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At a place I used to work for, the four day week question was put to the CEO at an all-hands company town hall. Not a fan of the idea, he scoffed and said some

At a place I used to work for, the four day week question was put to the CEO at an all-hands company town hall. Not a fan of the idea, he scoffed and said something like, ‘I pay you to be at your desk from 9am-5.30pm Monday-Friday. Why should I pay you the same for a day less?’ I don’t think he realised it at the time, but that answer was devastating to company productivity and morale. He’d just demonstrated to everyone that he didn’t value results and all that was important was bums on seats. People stopped putting in extra effort, waited out their hours as that was all that was required and started brushing up their CVs. I left not long after and so did many others.

galoisscobi 4y ago
The director for the org I work in says something along those lines after every release cycle. He thanks everyone for working long hours and on burning the midnight oil on weekends, and that’s it. I personally never work long hours or work on weekends and those speeches feel alienating. I think hard during the day, strive to be creative and then go back to my life outside work without donating my free hours to a company that would be just fine without them. I’ve heard that what we appreciate in people also tells a lot about us and when I hear my director only acknowledge the long hours, I realize that only the long hours are appreciated. Luckily my immediate management chain knows better and understand the importance of creativity, meaningful output and WLB that I stick around.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>I left not long after and so did many others. The question from me is, did you manage to move to a company where you got paid the same or more, but for "a day less hours"? Employers can make that claim if the job market is in their favor, i.e. if most other companies agree with them and decide that they need staff available Mo-Fr 9-5 or for less hours but also for proportionally less salary, which to my experience is most employers. To normalize this, we need the majority of employers (>51% of them) to switch to paying market rate for less hours, putting pressure on the rest that this is the new norm, but I haven't seen that yet in my EU country, except for a notable couple of companies that made headlines, out of which one recently filed for bankruptcy. So as long as only a tiny minority of companies are doing this, the norm will not change. All businesses here think like your ex-boss: 'Why should I pay you the same for a day less?’ and the market favors their approach as they have seen no mass resignations since they all can afford to act like this. Therefore, the only solution would be the same as the one that lead to the 8 hour workweek being normalized almost 100 years ago: mass strikes and labor movements followed by government regulations that makes the 4 day workweek the new norm for everyone.
- benmanns 4y ago
  I don’t think you need 51% to affect things at the margins. At one company, we were early to the “remote is OK” and “remote is good” camps. It helped a lot with recruiting and retention, and let us hire a better talent pool. Post-COVID with everyone offering remote the benefit has dwindled for companies early to accept remote work. I think someone offering 4 day work weeks would be able to hire talent they wouldn’t normally be able to. If the promise of “same productivity, less hours, same pay” is true, then they’ll outperform and out recruit. Mass strikes are certainly quicker though.
  - katbyte 4y ago
    this is a real good point, pre covid being remote was a good perk. something i didn't even know i wanted. now its a basic requirement for me to consider a job. now if someone offered me same pay, but a 4day work week, my interest would be peeked. not only that people who've had time off to destress/etc do better work. 2 days for a weekend doesn't really do that. 3 days is almost like a mini vacation and everyone is in high spirits after a 3 day weekend
    - loonster 4y ago
      I would take Wednesdays off. No more than 1 day away from a day off. Need to schedule an appointment for anything: Wednesday.
- belorn 4y ago
  Conflicts are often about signals and what is being said between the lines, rather than factually outcomes. My interpretation of the above comment is that the employer could have had made the same decision, but phrased in such a way that employees still felt valued for their work beyond that just sitting at the desk from 9am-5.30pm. A few years ago in Sweden one of the top businesses leaders scoffed at tax evasion and basically said that why should he pay taxes if he can afford to avoid it. The statement annoyed people, and did so much more than just the fact of tax evasion. It actually resulted in him being forced to step down from several of his position. Employers are rarely rewarded for scoffing and treating employees like they are not worth anything.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hdjdnnsbsbs 4y ago
He stopped paying people who wanted to be paid 5 days for 4 days of work? How is this different from 99.9% of companies?
- onion2k 4y ago
