3 ms·

The biggest ever four-day workweek trial kicks off in the UK

21 points by perfunctory 4y ago

philmcp 4y ago
There are now 200+ companies piloting a 4 day work week And 150+ more have already made the switch e.g. https://4dayweek.io/companies https://4dayweek.io/companies I don't know what the future of work looks like But I know it ISN'T 9-5, five days a week.
superb-owl 4y ago
I think we need to start differentiating between a "4-day, 40-hour workweek" and a "32-hour workweek". I've been calling the former "four tens" - i.e. four 10-hour days. While four-tens is definitely preferable to the traditional five-eights, it seems like a shitty compromise. The whole point of the 4 day workweek is to make strides towards a saner, more balanced lifestyle. Packing more work into fewer days doesn't move us in the right direction.
- nwiswell 4y ago
  For hourly workers, you're right. For salaried knowledge workers (probably most of us here), I think this would be a big deal. That's because a typical day usually lasts until one of two conditions are met: 1) All of the organizational needs are met 2) I've got no more gas in the tank There's no question that days on average would be longer as condition #1 would become less frequent and condition #2 more frequent, but I'm very confident that on the whole it would end up being fewer hours worked, because I'm already hitting condition #2 on a regular basis. Not to mention that having three days off would do a lot to fight burnout.
superb-owl 4y ago
As an employee, I would happily take a 20% pay cut for 20% fewer hours of work. Granted this is coming from a highly paid tech worker. As an employer, I would happily hire 20% more people to do the same number of hours of work. There's additional overhead for sure, but the extra voice in the room can be extremely valuable, especially for a small-to-medium sized startup. This seems like a win-win for a lot of organizations.
Proven 4y ago

3 ms·

The biggest ever four-day workweek trial kicks off in the UK

21 points by perfunctory 4y ago

philmcp 4y ago
There are now 200+ companies piloting a 4 day work week And 150+ more have already made the switch e.g. https://4dayweek.io/companies https://4dayweek.io/companies I don't know what the future of work looks like But I know it ISN'T 9-5, five days a week.
superb-owl 4y ago
I think we need to start differentiating between a "4-day, 40-hour workweek" and a "32-hour workweek". I've been calling the former "four tens" - i.e. four 10-hour days. While four-tens is definitely preferable to the traditional five-eights, it seems like a shitty compromise. The whole point of the 4 day workweek is to make strides towards a saner, more balanced lifestyle. Packing more work into fewer days doesn't move us in the right direction.
- nwiswell 4y ago
  For hourly workers, you're right. For salaried knowledge workers (probably most of us here), I think this would be a big deal. That's because a typical day usually lasts until one of two conditions are met: 1) All of the organizational needs are met 2) I've got no more gas in the tank There's no question that days on average would be longer as condition #1 would become less frequent and condition #2 more frequent, but I'm very confident that on the whole it would end up being fewer hours worked, because I'm already hitting condition #2 on a regular basis. Not to mention that having three days off would do a lot to fight burnout.
superb-owl 4y ago
As an employee, I would happily take a 20% pay cut for 20% fewer hours of work. Granted this is coming from a highly paid tech worker. As an employer, I would happily hire 20% more people to do the same number of hours of work. There's additional overhead for sure, but the extra voice in the room can be extremely valuable, especially for a small-to-medium sized startup. This seems like a win-win for a lot of organizations.
Proven 4y ago