19 ms·

World’s largest four-day work week trial finds few are going back

557 points by SirLJ 4y ago

adoxyz 4y ago
Four day work week sounds amazing. I doubt we'll see massive adoption anytime soon, but having that extra day every week really gives you time to enjoy life rather than just running around doing chores, preparing for the week to start again. Maybe someday!
- kennywinker 4y ago
  If you wait around for it, it may happen. If you organize with your coworkers and demand it - you can make it happen.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Check out https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io built by u/philmcp
mrmincent 4y ago
I’ve gone down to 4 days, taking Fridays off to look after my son, and I certainly won’t be going back to 5 days until he’s in school. Looking after a toddler all day isn’t exactly a day off, but it is extremely rewarding, and something I’d recommend to any parent thinking about dropping down a day. It definitely has some downsides however, I’m the only one in the team that’s off that day, so there’s usually meetings and information that I miss out on, as well as a 20% cut in pay, but I’m very lucky to be in a position where we could afford it, and the time with my son is worth it.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Based on most of the studies i’ve seen, at least for office/information jobs, that pay cut is unjustified. People mostly get as much done in 4 days as 5.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    It may be "justified" while five days remains the norm, as it may be possible to get similarly-capable employees to take the position for lower pay, to get that extra day off every week. This should provide a pretty big benefit to companies that can leverage it while five is still typical (assuming that the shift to four is in fact going to become a trend)
    - kennywinker 4y ago
      Thinking like an employer - how can i leverage social norms to get same or more work for less pay. If you’re not an employer, why are you thinking about it this way?
      - yamtaddle 4y ago
        Oh, sure, I think employees ought to organize to increase wages in general. But absent that, the value of perks like a four-day work week (while it remains an unusual perk, at least) do factor into wage negotiations, and individuals can't do much to resist that on their own (aside from... not get the job and keep working five days somewhere else). I'm talking "is", not, "ought", in describing it the way I did.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Usual counterpoint is that you're not being paid just for the things you get done, but also for availability - for being there when there's a need to handle something unexpected. This has real value to a business, so you being available for 80% of the time justifies some degree of pay cut.
    - kennywinker 4y ago
      Maybe for some jobs. But for the majority of software jobs? Not really.
      - yodsanklai 4y ago
- lettergram 4y ago
  I actually work 6 days a week (only Sunday off) noon until midnight with a two hour break 5-7pm. That’s 60 hrs of work a week, but I get to spend every morning 7am-noon with my kids. It’s been a great change of pace for me personally. We have a garden we do as a family, I can do doc appointments, some field trips, etc. while still working extremely hard. It’s not for everyone, but that schedule has been great for me personally.
  - mobiledev2014 4y ago
    That’s baffling. Nobody should have to work 60 hours a week and be happy about it, doesn’t matter when the hours are
    - lettergram 4y ago
      Lol for almost all human history working all a day was the norm. I don’t necessarily have to do that much work, but I want to get ahead. Most people I grew up with work 40-70hrs a week, often two to three jobs. It’s natural for me to work that much. I don’t even blink at it. What else would you do? Play video games, watch tv, “party”? I can accomplish and build things and spend the rest of the time with family and friends. It’s a good life imo
      - mobiledev2014 4y ago
        I hear what you’re saying but since this is hacker news we’re mostly white collar and we’re not talking about all human history, we’re talking about 2023+. I spend my entire weekend with my kids for one thing. Don’t you miss out on things? And yes I play video games or do literally anything other than work before bed. If you’re including side projects you actually want to build in your 60 hours, that’s totally different of course. And I also don’t mean to judge, as the people working those 2-3 jobs NEED to do it. Nobody wants to.
        lettergram 4y ago
        From my prior post: > I get to spend every morning 7am-noon with my kids. I work from home, so I have no commute (saves a boatload of time) and get to eat every meal with the family (who ever is home). I also spend probably 4-7 hrs with my children every day (and all day Sunday’s). I’m pretty more involved, but sure I miss some stuff. I can’t do afternoon / evenings (unless it’s 5-7pm). In terms of my work breakdown, I tend to do 60-70 hrs. But I code and manage our farm part time (kids will eventually assist with). That’s probably 50 hrs coding/designing, 10-20 hrs on the farm, depending. That obviously will shift a bit depending on weather. I also take 2-3 weeks off coding work to harvest; which are like 12 hr days for a week at a time.
- askvictor 4y ago
  I did this, then when my son went to school, kept the day off. It's super valuable to just get some time for yourself. Have recently changed career and gone back full time, but pining for that extra time (luckily my company seems to be thinking about a 4 day week)
- mettamage 4y ago
  In the Netherlands I also take a 20% gross pay cut. So net, that's more like a 10% pay cut. It doesn't pay to work 5 days in NL.
  - lukevp 4y ago
    This doesn’t make sense to me unless it moves you into a lower tax bracket or something. Eg. If you made $100k and were taxed at 30%, you’d get paid net $70k. If you took a 20% gross pay cut, you’d get paid $80k gross and $56k net. 56k is 20% less than 70k.
    - nasmorn 4y ago
      In the Austrian tax system you are not taxed in one bracket. The first 15k are free next 5k at 15%, next 10k at 25% and so on. So your average tax rate will always be lower than your marginal rate, thus removing 20% gross will never remove 20% net. Actual values depend on your income of course.
      - benjaminwootton 4y ago
        In the UK we have the tax free allowances, but we start to lose them as we earn more. For instance, around £100k in earnings they start to tax your personal allowance so you are effectively taxed at 60%. You then move into 45% tax and then start to lose pension allowances at £250k. First world problems, but these are all cliffs where it makes sense to keep your income down. Losing 20% off the top line will reduce your income by closer to 10% if my math is correct. We have a problem in the UK with higher earners dropping out of the workforce partly because of the tax incentives. I personally choose not to work as an employee in the UK because I would be paying more than 50% in tax.
        rpep 4y ago
        The child benefit threshold makes it pretty bad for most mid to high household incomes too, effectively a 60% marginal tax rate between £50k and £60k if you have a student loan
- TedShiller 4y ago
  I don't see any downside to a 4 day work week. Workers should expect to get paid 4/5 of what they made before, but it could be well worth it.
- andrei_says_ 4y ago
  You will remember the moments you spend with your son - and kids grow up fast. The days at work - those no one will remember.
  - kitd 4y ago
    Yes! When you lie on your deathbed, will you say "I wish I'd spent more time at the office"?
    - mlrtime 4y ago
      “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” I personally find it much more rewarding figuring out a technical problem than watching a crying baby.
      - andrei_says_ 4y ago
        “A crying baby” you imagine for the sake of being contrarian != your son. Also toddler, not a baby. A toddler spends most of their time exploring and learning, discovering the world. A perfect example of a still free, undomesticated human being. A perfect spiritual teacher, in the body of the closest human being you’ll ever have :) By the way, the job quote is one of the broken propaganda stories of capitalism. Even when you like your job you’re still slaving away for money. You believing that’s a great outcome is the point.
      - nehal3m 4y ago
        An employer that not only requires years and years of primary, secondary and tertiary education, the majority of your waking hours, the responsibility to deliver what you promised and all the pain and stress that implies, but on top of all that, requires you to be passionate about the whole thing sounds like hell on earth to me. Employment is a transaction. You get my honest effort, experience and an amount of time agreed upon beforehand. In return I get money so I can live the life I want. That's the end of it.
EarthIsHome 4y ago
https://archive.is/7sqfj https://archive.is/7sqfj
- jakzurr 4y ago
  thanks!
bachmeier 4y ago
> The rest were convinced by revenue gains, drops in turnover and lower levels of worker burnout that four is the new five when it comes to work days. This is not surprising. The 20% of time that's getting cut is probably the 20% that shouldn't have been done anyway. Telling workers they can cut the 20% of the crap they hated doing is obviously going to lead to better results.
- xyzelement 4y ago
  Do you make the same interpretation when companies cut 20% of the workforce instead?
  - skellington 4y ago
    There is no doubt that most companies (and the government) could cut 20% with no effect on their productivity. It's just no practical to ride the razors edge of leanness and it also would probably harm morale. Twitter cut 80% of it's workforce and is becoming MORE productive.
    - QuercusMax 4y ago
      They cut the group responsible for responding to pictures of children being abused. I don't want to work at a place that considers this "more productive". https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-20/australian-twitter-staff-dealing-with-child-abuse-material-axed/101998040 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-20/australian-twitter-st...
      - r3trohack3r 4y ago
        Not commenting on whether or not the situation is better or worse. But your comment is meaningless without also providing data showing the amount of CSAM on twitter over time. An article saying the team was axed doesn't tell us anything about the effect on the outcomes that team was responsible for. If you axed the team and the amount of CSAM increased, that tells one story. If you axed the team and the amount of CSAM stayed the same, that tells a different story. If you axed the team and the amount of CSAM dropped, that tells a different story.
dmarlow 4y ago
I would welcome this, but won't skeptics say that remote work was also touted as a huge benefit and companies are now looking to go back to office? I can see the same thing happening with 4 day work week.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  > won't skeptics say that remote work was also touted as a huge benefit and companies are now looking to go back to office? These are not mutually exclusive concepts. It isn't like companies don't routinely make bad decisions despite plenty of evidence that it is the bad decision.