  It's how most companies think they work, but really very few companies actually track output. They track time. They're not measuring how much work you do, but instead how much time you're available for. The idea of a 4 day week is that people stop procrastinating, wasting time, daydreaming, sitting in meetings doing nothing, etc, and that saves a day a week. The employer gets the same amount of work for the money, and the employee doesn't have to pretend to work any more. Everyone wins.
  - singpolyma3 4y ago
    I switched to 3 days weeks almost 2 years ago. (Mostly, I remain in a company chatroom on other days for people to ask me questions, and if there's a massive disaster I'll help if I'm available). What I've found is that I spend the 4 days I'm not "working" organizing my thoughts and plans as a background task and this means most of my 3 days is spent executing. Whereas at my previous job I would spend several days a week on thinking and organizing and another couple on being blocked or bored.
    - abootstrapper 4y ago
      Do you get 60% salary for 3 days/week? I’m thinking of doing the same thing.
      - singpolyma3 4y ago
        I'm in a unique position there where I currently don't take a salary because I'm an investor in the company. But no, if I were drawing a salary I don't see any reason it would be 60%
        4y ago
heather45879 4y ago
The problem with folks in America is they’ve lost their entrepreneurial spirit. If people are given a shorter work week—great—they’re nice and relaxed. But I’ve witnessed folks getting more-and-more lazy these days. There needs to be a better method of incentives put in place that coincides with an extra day off. I would propose not an extra day off, but perhaps an extra day of personal development instead? Something relaxing but related to work maybe? People are simply too distracted with all the crack social media and Netflix’s auto-play algorithm. So I’d wager that sometimes people will use that day productively, but maybe 7/10 it’ll be wasted down some rabbit hole. In fact, you could probably argue that people are so distracted these days that they’re productivity and happiness would both go up if they were no longer wasting time online and you ADDED another work day.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  > the problem with the most productive civilization in history is that it’s lazy
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Valakas_ 4y ago
    To add to that beautiful quote: https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01 https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e...
- danparsonson 4y ago
  Alternative thesis: most people are getting tired of working hard only for the lion's share of the reward to go to a small handful of people at the top.
  - mattkevan 4y ago
    I recently did a qualification in leadership and management, and I think it had the exact opposite effect from the one intended. It made me realise how much of management is about finding ways to squeeze more work from people without extra compensation - motivation theory, time management, mentoring, coaching etc. Very little is for the employee’s benefit.
devnullbrain 4y ago
I've had a series of CEOs who've said unnecessary, polarising things. The kind of thing that 10-50% of the employees would really object to - examples like yours or politics. It seems like an uncharacteristic risk with negligible payoff (he's a real person just like me!) but considerable downsides (he thinks my vote was stupid) that I don't see from middle management. Maybe it's survivorship bias? The kind of people who manage to become CEOs are the ones who have strong opinions but haven't suffered backlash for them. If they had experienced half their orgchart hating them, they wouldn't have made the cut?
Gigachad 4y ago
The problem is he didn't put enough corporate wank on it. Should have said "Thanks for the suggestion, we are always looking in to the best way forward for the company and we will keep this in consideration and keep you updated with any changes." Even if he did only care about results, it's a likely scenario that 4 day weeks reduce results or at the least introduce a risk that isn't worth taking. I think the average worker actually prefers just being required to work a certain amount and as long as you aren't extremely bad at your job, you'll be fine even if you have a slow week/month. Rather than being frequently being audited for results and pressured to work longer hours to keep your output up with everyone else.
- prawn 4y ago
  Some people might think of it as corporate wank, but realistically it gives a boss or organisation time to poll employees/owners/managers, stay flexible, slowly work towards a change like this, etc. Less wankery than the path he took, from the sounds of things.
- eru 4y ago
  You just demonstrated that there's a good reason corporate types speak the way they do, even if it sounds phony. What mattkevan quoted was brutally honest, but did not go over well.
  - inopinatus 4y ago
    Frankness without hostility is possible. It is a hallmark of really great leadership. Sadly, it is also rare.
    - mazdacx5 4y ago
      So true. That combination is rare but indeed very powerful. Combine that with the ability to pave the way forward and you got a recipe for success.
    - eru 4y ago
      Yes. So the safe and reproducible course of action is to use euphemisms.
rqtwteye 4y ago
The funny thing is that executives usually justify their giant salaries with the value and results they bring to the company.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  Great point. I wonder if any Board of Directors has ever asked a company CEO "Did you log at least 40 hours last week?"

