernova87a 5y agoI've said this before, but I find the belief that 4-day work weeks are broadly supported / feasible to be a bit of the typical tech-world conceit or the bubble tech people live in. Or maybe it's just in advanced heavily intangible-services-based economies. If you imagine this being applied to everything in the corporate/services world (and work is not "divisible"), would you be happy to have businesses closed 1 additional day per week? The DMV closed on Mondays -- but the fees and pay of employees remain the same? How about if prices go up by 20% to pay for the cost of having a 4 day week? Your plumber or car mechanic or doctor having 20% fewer available times to see you? The idea of the 4 day work week where people can do all that they do now, but be more efficient about it in 4 days instead, is something exclusively a privilege that white collar workers can even consider.
- nicoburns 5y agoPeople said all the same things about the 5 day work week before it was introduced. And the 8 hour day. IMO the economy absolutely can support it, but it may require some wealth distribution to make it work.
- BuckRogers 5y agoIf it's not doable in the age of fiat and 10-20% of the workforce actually producing things we actually need (food, housing), and doing it at extreme scale.. then it'll never happen. What I mean to say is that it is doable. Most of us are doing work that serves no real need other than contrived needs. It's absurd to think that given no one dies if I don't do my job, that we can't go to 4-10s. I could die tomorrow myself, and nothing changes. That's how inconsequential many employees and thus businesses are today.
- tayo42 5y agoWhy would business be closed? The workers just get scheduled less often. Part of the 4 day workweek idea is that we're not actually realizing the benefits of technological advances, instead of having the same output but working less were working more and outputting more. Self employed contractors like plumbers are free to do what ever they want
- 1270018080 5y agoI read on Blind (You can stop reading here, I don't blame you) that even though they have a 4-day workweek, their KPIs essentially require you to work Friday anyway. You officially have 4 days off, but few are able to do it.
- ghaff 5y agoMaybe it's just me but it seems as if a four day work week would almost have to come at the expense of a larger basket of time off that you can take when you want to. Which, in general, isn't a tradeoff I would like--nor, I imagine, would many people who prefer to take trips rather than having more free time around their home.
- sokoloff 5y agoI get 5 weeks of PTO (25 days, or 200 hours) now*. If I worked 4x10 weeks, I'd expect the most fair equivalent amount of PTO would be 5 weeks (now 20 days, still 200 hours). On one hand, that is fewer Mondays or Wednesdays that you could take off, but it seems a more than fair trade, given that you don't ever have to take a Friday off. Indeed, if the employer said "now that we have 4 day weeks, we're taking away 10 days of PTO, leaving you with 15 (150 hours instead of 200)", I'd then view that as something taken away. * It's possible that it's actually 24 days, not 25, and I'm too lazy to chase it down in the employee handbook. For this post, it's 25. :)
- alexjray 5y agoI like the idea of having a four day work week that everyone is expected to work and one day that is a flexible optional deep work type of day. No required meetings and no shipping etc. The idea being that people can choose to take it off if they want to or work half the day etc.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoSo is this "work 32 hours, get paid 40" kind of four-day work week, or a "you can decide how many contract hours you have" kind of four-day work week? I feel like it's important to make this distinction, because not working 40 hours / week is normalized where I live (about half the working population works part-time), with lots of people opting for 36 hours (then 4x9 for one day a week off, or 5x8 and 4x8 for one day per two weeks off), 32 hours (4x8), or less (e.g. two parents alternating work days to look after the kids, or minimize day care / grandparents). Anyway that's a long-winded way of saying, flexibility in contracts isn't too challenging. It's maintaining decent pay at the same time that the US seems to have trouble with, with some people having to balance multiple different jobs simultaneously because none is offering a stable 40ish hour contract or decent pay. 32 hours / week at 40 hour pay would be interesting.
- hinkley 5y agoAll through the dotcom collapse I kept trying to point out to employers that while they felt that I deserved at 10% raise that they could ill afford, that I would be happy reducing my hours by 10% for the same pay and they would hardly notice the difference in my output. Specifically I was thinking about how hard it is for me to get going on Monday mornings, and how often my weekend plans were curtailed by trying to make sure that I was absolutely back in town by 8pm at the latest on Sunday night. It doesn't take many experiences getting bumped from -or to- the last flight on Sunday to grow wary of trying to take a quick jaunt out of town. Not being expected until noon on Monday would have opened up a whole lot of options.
- adam_gyroscope 5y agoWe (bit.io) do a 4 day work week, and have since our founding. It's the 32-hours get paid for 40-hours kinda; our salaries are competitive with companies of the same stage & size who do a 40-hour work week. I was skeptical at first (I'm the CEO), but my co-founder showed me the data and we've been doing it since the start with no regrets. Happy to answer any practical questions; we're about 10 full time folks right now, work monday-thursday, all remote.
- bberenberg 5y agoWho responds to customer issues on Fridays?
- thanatos519 5y agoHe didn't say that everyone works the same 4 days.