neogodless 4y ago
Alternate publications: https://apnews.com/article/business-d114ef8be69e1665fd22c39515bdaecf https://apnews.com/article/business-d114ef8be69e1665fd22c395... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-day-work-week-trial-yields-overwhelming-success-in-u-k-researchers-say https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-day-work-week-trial-yie... Related story: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230220-is-a-4-day-workweek-good-for-the-climate https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230220-is-a-4-day-workw...
RupertEisenhart 4y ago
Couldn't help think of this[0]: the idea that chatgpt and other such breakthroughs might help us hit escape velocity from bullshit jobs. [0] https://thezvi.substack.com/p/escape-velocity-from-bullshit-jobs https://thezvi.substack.com/p/escape-velocity-from-bullshit-...
- permo-w 4y ago
  as I see it, until now automation has done the opposite. it’s scarcified valuable skilled manufacturing jobs and forced more and more people into the service industry. I don’t see why this will be any different. that’s the dystopia I’m terrified of, no one starving or homeless, but as penance we all have to be waitors and shop attendants for the landed upper classes
vouaobrasil 4y ago
When was a mathematician, I worked as hard as I could until I was mentally exhausted. I actually calculated how much I worked per week over a period of two years. On actual "hard thinking", like working through logic, I spent about 7 hours. There was another 7 hours writing and clarifying topics, and another 6 hours or so on classes, seminars (sort of like meetings, but productive). That gives a total of 20 hours per week on work. Beyond that, I was not productive and so I didn't do any math-related work. If you add the administrative overhead of a job, that might be another 5 hours at most, so about 3 full workdays. I think if you are truly just doing productive, meaningful technical work, beyond 3 full days most people can't do it. People can do it for short periods of time, but more than 3 days leads to universal burnout. Now, I'm just talking about mentally demanding, technical work. I can work longer if the work isn't very mentally demanding, but even so, not for more than 4-5 hours a day. And now I'm an independent content creator, so every additional hour I work is proportional to profit. My conclusions after observing a ton of people in technical and nontechnical jobs is that beyond working 20-25 hours a week, having people do more is useless, especially when it comes to fostering people in the long-term (short term is different). I feel the only reason why we have 9-5, Monday to Friday jobs is because of infantile narcissists who have no other purpose in life than to go to work and push people like machines.
- themodelplumber 4y ago
  That reasoning is complicated IMO by the fact that many jobs involve projects and tasks that are perceived as very important, yet will never be started, let alone continued, let alone completed. That's a pretty big deal as-is. It can easily make the boss feel justified--OK this employee said we need to do this thing, they said they want to take it on, but it's not being done. The boss is in the loop and may feel like the employee wants to be pushed, checked in on, and so on. But even then, add to this the stronger element of subjective mental torture often found at work, where the infantile pusher is none other than the self. This element will stick the butt in the chair and turn the individual into a workaholic who sees no point in leaving to go home, because they are staying until it gets done. So still--50, 60, 80 hours in the office. Frustration, try harder. See some progress. OK, keep doing this. Mix in a little bit of competitive thinking on the part of others ("wait, _they_ are working 50 hours even though we green-lit 25 hour weeks?") and this gets hour-reduction going sideways. (This also relates fairly easily to persona-based theories of personality dynamics)
NKosmatos 4y ago
Why would they want to return? One you do an “upgrade” in your life, i.e. like remote work, quality family time, it’s difficult/impossible to go back. The same is true for many other life “upgrades” like fiber internet connection, smart devices, smartphones, color TVs and so on
- ravenstine 4y ago
  Some people might actually like working for its own sake, just as some truly prefer going into the office despite the tradeoffs. I am not one of those people. lol Not that I don't have a constant drive to do something, of course. I just wouldn't engage in surrogate work in order to feel like I'm worth something.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    I'm one of those people, but I still prefer 4 days. I can then work on something else on the 5th day which I normally wouldn't get to do and keep my weekends for relaxing and not side projects.
  - ramraj07 4y ago
    I love working for works sake. I severely miss working in an office and bumping into people and getting great ideas. I believe highly skilled software engineers in a product focused startup should not work remote if they want innovation. Pretty much as “I love work” as it gets, and I can’t wait for the move to 4 day weeks. Work for works sake gets better when it’s highly focused when you’re in the zone and lets your mind be free for all the rest of the time.
- IanCal 4y ago
  Most companies.
quacked 4y ago
I don't like the Four Day Work Week because most of the people who are allowed to experiment with it are working on bullshit. I'm not a big Graeber fan, but I emphatically agree with his idea that the majority of actual hours worked inside the continental US are largely useless make-work in order to justify the existence of a monied consumer class. Such a huge amount of the actual work that needs to be done so that we live in first-world comfort--textiles, agriculture, fuel chemicals, etc.--is so outsourced to developing countries that use serf-equivalent labor working 6 or 7 day weeks (in the same way that Americans did 150 years ago), or foreign migrant workers, that I don't actually have a sense of how much work is really needed to make the modern world function. If I get a four day workweek to make PowerPoints and write requirements documents for video calling software, is that actually a fair amount of work? If you divided the amount of non-bullshit work that went into sustaining America by the number of workers here, would we have a one-day workweek? A seven-day workweek? Perhaps it's less accurate to say "I don't like the four day work week" than it is to say "I am suspicious that I deserve a four day work week given my consumption of resources". I of course would like to work as little as possible and would immediately accept a 4-day if it were offered.
- aantix 4y ago
  Thought-work is work. Logistical planning is work. Having conversations where everyone makes sure that the others are on the same page, is work.
  - quacked 4y ago
    Whether or not something is 'work' has no bearing on whether or not it's bullshit. I am in perfect agreement that one hour of useful work requires many hours of equally useful thought-work.
    - aantix 4y ago
      You have the advantage of calling something bullshit after the fact. Track your BS Meyer before the initiatives take place. Before you can see the outcomes whether something was impactful or not. Feel free to unleash your predictive capacity on the world.
ravenstine 4y ago
Good. If civilization isn't moving to improve quality of life, but to make sure that we keep working more and more, we have to ask ourselves what exactly is the point of technological progress.
- agubelu 4y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree. Our time here on Earth is limited, and I think that as a society we should aim to work less and have more time for ourselves and enjoy everyting life has to offer. The huge productivity increase in the last 40 years have been entirely siphoned into maximizing profits while working conditions have remained essentially stagnant, so I'd say it's about time to start making some progress on this front.
- piva00 4y ago
  If you are not familiar with it, may I present to you Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness". In 1920 he was already advocating exactly that.
  - neom 4y ago
    Hello fellow Bertrand Russell fan??! I don't see his name come up on HN too often but really nice to see In Praise of Idleness mentioned. For anyone reading this who wants to consume some of his philosophy: In Praise of Idleness: And Other Essays - https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Idleness-Routledge-Classics-46/dp/0415325064 https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Idleness-Routledge-Classics-46... The Conquest of Happiness - https://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Happiness-Bertrand-Russell/dp/087140673X/ https://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Happiness-Bertrand-Russell/d...
- drdrek 4y ago
  Seems like the answer is total amount of human life. When you had 10K humans you could just walk around your cave and find enough food for everyone. When you had 10M humans you started tilling fields and created organizations to manage collection and storage. now you need incredibly complex machines, that require incredibly complex supply chains to feed 10B. (food as an example. its the same for clothing to not freeze, shelter to rear offsprings, culture to not kill each other etc)
Vinnl 4y ago
It's the one thing I miss most from working for Dutch companies: being able to take a 20% pay cut and work 20% less. Theoretically, that should be a great deal for my employer: the extra rest, and just the way productive work is usually spread out across the week, means that my productivity definitely was not down 20% compared to now, so I was cheaper per hour. Yet even that culturally seems to be a hard sell in a majority-North American org, let alone keeping pay the same. Shame.
- Invictus0 4y ago
  You get healthcare 7 days a week but only work for 4. Salary is only one component of compensation
  - iamacyborg 4y ago
    What a strange way to think about health care. Can you explain what you mean when you say you only work for 4? In the UK where this trial was run both the employer and the employee pay for National Insurance which covers nationalised healthcare. Whether you work 1 day or 7 a week, you still get covered.
    - incrudible 4y ago
      In other words, you get the full package while contributing less, if you choose to work less.
      - iamacyborg 4y ago
        You’re not contributing less, you’re contributing exactly the same amount of money.
        incrudible 4y ago
        In the UK, Your contribution is proportional to your income, which is proportional to the hours you choose to work.
TigeriusKirk 4y ago