galoisscobi 4y ago

The director for the org I work in says something along those lines after every release cycle. He thanks everyone for working long hours and on burning the midnight oil on weekends, and that’s it. I personally never work long hours or work on weekends and those speeches feel alienating. I think hard during the day, strive to be creative and then go back to my life outside work without donating my free hours to a company that would be just fine without them. I’ve heard that what we appreciate in people also tells a lot about us and when I hear my director only acknowledge the long hours, I realize that only the long hours are appreciated. Luckily my immediate management chain knows better and understand the importance of creativity, meaningful output and WLB that I stick around.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

>I left not long after and so did many others. The question from me is, did you manage to move to a company where you got paid the same or more, but for "a day less hours"? Employers can make that claim if the job market is in their favor, i.e. if most other companies agree with them and decide that they need staff available Mo-Fr 9-5 or for less hours but also for proportionally less salary, which to my experience is most employers. To normalize this, we need the majority of employers (>51% of them) to switch to paying market rate for less hours, putting pressure on the rest that this is the new norm, but I haven't seen that yet in my EU country, except for a notable couple of companies that made headlines, out of which one recently filed for bankruptcy. So as long as only a tiny minority of companies are doing this, the norm will not change. All businesses here think like your ex-boss: 'Why should I pay you the same for a day less?’ and the market favors their approach as they have seen no mass resignations since they all can afford to act like this. Therefore, the only solution would be the same as the one that lead to the 8 hour workweek being normalized almost 100 years ago: mass strikes and labor movements followed by government regulations that makes the 4 day workweek the new norm for everyone.

benmanns 4y ago
I don’t think you need 51% to affect things at the margins. At one company, we were early to the “remote is OK” and “remote is good” camps. It helped a lot with recruiting and retention, and let us hire a better talent pool. Post-COVID with everyone offering remote the benefit has dwindled for companies early to accept remote work. I think someone offering 4 day work weeks would be able to hire talent they wouldn’t normally be able to. If the promise of “same productivity, less hours, same pay” is true, then they’ll outperform and out recruit. Mass strikes are certainly quicker though.
- katbyte 4y ago
  this is a real good point, pre covid being remote was a good perk. something i didn't even know i wanted. now its a basic requirement for me to consider a job. now if someone offered me same pay, but a 4day work week, my interest would be peeked. not only that people who've had time off to destress/etc do better work. 2 days for a weekend doesn't really do that. 3 days is almost like a mini vacation and everyone is in high spirits after a 3 day weekend
  - loonster 4y ago
    I would take Wednesdays off. No more than 1 day away from a day off. Need to schedule an appointment for anything: Wednesday.
belorn 4y ago
Conflicts are often about signals and what is being said between the lines, rather than factually outcomes. My interpretation of the above comment is that the employer could have had made the same decision, but phrased in such a way that employees still felt valued for their work beyond that just sitting at the desk from 9am-5.30pm. A few years ago in Sweden one of the top businesses leaders scoffed at tax evasion and basically said that why should he pay taxes if he can afford to avoid it. The statement annoyed people, and did so much more than just the fact of tax evasion. It actually resulted in him being forced to step down from several of his position. Employers are rarely rewarded for scoffing and treating employees like they are not worth anything.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hdjdnnsbsbs 4y ago

He stopped paying people who wanted to be paid 5 days for 4 days of work? How is this different from 99.9% of companies?

