5 ms·

I really can't wrap my head around this four-day week trend. If the organization is focused on KPI's so why does it matter if people work one day or four-days?

I really can't wrap my head around this four-day week trend. If the organization is focused on KPI's so why does it matter if people work one day or four-days? If the organization is focused on time spend no work (either in office or remotely) how can work be done in 80% of the time? Really don't understand how it works in day-to-day. It resembles the unlimited vacation days policy which was later found out to be unhelpful to employees.

michaelmior 4y ago
> If the organization is focused on KPI's so why does it matter if people work one day or four-days? Arguably it matters in how you KPIs are set. I think it's reasonable to expect a full time employee to work more than one day a week. If you can meet all your KPIs with everyone working one day a week, then maybe you're aiming too low. Of course, if you require everyone to work 60 hour weeks to hit KPIs, that's an even bigger problem.
- JamesAdir 4y ago
  KPIs can be change continuously so that's why I'm baffled by this trend. Companies can just say - we measure only by KPIs, work whenever you want. Something like this signals a much better workspace than four-days workweek, since the latter still measures time instead of output.
  - michaelmior 4y ago
    I'm not sure which trend are you referring to. In any case, I'm not suggesting employees should be measured solely by time worked. Only that I think setting performance targets based on a reasonable number of hours worked seems to make sense to me. Otherwise, I'm not really sure what benchmark you would use.
bencollier49 4y ago
It's mostly a case of figuring out when people will be available to work together. Some companies have a concept of "core hours". As long as you're active during the core hours, the rest are flexible.
prometheus76 4y ago
We work 4 days of 10 hours each. It's a good trade-off and I love the schedule.
- RegBarclay 4y ago
  I had a 4 tens option at a previous job. We could have Monday or Friday off. I especially liked it late in the day when the 5 eights people left and it was quiet and there weren't any meetings.
danaris 4y ago
There is ample research showing that humans can't be consistently productive for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm less personally familiar with research on 4-day weeks, but I've seen several studies with plenty of rigor that showed that working 6 hours a day, people were, on average, at least as productive as they were working 8 hours a day. Banish from your mind the idea that "hours spent at work" translates directly into productivity. My butt in my seat doesn't produce anything. My brain is what produces code, designs, problem-solving, ideas, etc, and it, like any other part of my body, needs periodic rest in order to function properly.

michaelmior 4y ago

> If the organization is focused on KPI's so why does it matter if people work one day or four-days? Arguably it matters in how you KPIs are set. I think it's reasonable to expect a full time employee to work more than one day a week. If you can meet all your KPIs with everyone working one day a week, then maybe you're aiming too low. Of course, if you require everyone to work 60 hour weeks to hit KPIs, that's an even bigger problem.

JamesAdir 4y ago
KPIs can be change continuously so that's why I'm baffled by this trend. Companies can just say - we measure only by KPIs, work whenever you want. Something like this signals a much better workspace than four-days workweek, since the latter still measures time instead of output.
- michaelmior 4y ago
  I'm not sure which trend are you referring to. In any case, I'm not suggesting employees should be measured solely by time worked. Only that I think setting performance targets based on a reasonable number of hours worked seems to make sense to me. Otherwise, I'm not really sure what benchmark you would use.

bencollier49 4y ago

It's mostly a case of figuring out when people will be available to work together. Some companies have a concept of "core hours". As long as you're active during the core hours, the rest are flexible.

prometheus76 4y ago

We work 4 days of 10 hours each. It's a good trade-off and I love the schedule.

RegBarclay 4y ago
I had a 4 tens option at a previous job. We could have Monday or Friday off. I especially liked it late in the day when the 5 eights people left and it was quiet and there weren't any meetings.

danaris 4y ago

There is ample research showing that humans can't be consistently productive for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I'm less personally familiar with research on 4-day weeks, but I've seen several studies with plenty of rigor that showed that working 6 hours a day, people were, on average, at least as productive as they were working 8 hours a day. Banish from your mind the idea that "hours spent at work" translates directly into productivity. My butt in my seat doesn't produce anything. My brain is what produces code, designs, problem-solving, ideas, etc, and it, like any other part of my body, needs periodic rest in order to function properly.