I've had 4 day workweeks at two different times in my career. Once in my 20s, when I worked 10 hours days to get an extra day off. Didn't matter since I worked close to that anyway, and often more. The day off was flexible, so I chose Wednesday whenever possible. Two "weeks" of two days each worked great for me. Best schedule I ever had. Another place, the salary was slightly lower (but not much due to the way they did levels), but the tradeoff was worth it. This was near the end of my time working for other people, so I was honestly on my way out anyway. I think it's hard to make an entire company work on a 4 day schedule if you're interfacing with clients and so on. Or do the thing where half are off Monday, half off Friday.
- robaye 4y ago
  I work in construction and often get the 4-10 hour days work week, but only temporarily. I once convinced my boss to let me take Wednesdays off instead of Fridays. Those 2 day work weeks we're sooo perfect for me. I hope one day I can make it permanent thing.
freitzkriesler2 4y ago
Instead of 3 day weekends, why don't we go to a 6 day week? The only reason we have 7 days is because of the 7 classical planets.
- urbandw311er 4y ago
  It’s probably easier to effect change within a small region using the existing days than persuade the entire world to change their calendar simultaneously.
  - freitzkriesler2 4y ago
    Take a look at this https://calendars.fandom.com/wiki/6-Day_Week_Solar_Calendar_with_common_Muslim/Christian_weekend https://calendars.fandom.com/wiki/6-Day_Week_Solar_Calendar_... Would be one of the biggest innovations in time keeping we could unleash on the world. And to the person who downvoted my post: get over yourself mate.
    - burlesona 4y ago
      From your link: > Another minor disadvantage can be the time needed to adapt which is valid for any reform. But as it was also already mentioned, the availability of modern day software can diminish these difficulties. Lol. I think the inertia of all our software running on the Gregorian calendar is probably the single biggest reason we'll never bother changing it.
- skellington 4y ago
  When would God rest? It's crazy when you think about how much of society is aligned around the totally arbitrary idea of a 7-day week. It would be hard to switch because so many things are aligned to it.
  - ChickenNugger 4y ago
    The thing is it's completely non-existent in nature. Not to get too into the Naturalistic Fallacy, but we're biological organisms that evolved in nature and have acclimated through evolution to it the things that do exist. That is we have a circadian rhythm, because for millions of years we couldn't see much at night, so we just went to sleep. And all sorts of animals including us start getting frisky in spring because it means resources are about to become abundant so it's a good time to copy ourselves. Even women's menstrual cycles are roughly equivalent to the lunar month. But a 7 day period? Only exists in society because of - essentially - the bible. In nature (on Earth) there are days, years, months, seasons, but that's really it. Even an hour is an arbitrary amount of time in a day (the length of which actually varies anyway!).
standardUser 4y ago
I think it's worth considering that, in the US, the ultimate leap from 5 to 4 day work weeks would require a change in labor laws to mandate full-time status and overtime pay cutoff at 32 hours/week. Close to 60% of US workers are hourly. I can't predict all of the ramifications from that kind of change, but I have to imagine it would largely benefit workers. I wish we had a major political party that was at least willing to start the conversation. We all know this "40 hours" nonsense is just historical happenstance, not some ideal or even well-reasoned number, let alone balanced in the interest of the overwhelming majority (working people).
- rodgerd 4y ago
  > We all know this "40 hours" nonsense is just historical happenstance It's not happenstance. It's something workers fought and sometimes died to win against an incumbent 6 or 7 day, 10 plus hour a day norm.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    Right, but it’s not some magical optimal number. It’s lets you have 3 shifts per day (3 x 8 = 24) for full coverage. That also fits with the idea that it gave you a balanced life. 8 hours at work, 8 hours asleep, 8 hours for the rest. It was a convenient number below the old, much worse, standard. People act like 40 hours is some kind of natural law that can’t be questioned. It absolutely can be.
- Frost1x 4y ago
  >We all know this "40 hours" nonsense is just historical happenstance, not some ideal or even well-reasoned number, let alone balanced in the interest of the overwhelming majority (working people). The more and more I see cases like this that exist, the more I feel it's yet more supporting evidence that the US is a failing democracy. We can point fingers and play responsibility games, we can claim its minority protection (are wealthy and powerful individuals really a minority that need more protection in our current structure or should they even be considered a minority), but at the end of the day it doesn't seem to be working in some respects. If we aren't seeing labor law improvements and most fall in labor, something seems amiss. I'm not advocating for mob rule, there are very good reasons for minority protections, but in some cases when the majority of a democratic society abhors the state of affairs yet we continually have no significant influence to at least try something different, that to me says we're in a failing or failed democracy charading around as a democracy. The older I get, the more I want to call a duck a duck if it walks, quacks, and looks like a duck.
cooperadymas 4y ago
Something I've never understood is why four days? Is it simply because it's an incremental improvement over the current five day week, a stopping point toward the next target, or is it the target?
- NoPicklez 4y ago
  I've wondered that as well. People say 5 days is too much, well why 4? Why not 3? Potentially there isn't a real reason, but that it's just an easier bite to chew for now, where people have noticeable improvements.
- Vinnl 4y ago
  For me it was a great balance: instead of the weekend feeling like days off from work, general life felt like alternating between holidays and work, since they're about the same length. 3 work days might work as well, but fewer than that and you start to lose the flow at work. And given that I do generally enjoy my work, it isn't necessary for that holiday feel anyway.
- hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
  Having worked a 3-day week for a couple of years, I will second the notion that it possible to lose continuity by being off for four days in a row. Part of that might be that everyone else is still on the 5-day schedule, the other part of that is I would get wrapped up in other matters during the 4 days and then need to refocus attention on something completely unrelated back at work. I ended up leaving myself notes on what I was working on before I left on Thursday and what to do first. This was a big help in getting the continuity back and not feeling like I missed a beat when I resumed working again on Tuesday.
- bobsmooth 4y ago
  3 * 12 is the best imo. After 3 days I'm ready for the weekend and after 4 days I'm itching to get back to being productive.
- wes-k 4y ago
  Going from 5 work days to 4 is a 20% cut in work/pay and a 50% increase in weekends (2 to 3). 4 to 3 is a 25% cut and a 33% increase in weekends (3 to 4). 3 to 2 is a 33% cut and a 25% increase in weekends (4 to 5). Thus we see, 3 work days a week is mathematically optimal.
SteveGerencser 4y ago
My dad's factory went to 4 day work weeks in the 90s and never looked back. Everyone was happier, and the various suppliers and customers learned pretty quickly not to call on Friday because it was rare that anyone was there. And now I rarely schedule work for Friday's If something important comes up I have an extra day to deal with it, otherwise I get my 3 day weekends and family life is good.
- nukeman 4y ago
  Ditto, a good chunk of the nuclear sector moved to 4/10 and 9/80 in the 1990s. The days are long, but man is it nice to not have to work Fridays. Helps with the commute too.
  - berniedurfee 4y ago
    9/80 was great. That was in the early aughts, but was in fact in the nuclear industry.
Philip-J-Fry 4y ago
I could see quite a few companies reaching for this over pay rises. Considering inflation right now, it may make sense to suggest a 4 day working week at their existing pay versus offering an inflation beating pay rise.
- greedo 4y ago
  Haha, "inflation beating pay raise." Our VP of HR said "If we were to give you raises when inflation goes up, we'd have to cut your salary when it goes down." Bitch, when was the last time we had significant deflation?
  - piva00 4y ago
    I'd sign that agreement in a heartbeat. Seriously, if my VP of HR said that I'd challenge them to write an employment agreement with that exact phrasing, my salary will follow whatever is the inflation/deflation rate for the year...
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  or I could see it as another tool in the toolbox for smaller private companies that simply cannot match the offers of the big FAANG tech companies with their sky high pay and oodles of RSUs. A private tech company can't match what Apple can do in financial compensation, but what they can offer is better quality of life. Previously that might have been something around benefits and vacation days, but four day work week is a new lever.
  - Beaver117 4y ago
    >simply cannot match the offers of the big FAANG tech companies with their sky high pay and oodles of RSUs. But I bet they have no problem paying the CEO millions of dollars Think of how much funding "smaller private companies" get from VCs nowadays. We're not talking about a startup in someones garage.
  - carlosjobim 4y ago
    If they cannot offer what it costs to hire the competence the require, they need to learn how to do those things themselves. You cannot just start a company and expect to buy your way out of your own lack of competence - at least not when there are others paying more.
rr888 4y ago
4 day week is here. It feels as Fridays are virtually no work days already, office is empty, hard to find people online, lots of people just do a few token mails and maybe a side project.
gslin 4y ago
https://archive.is/2cmyP https://archive.is/2cmyP
lettergram 4y ago
Good, you all work 4 days and I’ll work my standard 6x10 6 days, 10hrs a day. When people get fired presumably I’ll still be standing. When promotion time comes around, the person who does the most will get the promotion. When bonus time comes, I’ll have the most done. You can try to regulate day(s), but if there’s people willing to work more they’ll set the standard.
- piva00 4y ago
  What a clear example of one of Paulo Freire's best insights: "When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor." Go on with your career ladder game, not everyone in humanity praise that as much as you. On the contrary, lots will see you as either naive or moronic. Your 6x10 work schedule is being spent on creating... A chatbot.
  - lettergram 4y ago