- soneca 5y agoHe did say that
- cebert 5y agoAt Lockheed when I worked there, everyone worked M-Th. Friday was the one flex day that was in play depending on which working arrangements an employee chose.
- Kranar 5y ago>work monday-thursday, all remote.
- CountDrewku 5y agoHe did, but he mentioned later there was on-call. So it's a 4 day facade, similar to unlimited vacation.
- 5y ago
- yboris 5y agoTwo Major Companies Announced Four-Day Workweeks—This May Be The Tipping Point For Businesses To Join The Growing Movement https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/01/10/two-major-companies-announced-four-day-workweeks-this-may-be-the-tipping-point-for-businesses-to-join-the-growing-movement/?sh=18f36b22ad54 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/01/10/two-major-...
- digianarchist 5y agoA four day week is going to get my attention next time I hop jobs. Before that it was remote work but now that dam has well and truly broken. The shorter work week has the chance to be a major differentiator between employers. I'll let employers in on a little secret. A lot of us will take more than a 20% pay cut in return for that day.
- cmckn 5y ago> A lot of us will take more than a 20% pay cut in return for that day. Can't agree with you on this one, losing that money would meaningfully limit what I could do with my new-found free time. While I totally agree that a 4-day week would make a lot of folks respond to a recruiter's email, I think the vast majority would balk at the pay cut.
- BuckRogers 5y agoFor a lot of us, it wouldn't be a paycut. We're already on the bottom of the salary range. It'd be pure upside for me. I think there's room for both models to exist. But I can't imagine not being envious of the guy that has 3 days off a week. Keep your 20%, I could die next year and want to feel good while I'm here.
- 0xbadcafebee 5y agoOr a cut for more vacation time. I've had to threaten to get a labor lawyer just for the right to actually take my 2 weeks off consecutively. They responded by letting me "purchase" a few more days off... but of course if you don't take them, you don't get your money back.
- stuff4ben 5y agoNo, we won't take a pay cut to work less! It's time American employers realized that we don't want to be wage slaves anymore. Pay us a good wage, let us relax and enjoy life. A 4x32 work week is just a start to that...
- josephcsible 5y ago
- fleddr 5y agoI've been working a four day week for over a decade, so can share some personal experiences. I'm basically outputting the same amount of work at the same quality as before. As the article hints at, the consequence of working one day less is that it forces you to more aggressively reject distractions. Which not only was much easier than I expected, it's in fact enjoyable. The deal is simple. We have sprints where it's clear what needs to be delivered every two weeks. Output-based work, not presence-based work. I generously reject or ignore anything else. The way to do this is to dismiss meetings that do not contribute to your core tasks. Meetings are the true productivity killer. They cut up your day into useless snippets where you can't get anything done. The trick to get rid of them is stupidly simple: flip the script. Right now, it's common culture that people can start as many meetings as they want and it's common courtesy for the invitees to attend, and if not, explain why. I simply stopped complying with the expectation. I may not at all respond to the invite or give it a decline without reason. The default is no, and it's on you to convince me how the meeting is needed for me to deliver. Because my job is to deliver, not to sit in meetings. My time belongs to me and my manager, and nobody else. If you want a piece of it, have a good story. I'm serious when I say this: not once in my decade of making this change have I ever been frowned upon, got into issues, had negative feedback or reviews due to clearing crap from my agenda. In fact, it earns respect. That is the key lesson: don't be afraid to defend your time and do not forget what you're at work for. I'm effectively only helping my employer by being more productive in the time that I work, how can anybody complain about that? Same for overtime culture and managers sending emails at night or in the weekend. Their problem. Send a million, I won't read any of them. Has this ever gotten me into trouble? No. Have they ever asked why I don't respond to weekend emails? No. But if they would, I'd tell them I couldn't read them because I was fucking my wife, and recommend they do the same. Get this: work is making your manager look good, and never bad. That's the job. When you do this, you're already a top performer, as the standard is really very low. You can do all of this by rejecting nonsense, which is in your interest as well as your manager's interest.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hinkley 5y agoI would just like to say that in a world of SaaS SLAs, remote-first, and the specter of a 4 day work week, that what we actually need is a better way for people to collaborate when not colocated in time and space. I shouldn't be limited to banker's hours for doing things, especially if that now means a 3 day weekend. What really should happen is that some of us should be working on Saturday but not Monday, or at 8 am versus 8 pm. Otherwise 4 day work weeks just become 32 hours + permanent on-call, which is worse than nothing.
- Smoosh 5y agoSo, maybe next they will experimentally employ someone over 40?