onion2k 4y ago
It's how most companies think they work, but really very few companies actually track output. They track time. They're not measuring how much work you do, but instead how much time you're available for. The idea of a 4 day week is that people stop procrastinating, wasting time, daydreaming, sitting in meetings doing nothing, etc, and that saves a day a week. The employer gets the same amount of work for the money, and the employee doesn't have to pretend to work any more. Everyone wins.
- singpolyma3 4y ago
  I switched to 3 days weeks almost 2 years ago. (Mostly, I remain in a company chatroom on other days for people to ask me questions, and if there's a massive disaster I'll help if I'm available). What I've found is that I spend the 4 days I'm not "working" organizing my thoughts and plans as a background task and this means most of my 3 days is spent executing. Whereas at my previous job I would spend several days a week on thinking and organizing and another couple on being blocked or bored.
  - abootstrapper 4y ago
    Do you get 60% salary for 3 days/week? I’m thinking of doing the same thing.
    - singpolyma3 4y ago
      I'm in a unique position there where I currently don't take a salary because I'm an investor in the company. But no, if I were drawing a salary I don't see any reason it would be 60%
      - 4y ago

heather45879 4y ago

The problem with folks in America is they’ve lost their entrepreneurial spirit. If people are given a shorter work week—great—they’re nice and relaxed. But I’ve witnessed folks getting more-and-more lazy these days. There needs to be a better method of incentives put in place that coincides with an extra day off. I would propose not an extra day off, but perhaps an extra day of personal development instead? Something relaxing but related to work maybe? People are simply too distracted with all the crack social media and Netflix’s auto-play algorithm. So I’d wager that sometimes people will use that day productively, but maybe 7/10 it’ll be wasted down some rabbit hole. In fact, you could probably argue that people are so distracted these days that they’re productivity and happiness would both go up if they were no longer wasting time online and you ADDED another work day.

ethanbond 4y ago
> the problem with the most productive civilization in history is that it’s lazy
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Valakas_ 4y ago
  To add to that beautiful quote: https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01 https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e...
danparsonson 4y ago
Alternative thesis: most people are getting tired of working hard only for the lion's share of the reward to go to a small handful of people at the top.
- mattkevan 4y ago
  I recently did a qualification in leadership and management, and I think it had the exact opposite effect from the one intended. It made me realise how much of management is about finding ways to squeeze more work from people without extra compensation - motivation theory, time management, mentoring, coaching etc. Very little is for the employee’s benefit.

devnullbrain 4y ago

I've had a series of CEOs who've said unnecessary, polarising things. The kind of thing that 10-50% of the employees would really object to - examples like yours or politics. It seems like an uncharacteristic risk with negligible payoff (he's a real person just like me!) but considerable downsides (he thinks my vote was stupid) that I don't see from middle management. Maybe it's survivorship bias? The kind of people who manage to become CEOs are the ones who have strong opinions but haven't suffered backlash for them. If they had experienced half their orgchart hating them, they wouldn't have made the cut?

Gigachad 4y ago

The problem is he didn't put enough corporate wank on it. Should have said "Thanks for the suggestion, we are always looking in to the best way forward for the company and we will keep this in consideration and keep you updated with any changes." Even if he did only care about results, it's a likely scenario that 4 day weeks reduce results or at the least introduce a risk that isn't worth taking. I think the average worker actually prefers just being required to work a certain amount and as long as you aren't extremely bad at your job, you'll be fine even if you have a slow week/month. Rather than being frequently being audited for results and pressured to work longer hours to keep your output up with everyone else.

prawn 4y ago
Some people might think of it as corporate wank, but realistically it gives a boss or organisation time to poll employees/owners/managers, stay flexible, slowly work towards a change like this, etc. Less wankery than the path he took, from the sounds of things.
eru 4y ago
You just demonstrated that there's a good reason corporate types speak the way they do, even if it sounds phony. What mattkevan quoted was brutally honest, but did not go over well.
- inopinatus 4y ago
  Frankness without hostility is possible. It is a hallmark of really great leadership. Sadly, it is also rare.
  - mazdacx5 4y ago
    So true. That combination is rare but indeed very powerful. Combine that with the ability to pave the way forward and you got a recipe for success.
  - eru 4y ago
    Yes. So the safe and reproducible course of action is to use euphemisms.

rqtwteye 4y ago

The funny thing is that executives usually justify their giant salaries with the value and results they bring to the company.

ryandrake 4y ago
Great point. I wonder if any Board of Directors has ever asked a company CEO "Did you log at least 40 hours last week?"