    > Go on with your career ladder game, not everyone in humanity praise that as much as you. On the contrary, lots will see you as either naive or moronic. We can critique how I choose to spend my time, but what about the alternatives? Play video games with strangers? Drink and dance? Play board games with friends? Go to church / mosque every day? Walk down paths to see pretty streams? Smoke pot and watch cartoons? Strum a guitar for hours in a subway? In my book, it’s not my place to judge others, provided no one is harming me. I think anyone can do what ever they’d like — have at it. Society needs different kinds of people. For me, it’s about family. I work probably 40-50hrs a week coding/architecting and 10-20hrs a week managing a farm [cows, hay, honey] (plus 2-3 weeks out of the year doing 12 hr day harvesting). The rest of the time I’m with my family. That’s 4-7hrs every morning and a couple hours every evening. I see my kids more than most. Importantly, I’m providing for my children — I teach them what I know, help them grow and provide for their needs. My ancestors gave me what I have and I personally believe I have a duty to live up to all I can be. Yes; that means working hard, building a legacy and leaving our civilization (hopefully) better than we received it. Working less wouldn’t aid in my objectives. I want to be the best in my field. It wouldn’t help my family to be less / worse. What most people should really ask themselves are what’s their purpose. With purpose you can orient yourself appropriately.
Tiktaalik 4y ago
I think a four day, 32h work week is a good idea, though I'd be concerned if companies were so restrictive around their contracts that they banned people from working elsewhere with their free time and extra day off. That should not be allowed to happen. Older employees that are established and have met various life goals (eg. owning a home) may be very satisfied to only work four days and to use their time for hobbies, but those that haven't met those life goals may not feel the same way. Younger employees for example that are feeling anxiety around high costs of living and wanting to earn more money should have the freedom to work more and work that extra day somewhere if they so choose. (Perhaps they could work on a startup idea...)
- sokoloff 4y ago
  One argument in favor of a 32-hour week is that better rested employees will be approximately as productive as if they worked 40 hours. (I believe that for creative work.) Take that away by having them juggle a second job and employers might be better off to just leave the workweek at 40 hours.
  - cableshaft 4y ago
    There are already people who work two jobs and well over 40 hour weeks, with a 40 hour workweek standard. I don't see what the difference is there. If anything it should still let them work a few less hours, on average, than the previous status quo, i.e. instead of one 40 hour job and one 20 hour part-time job, it could be one 32 hour and one 20 hour job, thus still seeing an increase in well-being for that employee.
- nivenkos 4y ago
  My company even bans us from working outside of the 40h work week...
ed25519FUUU 4y ago
I work at a FANG now. There’s really no job openings I’m interested in, but if a recruiter dropped by and said they needed an expert and had a company-wide 4-day workweek I’d probably take their call. That’s a perk that can not be matched at FANG. Truly a way to set yourself apart.
- habosa 4y ago
  Google (and maybe some of the others) does let some employees do a 4-day work week for 80% pay. I’ve met more than one such person, but they are rare.
  - ed25519FUUU 4y ago
    It has to be company wide. If you take 80% and everyone else does 100% you end up missing important meetings or just having to make up the work when you get back.
Apocryphon 4y ago
Why not have some workers working M-Th, others T-F, and some other combination, and managers working all five days to coordinate? After all, they get paid the big bucks.
andsoitis 4y ago
Creative work doesn't keep office hours.
HEmanZ 4y ago
In America I would really like to see people balance work and life better, and normalizing a 4 day workweek would go a long way to help that. We have a business culture and set of laws that I think results most people sacrificing too much life to get stuff that doesn’t make them happy. BUT I disagree strongly with this idea that anyone who works more than 30 hours per week is just unproductive. That’s just factually false. With many jobs productivity scales close to linearly long past 30 hours. Sometimes working more many hours is exponentially more productive. Some people want to work many more hours to get more money, maybe because working more doesn’t bother them, maybe because they’d rather have the money, whatever. I think people want “how many hours should humans work” to have a unified answer, when in reality it ranges from 0 to 100 depending on the person (what they want and what they can do) and situation(e.g some peoples jobs are literally life saving, an extra few hours can be life-or-death). For example: I believe the most productive time of my life, by far and above, was the time I worked insanely long hours, and in fact those hours were exponential since knowledge work and the fruits of knowledge work often compound. Now watch how many people tell me my experience is wrong and I’m either lying or delusional, just because they don’t want to believe that sometimes long hours really are more productive.
- blitz_skull 4y ago
  I think most folks, especially the ones I’ve spoken to on the issue—specifically object to the idea that more than 40 hours nets any real gain for KNOWLEDGE work. Results may vary. I don’t think anyone is arguing for example that our paramedics aren’t doing anything useful after 40 hours. That’s the key distinction and as someone who has worked a distinctly bullshit job his entire career; I’m not rushing to spend any more time than I need to sitting at that desk.
  - HEmanZ 4y ago
    I still argue against this for all knowledge work. I keep seeing this term “bullshit jobs” and need to probably look more into it, but it seems to refer to office jobs where huge amounts of time are wasted on unproductive work. I’ve had this kind of work in the past. But not all knowledge work is like this. I’m a software engineer, and on some of the big projects I’ve been on I have squeezed massive amounts of real productivity out of long long hours. I know managers, bankers, real estate agents, and lawyers who also work long hours and get significantly more done for it. They take an hour less of work per day and start to legitimately fall behind (maybe that’s a good litmus test for how “bullshit” job is? How much time can you take off before it becomes noticeable?). The reality is a spectrum and we shouldn’t bring down some subset in favor of another.
Bloating 4y ago
Cool, lets also advocate for year-round school. The school schedule is what really dictates our family schedule
Bloating 4y ago
At least in my experience, a good part my unproductive time is spent satisfying the demands of the self-perpetuating bureaucracy
askvictor 4y ago
Where do people feel the extra day should fall? While Monday or Friday is convenient, I can definitely see a point to making it Wednesday, so you can re-charge and be more productive for the second half of the week; in a normal 5 day week, I definitely see tiredness creeping in by Thursday and Friday.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I've been doing it on Monday and it works well. I just take the days off as unpaid days in the leave system so I can request a different day whenever I want or when Monday is a public holiday.
- gopalv 4y ago
  > I can definitely see a point to making it Wednesday You probably agree a lot with CGP Grey on this video[1] I really liked when Cloudera did "unplug days" which basically threw in an extra day off every 3 weeks and a double extra off every 3 months, but it was a Friday so there was always the temptation to drive out somewhere or go do something for 3 days. If it had been Wednesdays, we'd have just slept and relaxed instead. 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw
- rizach8 4y ago
  Friday or Monday allow us to plan better for longer activities. 3 days makes a weekend trip super smooth and easy to pull off. Having Wednesday off, I would find it harder to disconnect.
robswc 4y ago
Well its hardly a shocker that most people prefer to work less for the same pay, lol. IMO, employers should just let employees work to whatever schedule fits, as long as they can make any meetings and reasonable goals are met.
psvv 4y ago
It's a 50% increase in your days off for only 20% reduction in work days.
pard68 4y ago
I'd love a four day work week so I can have an extra day to work on other things. I'd also be happy with 5 or 6 hour days, or even just saying, "you're an adult, get your work done then get out of here."
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
I estimate each year I spend one month coding and 11 months supporting, integrating, documenting, packaging, releasing.
spencerchubb 4y ago
I would be curious to see a company do 5 out of 8 instead of 4 out of 7.
impalallama 4y ago
I have a pet theory that it’s not that people are more productive when they work less but that there is less work needs doing but few are willing to say it. You go back in time and a lot of great technological innovations have the inventors talking about how great it will be when we only have to work one day a week thanks to it. All this crazy tech we have nowadays means a lot can be done in less time so more of peoples jobs is just pretending to work or inventing work that needs doing. It’s about time we reap the fruits of technological progress.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  There's difference between employment and actually doing work. A lot of us keep busy with something and get paid for that even. But that doesn't mean that that something holds a lot of value. We've just seen big silicon valley companies go through the process of shedding 10-20% of their work forces; more in some cases. Seemingly without consequence. Reason: most of those people are busy but not with something that is particularly valuable or productive. Basically before the industrial revolution, you worked to scrape together a living. Most work was related to food production (farming). The idle were rounded up and put to work typically. The only people not working were the aristocracy. Then the industrial revolution happened and a lot of people started working in factories. Early on this was dangerous and a hard life. It's only with the socialist movements of people rebelling against that things like a five day work week became common. Saturday used to be a working day in most places. Also things like retirement and time off became a thing. And the 40 hour work week. Basically as worker productivity increased (through automation), less and less people work in food production or anything else that is essential. Since the seventies, we've actually outsourced a lot of production to cheap labor countries. Most of us neither work in production nor food production anymore but in the service industry. Few of us actually even have the skills to produce anything. The logical conclusion of AI, automation is not idleness. But just busying ourselves with increasingly more frivolous and less essential things for increasingly less time. We'll need to do something with our time. But the value of that is a very loose notion. Having more time to spend basically means there is more money on spending time on each other. Arts, artisanal foods, whatever seems fun/interesting/entertaining.