- Kranar 5y agoAs an FYI to others who might jump to conclusions... my experience as a VC involved in several tech companies as well as a founder is that older people generally do not like to apply to work for early stage startups. The compensation and risk profile of early stage startups often does not appeal or work well for older developers. Second to that, the number of software developers doubles approximately every 5 years, meaning that developers 40 years and older make up only about 20% of the workforce [1] [2]. The end result is that it's not unusual that older developers are not well represented at smaller tech companies and one should not jump to the conclusion that there is age discrimination on that basis alone. [1] https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2004/2004.05847.pdf https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2004/2004.05847.pdf [2] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019 https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019
- Maxburn 5y agoI've worked a four day work week in a construction related job for years now. I do 4 10 hour days. I figure the company saves money because they cover site travel time when I'm not in the office. Mostly it's sort of difficult for others to understand I'm not available at all any Friday and weekend rates apply then. A 10 hour day isn't too bad but it's definitely the sort of thing where I'm not really doing anything else those days, work eat and sleep. The weird thing I run into is I try to schedule things like dental cleanings or tax work etc on Fridays (when I'm off) and I run into all the other people that also take Fridays off. 4 Day work weeks aren't that uncommon.
- breakyerself 5y ago4/10s is better than 5/8s, but I think the 4 day workweek movement is trying to reduce the hours worked to 32 hours as a matter of principle. The idea behind 5/8s was 8 hours work, 8 hours leisure, 8 hours sleep. For that lifestyle to work it assumed a wife at home doing a similar amount of work to keep the household running. Now most families have both parents working 40 hours a week. Which means they're working for 8 hours, coming home and doing a bunch of chores, then going to sleep. Leisure activities are often done at the expense of sleep. A 32 hour work week would give people back some of the leisure time they lost.
- Maxburn 5y agoI think I'm allowed to drop down to 36 hours without any problem. Under that consistently and we run into full time classification issues and maybe insurance gets dropped.
- boringg 5y agoThe amount of earned media for this company is quite amazing for something that really isn't that novel imho.
- dannyeei 5y agoWhy is the 4 day week always talked about but never the 9 day fortnight? I feel like that would be far easier to pull off
- stuff4ben 5y agoI don't want to work more, I want to work less. The 4x32 would be a start, but I don't want to spend my life "working" when I could be "living".
- rupak_k 5y agoHey! I'm a Software Engineer @ Bolt and have been at the company for a little over 1.5 years now. I talk about my experiences with the 4-Day Work Week here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0aLQRwxIWY&t=15s&ab_channel=NamanhKapur https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0aLQRwxIWY&t=15s&ab_channel... Check it out and let me know if you have any questions!
- imjared 5y agoMy new gig does a 4days x 8hr work week. It was a major reason for joining the company and has proven to really help reshape how I work and how I think about work. Interestingly, we take Wednesdays off with the ability to trade that day on an as-needed basis. This gives us 2x 2-day work sprints per week. I find that I roll into Thursdays having had a day to reset a little bit, tackle personal projects, cook a huge meal, or go for a long bike ride. Friday comes and I haven't once felt the "Thank god it's Friday" feeling, but rather "Oh, it's Friday already?" in the same way that I used to feel it after a 3-day weekend. Here's a bit more on our operating philosophy from our CEO: https://www.fastcompany.com/90501241/my-companys-always-had-4-day-workweeks-heres-why-theyre-more-important-than-ever https://www.fastcompany.com/90501241/my-companys-always-had-...
- jnguyen64 5y agoDamn, that's an S-tier company. I just looked at the job description and the interview process is extremely good as well. I hope multiple options for the tech portion of the interview process will become commonplace soon.
- mrcwinn 5y agoFormer and maybe future startup CEO here. It’s funny because I’ve always subscribed to the notion that I’d rather work 6 days a week than 4, so long as I can pick when and where I work. And likewise, to trust the team to make decisions as to how they approach work, so long as they fulfill their commitments and remain sustainably ambitious. That is, I personally have always enjoyed a lot of autonomy. I work harder when I have flexibility. I feel happier and healthier when I don’t try to construct huge brick walls between personal and work, but rather accept the two ebb and flow. But to each their own, and I certainly support companies sending more time back to people. Heavens know software has given us plenty of productivity gains in the last 30 years.
- flippinburgers 5y agoHonestly why not just drop a day and make it four eight hour days fully remote.
- vegai_ 5y agoI love working hard. I actually do. 16 hours a day for 30 days straight doing meaningful stuff -- bring it on. (I'm exaggerating the actual numbers slightly here, but you know) But when I am in "the office" for 7 hours every day for a month doing chore shit or nothing, I get absolutely bored and my efficiency drops to perhaps 5% of the optimal. The only way to get past that is a vacation where I do not think about work (in the office sense) for 1-2 weeks. 4 day work week might postpone how fast that getting bored happens, but it does not fix this. So, what I need and I suspect perhaps some other people need also is a society where one can say "hey people, it seems like I'm in the 5% zone. I'm gonna go away for two weeks, see you then." and everyone will think "he's a good worker/person/human because he knows how to keep himself in optimal working condition".
- regul8or 5y agoThe four-day workweek is intriguing. I worked for the American Red Cross for a year shortly after college. My boss there was excellent and flexible with my work schedule. I was able to leave early to run track with a coach, and then come back in and finish up any work I still had. It made me much more productive and they got way more work from me than if I had to be there all day, every day. More companies should trust their employees to get the work done.