cpeterso 4y ago
I knew someone who had accrued so many PTO days that he started using them to take every Friday off instead of losing his PTO. That reminds me that I should check my PTO balance.
AndrewKemendo 4y ago
>no amount of money would convince them to return to five days a week I love to hear this because it's people actually reclaiming their lives!
charcircuit 4y ago
Meanwhile China is going to make us irrelevant with their 996 work week. I would prefer to stay ahead and build great products than lounging around for half the week.
- vore 4y ago
  This is workable if you’re in your early 20s and dedicated to the grind, but not sustainable if you’re going on 40 with two kids. Owing my employer almost all of my waking hours is not worth it for me personally. In the end I’d rather look back on the personal relationships I’ve built outside of work than the shareholder value I’ve increased.
- TrackerFF 4y ago
  Unless you work in a factory: The 996 work culture is no threat - It's one of the most inefficient ways of working I've ever observed. Same goes for other equivalents found in Asia - too much of that "work" is just butts on seats either pretending to work, or straight up looking at the watch and twiddling thumbs. For any serious intellectual work, it's pure nonsense.
cf-d-ycom 4y ago
I'd like to be proven wrong on this point, but it feels to me that this trend is two things, individuals and companies reaping the benefits of technological improvements towards efficiency, and _ALSO_ the revealing redundancy of more and more work. It seems to me that the negotiating power of workers is largely connected to the dependency of the people that hired them to the output of those workers. As that dependency diminishes (ie. by realising technological advancement and thereby reducing work hours from 5 days to 4 days for example), it seems unlikely that these improved benefits will flow to the workers, as the required* negotiating power to get them is vanishing. *required in the sense that going on strike becomes much less powerful, and with technological advancements in hiring/remote work, it increases the possibility of replacing the striking workers. Also, this is largely going to affect the pyjama-laptop class, not anyone that actually needs to be somewhere, and perhaps is revealing that they have largely filled positions they could be significantly reduced. I'm guessing the coming global recession(that the tech layoffs imply are coming to at least that sector) should be a way to see if these predictions are any where close to right, or just nonsense rambling.
dqpb 4y ago
> most UK companies participating are not returning to the five-day standard, and a third are ready to make that change permanent This is a confusing sentence.
silves89 4y ago
You can eat as many fermented foods and do as much tai chi as you like, and you can get therapy and manifest and go on retreats. But nothing improves life as much as a 4-day week.
Coronon 4y ago
[dead]
jamesadevine 4y ago
Im all for a four day working week. Has any one thought about the impact on schooling and education? Education is centred around a 5 day working week (at least in the U.K.). Presumably teachers would not be eligible to work a four day week? This seems a little unfair. If workers move to a four day week, should schools do too?
- jsty 4y ago
  If it wasn't a government-mandated day (e.g. Friday is now part of the weekend) then you'd have to ensure days off were split such that there was coverage of the whole working week - which is exactly what service industries that need more than 9-5 x 5 days a week availability often do currently.
- tarl0s 4y ago
  France has been experimenting a 4-day week for primary school since the 80s [1], generally with a day-off on Wednesdays. The impacts are certainly there, e.g. "before September 2013, more than 40% of mothers whose youngest child was of elementary school age did not work on Wednesdays". It sounds like a 4-day school week would be the natural consequence of a global 4-day working week. [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rythmes_scolaires_en_France https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rythmes_scolaires_en_France
b3nji 4y ago
It would be interesting to get a breakdown of what exactly these people do.
Claude_Shannon 4y ago
If you work four days a week, others will work five days a week and will outpace you.
- Strom 4y ago
  Why stop at five? What about six days a week? Also I doubt the amount of time worked is anywhere near as good of a predictor for success as willingness to work.
BrandoElFollito 4y ago
Edit: sorry for the long post, the TL;DR is at the end I have a job that combines highly stressful times (managing quickly evolving crises) and governance points (policies, useless meetings, some useful meetings). And socialization on top of that. I work 3 days at the office and 2 days from home. The days at the office are dedicated to the most exhausting meetings - the one everyone hates where people battle about who has the longest penis and stresses everyone. Productivity is close to zero. These are also the days where I socialize with my team around coffee and chatter. Strictly productivity wise these days are very poor. The fact that I meet people and have actual meaningful meetings as well saves the day. Ideally, I would compress the dick show meetings on a Monday and start the real week on Tuesday. Two days in the office from 9 to 18 are acceptable then. Effective work wood be probably about 4 hours per day. The days at home are for thinking and quick Zoom calls focused on a given topic. I set 30 minutes per call, with the possibility to extend to 1h if needed. Anything more means another call. Effective work time: about 5 hours a day. I am exhausted after the dick show meetings and I know I won't do any good work afterwards. Despite having a very senior position at my company I know I cannot change these meetings. A crisis is not a problem, I can do it over hours and hours and be very positive. That is before my management arrives "to help". Sorry for the long post, the TL;DR is that it would be great to have 4 days weeks, but this would need to come with major changes on how companies are managed or we will end with less productivity because of the mentally draining part that is endangering the useful one.
mclightning 4y ago
This, and remote working. People need to understand how capitalism works. Value extraction always comes back around in your final bill. None will give you that extra day without eventually adjusting the salary. This is not a predatory action, but how markets work. You can already observe this by comparing salaries offered by fully-remote jobs and on-site jobs.
1602 4y ago
I went to four days a week, by using holiday allowance during covid to look after newborn. It was a huge game-changer for me, so I never looked back and eventually switched to working part-time (3 days a week). I still feel productive and useful at work, but less mentally drained and have more of life to live, recently I started sketching, I enjoy time with my toddler, feel much happier despite being poorer. I know not everyone can afford taking pay cut, but I also know that lots people in tech earn more money they can spend, for these people I would strongly recommend - do not take more money, take more of your time back, no matter how in love with your profession you are.
dustedcodes 4y ago
I've been doing a 4 day work week since early 2019 and it this has had a tremendous positive effect on my mental and physical wellbeing. Despite being in a 4 day work week just over 4 years now I can confidently say that I'm not thinking now that 4 days are too many and I need to go down to 3 days. Actually I am very content with 4 days. I am a lot more productive than I was during 5 day work weeks. I feel so much fresher on Mondays and ready to tackle some programming tasks that I even get up early on Mondays nowadays and enjoy to have an early start. I WFH (something I already did before Covid) and when I wake up I normally make myself a coffee and then I'm straight at my laptop. The hours between 7:30 AM and 11:00 AM are my most productive hours of the day. Often I have some late meetings which can drag until 6PM so I tend to take a longer lunch break which allows me to hit the tennis court during sunlight hours and have a hit at my local club or go to the gym. By 6PM I have had a super productive work day and got a good 1.5-2h sport session in as well. In the evening I am completely free for my family which is a big bonus point. The biggest benefit of the 4 day work week is that I never get to the point where I run low on energy as the week progresses. A lot of my friends who work 5 days never have enough time to recover over the weekend so they enter work on Monday still not fully recharged and then deplete their energy even more, so as weeks go on they get more tired until they have a holiday or fall ill for a few days. This never happens to me, so not only do I feel more focused and energetic for work, family and hobbies but also it means that when my weekend starts on Friday I don't actually waste my Friday to mostly sleep and recover. I honestly can't see myself to ever go back to 5 days a week, unless I was really desperate for a short term income boost where someone pays me an unreasonable high amount to slave myself off for a few months but otherwise there is no way I will sacrifice my health for something where I don't even arguably achieve more than in my current 4 day work week.
cko 4y ago
I still play World of Warcraft Classic. A lot of my guildies are playing while at work.
EchoReflection 4y ago
No paywall: https://archive.is/2023.02.21-232019/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-21/four-day-work-week-uk-study-finds-majority-of-employers-shifting https://archive.is/2023.02.21-232019/https://www.bloomberg.c...
W4nn4B_h4x0r 4y ago
A few years ago this would have been interesting, even exciting news, but considering that we are legitimately getting close to having AI do our jobs - a 24x7, hyper-efficient worker - this seems to be concerning news. While better worker rights and shorter working hours are of course things we should strive for, I feel that as automation takes over, most management would prefer to take on a worker that, while initially possibly very limited in scope and error-prone, can learn quickly and soon perform the tasks the human was doing more efficiently, for a much lower cost, and with close to zero breaks. Of course, this scenario may be 5-10 years away, but it's round the corner and therefore scary for human Workers.
aagha 4y ago
I wonder how much of this movement (which I support) is a function of business builders/entrepreneurs/founders having worked OVER 40 hours a week to create their businesses, and this ethos carrying over into the culture of businesses.

557 points by SirLJ 4y ago

Four day work week sounds amazing. I doubt we'll see massive adoption anytime soon, but having that extra day every week really gives you time to enjoy life rather than just running around doing chores, preparing for the week to start again. Maybe someday!

kennywinker 4y ago
If you wait around for it, it may happen. If you organize with your coworkers and demand it - you can make it happen.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Check out https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io built by u/philmcp

mrmincent 4y ago

I’ve gone down to 4 days, taking Fridays off to look after my son, and I certainly won’t be going back to 5 days until he’s in school. Looking after a toddler all day isn’t exactly a day off, but it is extremely rewarding, and something I’d recommend to any parent thinking about dropping down a day. It definitely has some downsides however, I’m the only one in the team that’s off that day, so there’s usually meetings and information that I miss out on, as well as a 20% cut in pay, but I’m very lucky to be in a position where we could afford it, and the time with my son is worth it.

kennywinker 4y ago
Based on most of the studies i’ve seen, at least for office/information jobs, that pay cut is unjustified. People mostly get as much done in 4 days as 5.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  It may be "justified" while five days remains the norm, as it may be possible to get similarly-capable employees to take the position for lower pay, to get that extra day off every week. This should provide a pretty big benefit to companies that can leverage it while five is still typical (assuming that the shift to four is in fact going to become a trend)
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Thinking like an employer - how can i leverage social norms to get same or more work for less pay. If you’re not an employer, why are you thinking about it this way?
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      Oh, sure, I think employees ought to organize to increase wages in general. But absent that, the value of perks like a four-day work week (while it remains an unusual perk, at least) do factor into wage negotiations, and individuals can't do much to resist that on their own (aside from... not get the job and keep working five days somewhere else). I'm talking "is", not, "ought", in describing it the way I did.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  Usual counterpoint is that you're not being paid just for the things you get done, but also for availability - for being there when there's a need to handle something unexpected. This has real value to a business, so you being available for 80% of the time justifies some degree of pay cut.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Maybe for some jobs. But for the majority of software jobs? Not really.
    - yodsanklai 4y ago
lettergram 4y ago
I actually work 6 days a week (only Sunday off) noon until midnight with a two hour break 5-7pm. That’s 60 hrs of work a week, but I get to spend every morning 7am-noon with my kids. It’s been a great change of pace for me personally. We have a garden we do as a family, I can do doc appointments, some field trips, etc. while still working extremely hard. It’s not for everyone, but that schedule has been great for me personally.
- mobiledev2014 4y ago
  That’s baffling. Nobody should have to work 60 hours a week and be happy about it, doesn’t matter when the hours are
  - lettergram 4y ago
    Lol for almost all human history working all a day was the norm. I don’t necessarily have to do that much work, but I want to get ahead. Most people I grew up with work 40-70hrs a week, often two to three jobs. It’s natural for me to work that much. I don’t even blink at it. What else would you do? Play video games, watch tv, “party”? I can accomplish and build things and spend the rest of the time with family and friends. It’s a good life imo
    - mobiledev2014 4y ago
      I hear what you’re saying but since this is hacker news we’re mostly white collar and we’re not talking about all human history, we’re talking about 2023+. I spend my entire weekend with my kids for one thing. Don’t you miss out on things? And yes I play video games or do literally anything other than work before bed. If you’re including side projects you actually want to build in your 60 hours, that’s totally different of course. And I also don’t mean to judge, as the people working those 2-3 jobs NEED to do it. Nobody wants to.
      - lettergram 4y ago
        From my prior post: > I get to spend every morning 7am-noon with my kids. I work from home, so I have no commute (saves a boatload of time) and get to eat every meal with the family (who ever is home). I also spend probably 4-7 hrs with my children every day (and all day Sunday’s). I’m pretty more involved, but sure I miss some stuff. I can’t do afternoon / evenings (unless it’s 5-7pm). In terms of my work breakdown, I tend to do 60-70 hrs. But I code and manage our farm part time (kids will eventually assist with). That’s probably 50 hrs coding/designing, 10-20 hrs on the farm, depending. That obviously will shift a bit depending on weather. I also take 2-3 weeks off coding work to harvest; which are like 12 hr days for a week at a time.
askvictor 4y ago
I did this, then when my son went to school, kept the day off. It's super valuable to just get some time for yourself. Have recently changed career and gone back full time, but pining for that extra time (luckily my company seems to be thinking about a 4 day week)
mettamage 4y ago
In the Netherlands I also take a 20% gross pay cut. So net, that's more like a 10% pay cut. It doesn't pay to work 5 days in NL.
- lukevp 4y ago
  This doesn’t make sense to me unless it moves you into a lower tax bracket or something. Eg. If you made $100k and were taxed at 30%, you’d get paid net $70k. If you took a 20% gross pay cut, you’d get paid $80k gross and $56k net. 56k is 20% less than 70k.
  - nasmorn 4y ago
    In the Austrian tax system you are not taxed in one bracket. The first 15k are free next 5k at 15%, next 10k at 25% and so on. So your average tax rate will always be lower than your marginal rate, thus removing 20% gross will never remove 20% net. Actual values depend on your income of course.
    - benjaminwootton 4y ago
      In the UK we have the tax free allowances, but we start to lose them as we earn more. For instance, around £100k in earnings they start to tax your personal allowance so you are effectively taxed at 60%. You then move into 45% tax and then start to lose pension allowances at £250k. First world problems, but these are all cliffs where it makes sense to keep your income down. Losing 20% off the top line will reduce your income by closer to 10% if my math is correct. We have a problem in the UK with higher earners dropping out of the workforce partly because of the tax incentives. I personally choose not to work as an employee in the UK because I would be paying more than 50% in tax.
      - rpep 4y ago
        The child benefit threshold makes it pretty bad for most mid to high household incomes too, effectively a 60% marginal tax rate between £50k and £60k if you have a student loan
TedShiller 4y ago
I don't see any downside to a 4 day work week. Workers should expect to get paid 4/5 of what they made before, but it could be well worth it.
andrei_says_ 4y ago
You will remember the moments you spend with your son - and kids grow up fast. The days at work - those no one will remember.
- kitd 4y ago
  Yes! When you lie on your deathbed, will you say "I wish I'd spent more time at the office"?
  - mlrtime 4y ago
    “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” I personally find it much more rewarding figuring out a technical problem than watching a crying baby.
    - andrei_says_ 4y ago
      “A crying baby” you imagine for the sake of being contrarian != your son. Also toddler, not a baby. A toddler spends most of their time exploring and learning, discovering the world. A perfect example of a still free, undomesticated human being. A perfect spiritual teacher, in the body of the closest human being you’ll ever have :) By the way, the job quote is one of the broken propaganda stories of capitalism. Even when you like your job you’re still slaving away for money. You believing that’s a great outcome is the point.
    - nehal3m 4y ago
      An employer that not only requires years and years of primary, secondary and tertiary education, the majority of your waking hours, the responsibility to deliver what you promised and all the pain and stress that implies, but on top of all that, requires you to be passionate about the whole thing sounds like hell on earth to me. Employment is a transaction. You get my honest effort, experience and an amount of time agreed upon beforehand. In return I get money so I can live the life I want. That's the end of it.

EarthIsHome 4y ago

https://archive.is/7sqfj https://archive.is/7sqfj

jakzurr 4y ago
thanks!

bachmeier 4y ago

> The rest were convinced by revenue gains, drops in turnover and lower levels of worker burnout that four is the new five when it comes to work days. This is not surprising. The 20% of time that's getting cut is probably the 20% that shouldn't have been done anyway. Telling workers they can cut the 20% of the crap they hated doing is obviously going to lead to better results.

xyzelement 4y ago
Do you make the same interpretation when companies cut 20% of the workforce instead?
- skellington 4y ago
  There is no doubt that most companies (and the government) could cut 20% with no effect on their productivity. It's just no practical to ride the razors edge of leanness and it also would probably harm morale. Twitter cut 80% of it's workforce and is becoming MORE productive.
  - QuercusMax 4y ago
    They cut the group responsible for responding to pictures of children being abused. I don't want to work at a place that considers this "more productive". https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-20/australian-twitter-staff-dealing-with-child-abuse-material-axed/101998040 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-20/australian-twitter-st...
    - r3trohack3r 4y ago
      Not commenting on whether or not the situation is better or worse. But your comment is meaningless without also providing data showing the amount of CSAM on twitter over time. An article saying the team was axed doesn't tell us anything about the effect on the outcomes that team was responsible for. If you axed the team and the amount of CSAM increased, that tells one story. If you axed the team and the amount of CSAM stayed the same, that tells a different story. If you axed the team and the amount of CSAM dropped, that tells a different story.

dmarlow 4y ago

I would welcome this, but won't skeptics say that remote work was also touted as a huge benefit and companies are now looking to go back to office? I can see the same thing happening with 4 day work week.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
> won't skeptics say that remote work was also touted as a huge benefit and companies are now looking to go back to office? These are not mutually exclusive concepts. It isn't like companies don't routinely make bad decisions despite plenty of evidence that it is the bad decision.

neogodless 4y ago

Alternate publications: https://apnews.com/article/business-d114ef8be69e1665fd22c39515bdaecf https://apnews.com/article/business-d114ef8be69e1665fd22c395... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-day-work-week-trial-yields-overwhelming-success-in-u-k-researchers-say https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/4-day-work-week-trial-yie... Related story: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230220-is-a-4-day-workweek-good-for-the-climate https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230220-is-a-4-day-workw...

RupertEisenhart 4y ago

Couldn't help think of this[0]: the idea that chatgpt and other such breakthroughs might help us hit escape velocity from bullshit jobs. [0] https://thezvi.substack.com/p/escape-velocity-from-bullshit-jobs https://thezvi.substack.com/p/escape-velocity-from-bullshit-...

permo-w 4y ago
as I see it, until now automation has done the opposite. it’s scarcified valuable skilled manufacturing jobs and forced more and more people into the service industry. I don’t see why this will be any different. that’s the dystopia I’m terrified of, no one starving or homeless, but as penance we all have to be waitors and shop attendants for the landed upper classes

vouaobrasil 4y ago

When was a mathematician, I worked as hard as I could until I was mentally exhausted. I actually calculated how much I worked per week over a period of two years. On actual "hard thinking", like working through logic, I spent about 7 hours. There was another 7 hours writing and clarifying topics, and another 6 hours or so on classes, seminars (sort of like meetings, but productive). That gives a total of 20 hours per week on work. Beyond that, I was not productive and so I didn't do any math-related work. If you add the administrative overhead of a job, that might be another 5 hours at most, so about 3 full workdays. I think if you are truly just doing productive, meaningful technical work, beyond 3 full days most people can't do it. People can do it for short periods of time, but more than 3 days leads to universal burnout. Now, I'm just talking about mentally demanding, technical work. I can work longer if the work isn't very mentally demanding, but even so, not for more than 4-5 hours a day. And now I'm an independent content creator, so every additional hour I work is proportional to profit. My conclusions after observing a ton of people in technical and nontechnical jobs is that beyond working 20-25 hours a week, having people do more is useless, especially when it comes to fostering people in the long-term (short term is different). I feel the only reason why we have 9-5, Monday to Friday jobs is because of infantile narcissists who have no other purpose in life than to go to work and push people like machines.

themodelplumber 4y ago
That reasoning is complicated IMO by the fact that many jobs involve projects and tasks that are perceived as very important, yet will never be started, let alone continued, let alone completed. That's a pretty big deal as-is. It can easily make the boss feel justified--OK this employee said we need to do this thing, they said they want to take it on, but it's not being done. The boss is in the loop and may feel like the employee wants to be pushed, checked in on, and so on. But even then, add to this the stronger element of subjective mental torture often found at work, where the infantile pusher is none other than the self. This element will stick the butt in the chair and turn the individual into a workaholic who sees no point in leaving to go home, because they are staying until it gets done. So still--50, 60, 80 hours in the office. Frustration, try harder. See some progress. OK, keep doing this. Mix in a little bit of competitive thinking on the part of others ("wait, _they_ are working 50 hours even though we green-lit 25 hour weeks?") and this gets hour-reduction going sideways. (This also relates fairly easily to persona-based theories of personality dynamics)

NKosmatos 4y ago

Why would they want to return? One you do an “upgrade” in your life, i.e. like remote work, quality family time, it’s difficult/impossible to go back. The same is true for many other life “upgrades” like fiber internet connection, smart devices, smartphones, color TVs and so on

ravenstine 4y ago
Some people might actually like working for its own sake, just as some truly prefer going into the office despite the tradeoffs. I am not one of those people. lol Not that I don't have a constant drive to do something, of course. I just wouldn't engage in surrogate work in order to feel like I'm worth something.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I'm one of those people, but I still prefer 4 days. I can then work on something else on the 5th day which I normally wouldn't get to do and keep my weekends for relaxing and not side projects.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  I love working for works sake. I severely miss working in an office and bumping into people and getting great ideas. I believe highly skilled software engineers in a product focused startup should not work remote if they want innovation. Pretty much as “I love work” as it gets, and I can’t wait for the move to 4 day weeks. Work for works sake gets better when it’s highly focused when you’re in the zone and lets your mind be free for all the rest of the time.
IanCal 4y ago
Most companies.

quacked 4y ago

I don't like the Four Day Work Week because most of the people who are allowed to experiment with it are working on bullshit. I'm not a big Graeber fan, but I emphatically agree with his idea that the majority of actual hours worked inside the continental US are largely useless make-work in order to justify the existence of a monied consumer class. Such a huge amount of the actual work that needs to be done so that we live in first-world comfort--textiles, agriculture, fuel chemicals, etc.--is so outsourced to developing countries that use serf-equivalent labor working 6 or 7 day weeks (in the same way that Americans did 150 years ago), or foreign migrant workers, that I don't actually have a sense of how much work is really needed to make the modern world function. If I get a four day workweek to make PowerPoints and write requirements documents for video calling software, is that actually a fair amount of work? If you divided the amount of non-bullshit work that went into sustaining America by the number of workers here, would we have a one-day workweek? A seven-day workweek? Perhaps it's less accurate to say "I don't like the four day work week" than it is to say "I am suspicious that I deserve a four day work week given my consumption of resources". I of course would like to work as little as possible and would immediately accept a 4-day if it were offered.

aantix 4y ago
Thought-work is work. Logistical planning is work. Having conversations where everyone makes sure that the others are on the same page, is work.
- quacked 4y ago
  Whether or not something is 'work' has no bearing on whether or not it's bullshit. I am in perfect agreement that one hour of useful work requires many hours of equally useful thought-work.
  - aantix 4y ago
    You have the advantage of calling something bullshit after the fact. Track your BS Meyer before the initiatives take place. Before you can see the outcomes whether something was impactful or not. Feel free to unleash your predictive capacity on the world.

ravenstine 4y ago

Good. If civilization isn't moving to improve quality of life, but to make sure that we keep working more and more, we have to ask ourselves what exactly is the point of technological progress.

agubelu 4y ago
I wholeheartedly agree. Our time here on Earth is limited, and I think that as a society we should aim to work less and have more time for ourselves and enjoy everyting life has to offer. The huge productivity increase in the last 40 years have been entirely siphoned into maximizing profits while working conditions have remained essentially stagnant, so I'd say it's about time to start making some progress on this front.
piva00 4y ago
If you are not familiar with it, may I present to you Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness". In 1920 he was already advocating exactly that.
- neom 4y ago
  Hello fellow Bertrand Russell fan??! I don't see his name come up on HN too often but really nice to see In Praise of Idleness mentioned. For anyone reading this who wants to consume some of his philosophy: In Praise of Idleness: And Other Essays - https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Idleness-Routledge-Classics-46/dp/0415325064 https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Idleness-Routledge-Classics-46... The Conquest of Happiness - https://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Happiness-Bertrand-Russell/dp/087140673X/ https://www.amazon.com/Conquest-Happiness-Bertrand-Russell/d...
drdrek 4y ago
Seems like the answer is total amount of human life. When you had 10K humans you could just walk around your cave and find enough food for everyone. When you had 10M humans you started tilling fields and created organizations to manage collection and storage. now you need incredibly complex machines, that require incredibly complex supply chains to feed 10B. (food as an example. its the same for clothing to not freeze, shelter to rear offsprings, culture to not kill each other etc)

Vinnl 4y ago

It's the one thing I miss most from working for Dutch companies: being able to take a 20% pay cut and work 20% less. Theoretically, that should be a great deal for my employer: the extra rest, and just the way productive work is usually spread out across the week, means that my productivity definitely was not down 20% compared to now, so I was cheaper per hour. Yet even that culturally seems to be a hard sell in a majority-North American org, let alone keeping pay the same. Shame.

Invictus0 4y ago
You get healthcare 7 days a week but only work for 4. Salary is only one component of compensation
- iamacyborg 4y ago
  What a strange way to think about health care. Can you explain what you mean when you say you only work for 4? In the UK where this trial was run both the employer and the employee pay for National Insurance which covers nationalised healthcare. Whether you work 1 day or 7 a week, you still get covered.
  - incrudible 4y ago
    In other words, you get the full package while contributing less, if you choose to work less.
    - iamacyborg 4y ago
      You’re not contributing less, you’re contributing exactly the same amount of money.
      - incrudible 4y ago
        In the UK, Your contribution is proportional to your income, which is proportional to the hours you choose to work.

TigeriusKirk 4y ago

I've had 4 day workweeks at two different times in my career. Once in my 20s, when I worked 10 hours days to get an extra day off. Didn't matter since I worked close to that anyway, and often more. The day off was flexible, so I chose Wednesday whenever possible. Two "weeks" of two days each worked great for me. Best schedule I ever had. Another place, the salary was slightly lower (but not much due to the way they did levels), but the tradeoff was worth it. This was near the end of my time working for other people, so I was honestly on my way out anyway. I think it's hard to make an entire company work on a 4 day schedule if you're interfacing with clients and so on. Or do the thing where half are off Monday, half off Friday.

robaye 4y ago
I work in construction and often get the 4-10 hour days work week, but only temporarily. I once convinced my boss to let me take Wednesdays off instead of Fridays. Those 2 day work weeks we're sooo perfect for me. I hope one day I can make it permanent thing.

freitzkriesler2 4y ago

Instead of 3 day weekends, why don't we go to a 6 day week? The only reason we have 7 days is because of the 7 classical planets.

urbandw311er 4y ago
It’s probably easier to effect change within a small region using the existing days than persuade the entire world to change their calendar simultaneously.
- freitzkriesler2 4y ago
  Take a look at this https://calendars.fandom.com/wiki/6-Day_Week_Solar_Calendar_with_common_Muslim/Christian_weekend https://calendars.fandom.com/wiki/6-Day_Week_Solar_Calendar_... Would be one of the biggest innovations in time keeping we could unleash on the world. And to the person who downvoted my post: get over yourself mate.
  - burlesona 4y ago
    From your link: > Another minor disadvantage can be the time needed to adapt which is valid for any reform. But as it was also already mentioned, the availability of modern day software can diminish these difficulties. Lol. I think the inertia of all our software running on the Gregorian calendar is probably the single biggest reason we'll never bother changing it.
skellington 4y ago
When would God rest? It's crazy when you think about how much of society is aligned around the totally arbitrary idea of a 7-day week. It would be hard to switch because so many things are aligned to it.
- ChickenNugger 4y ago
  The thing is it's completely non-existent in nature. Not to get too into the Naturalistic Fallacy, but we're biological organisms that evolved in nature and have acclimated through evolution to it the things that do exist. That is we have a circadian rhythm, because for millions of years we couldn't see much at night, so we just went to sleep. And all sorts of animals including us start getting frisky in spring because it means resources are about to become abundant so it's a good time to copy ourselves. Even women's menstrual cycles are roughly equivalent to the lunar month. But a 7 day period? Only exists in society because of - essentially - the bible. In nature (on Earth) there are days, years, months, seasons, but that's really it. Even an hour is an arbitrary amount of time in a day (the length of which actually varies anyway!).

standardUser 4y ago

I think it's worth considering that, in the US, the ultimate leap from 5 to 4 day work weeks would require a change in labor laws to mandate full-time status and overtime pay cutoff at 32 hours/week. Close to 60% of US workers are hourly. I can't predict all of the ramifications from that kind of change, but I have to imagine it would largely benefit workers. I wish we had a major political party that was at least willing to start the conversation. We all know this "40 hours" nonsense is just historical happenstance, not some ideal or even well-reasoned number, let alone balanced in the interest of the overwhelming majority (working people).

rodgerd 4y ago
> We all know this "40 hours" nonsense is just historical happenstance It's not happenstance. It's something workers fought and sometimes died to win against an incumbent 6 or 7 day, 10 plus hour a day norm.
- MBCook 4y ago
  Right, but it’s not some magical optimal number. It’s lets you have 3 shifts per day (3 x 8 = 24) for full coverage. That also fits with the idea that it gave you a balanced life. 8 hours at work, 8 hours asleep, 8 hours for the rest. It was a convenient number below the old, much worse, standard. People act like 40 hours is some kind of natural law that can’t be questioned. It absolutely can be.
Frost1x 4y ago
>We all know this "40 hours" nonsense is just historical happenstance, not some ideal or even well-reasoned number, let alone balanced in the interest of the overwhelming majority (working people). The more and more I see cases like this that exist, the more I feel it's yet more supporting evidence that the US is a failing democracy. We can point fingers and play responsibility games, we can claim its minority protection (are wealthy and powerful individuals really a minority that need more protection in our current structure or should they even be considered a minority), but at the end of the day it doesn't seem to be working in some respects. If we aren't seeing labor law improvements and most fall in labor, something seems amiss. I'm not advocating for mob rule, there are very good reasons for minority protections, but in some cases when the majority of a democratic society abhors the state of affairs yet we continually have no significant influence to at least try something different, that to me says we're in a failing or failed democracy charading around as a democracy. The older I get, the more I want to call a duck a duck if it walks, quacks, and looks like a duck.

cooperadymas 4y ago

Something I've never understood is why four days? Is it simply because it's an incremental improvement over the current five day week, a stopping point toward the next target, or is it the target?

NoPicklez 4y ago
I've wondered that as well. People say 5 days is too much, well why 4? Why not 3? Potentially there isn't a real reason, but that it's just an easier bite to chew for now, where people have noticeable improvements.
Vinnl 4y ago
For me it was a great balance: instead of the weekend feeling like days off from work, general life felt like alternating between holidays and work, since they're about the same length. 3 work days might work as well, but fewer than that and you start to lose the flow at work. And given that I do generally enjoy my work, it isn't necessary for that holiday feel anyway.
hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
Having worked a 3-day week for a couple of years, I will second the notion that it possible to lose continuity by being off for four days in a row. Part of that might be that everyone else is still on the 5-day schedule, the other part of that is I would get wrapped up in other matters during the 4 days and then need to refocus attention on something completely unrelated back at work. I ended up leaving myself notes on what I was working on before I left on Thursday and what to do first. This was a big help in getting the continuity back and not feeling like I missed a beat when I resumed working again on Tuesday.
bobsmooth 4y ago
3 * 12 is the best imo. After 3 days I'm ready for the weekend and after 4 days I'm itching to get back to being productive.
wes-k 4y ago
Going from 5 work days to 4 is a 20% cut in work/pay and a 50% increase in weekends (2 to 3). 4 to 3 is a 25% cut and a 33% increase in weekends (3 to 4). 3 to 2 is a 33% cut and a 25% increase in weekends (4 to 5). Thus we see, 3 work days a week is mathematically optimal.

SteveGerencser 4y ago

My dad's factory went to 4 day work weeks in the 90s and never looked back. Everyone was happier, and the various suppliers and customers learned pretty quickly not to call on Friday because it was rare that anyone was there. And now I rarely schedule work for Friday's If something important comes up I have an extra day to deal with it, otherwise I get my 3 day weekends and family life is good.

nukeman 4y ago
Ditto, a good chunk of the nuclear sector moved to 4/10 and 9/80 in the 1990s. The days are long, but man is it nice to not have to work Fridays. Helps with the commute too.
- berniedurfee 4y ago
  9/80 was great. That was in the early aughts, but was in fact in the nuclear industry.

Philip-J-Fry 4y ago

I could see quite a few companies reaching for this over pay rises. Considering inflation right now, it may make sense to suggest a 4 day working week at their existing pay versus offering an inflation beating pay rise.

greedo 4y ago
Haha, "inflation beating pay raise." Our VP of HR said "If we were to give you raises when inflation goes up, we'd have to cut your salary when it goes down." Bitch, when was the last time we had significant deflation?
- piva00 4y ago
  I'd sign that agreement in a heartbeat. Seriously, if my VP of HR said that I'd challenge them to write an employment agreement with that exact phrasing, my salary will follow whatever is the inflation/deflation rate for the year...
Tiktaalik 4y ago
or I could see it as another tool in the toolbox for smaller private companies that simply cannot match the offers of the big FAANG tech companies with their sky high pay and oodles of RSUs. A private tech company can't match what Apple can do in financial compensation, but what they can offer is better quality of life. Previously that might have been something around benefits and vacation days, but four day work week is a new lever.
- Beaver117 4y ago
  >simply cannot match the offers of the big FAANG tech companies with their sky high pay and oodles of RSUs. But I bet they have no problem paying the CEO millions of dollars Think of how much funding "smaller private companies" get from VCs nowadays. We're not talking about a startup in someones garage.
- carlosjobim 4y ago
  If they cannot offer what it costs to hire the competence the require, they need to learn how to do those things themselves. You cannot just start a company and expect to buy your way out of your own lack of competence - at least not when there are others paying more.

rr888 4y ago

4 day week is here. It feels as Fridays are virtually no work days already, office is empty, hard to find people online, lots of people just do a few token mails and maybe a side project.

gslin 4y ago

https://archive.is/2cmyP https://archive.is/2cmyP

lettergram 4y ago

Good, you all work 4 days and I’ll work my standard 6x10 6 days, 10hrs a day. When people get fired presumably I’ll still be standing. When promotion time comes around, the person who does the most will get the promotion. When bonus time comes, I’ll have the most done. You can try to regulate day(s), but if there’s people willing to work more they’ll set the standard.

piva00 4y ago
What a clear example of one of Paulo Freire's best insights: "When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor." Go on with your career ladder game, not everyone in humanity praise that as much as you. On the contrary, lots will see you as either naive or moronic. Your 6x10 work schedule is being spent on creating... A chatbot.
- lettergram 4y ago
  > Go on with your career ladder game, not everyone in humanity praise that as much as you. On the contrary, lots will see you as either naive or moronic. We can critique how I choose to spend my time, but what about the alternatives? Play video games with strangers? Drink and dance? Play board games with friends? Go to church / mosque every day? Walk down paths to see pretty streams? Smoke pot and watch cartoons? Strum a guitar for hours in a subway? In my book, it’s not my place to judge others, provided no one is harming me. I think anyone can do what ever they’d like — have at it. Society needs different kinds of people. For me, it’s about family. I work probably 40-50hrs a week coding/architecting and 10-20hrs a week managing a farm [cows, hay, honey] (plus 2-3 weeks out of the year doing 12 hr day harvesting). The rest of the time I’m with my family. That’s 4-7hrs every morning and a couple hours every evening. I see my kids more than most. Importantly, I’m providing for my children — I teach them what I know, help them grow and provide for their needs. My ancestors gave me what I have and I personally believe I have a duty to live up to all I can be. Yes; that means working hard, building a legacy and leaving our civilization (hopefully) better than we received it. Working less wouldn’t aid in my objectives. I want to be the best in my field. It wouldn’t help my family to be less / worse. What most people should really ask themselves are what’s their purpose. With purpose you can orient yourself appropriately.

Tiktaalik 4y ago

I think a four day, 32h work week is a good idea, though I'd be concerned if companies were so restrictive around their contracts that they banned people from working elsewhere with their free time and extra day off. That should not be allowed to happen. Older employees that are established and have met various life goals (eg. owning a home) may be very satisfied to only work four days and to use their time for hobbies, but those that haven't met those life goals may not feel the same way. Younger employees for example that are feeling anxiety around high costs of living and wanting to earn more money should have the freedom to work more and work that extra day somewhere if they so choose. (Perhaps they could work on a startup idea...)

sokoloff 4y ago
One argument in favor of a 32-hour week is that better rested employees will be approximately as productive as if they worked 40 hours. (I believe that for creative work.) Take that away by having them juggle a second job and employers might be better off to just leave the workweek at 40 hours.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  There are already people who work two jobs and well over 40 hour weeks, with a 40 hour workweek standard. I don't see what the difference is there. If anything it should still let them work a few less hours, on average, than the previous status quo, i.e. instead of one 40 hour job and one 20 hour part-time job, it could be one 32 hour and one 20 hour job, thus still seeing an increase in well-being for that employee.
nivenkos 4y ago
My company even bans us from working outside of the 40h work week...

ed25519FUUU 4y ago

I work at a FANG now. There’s really no job openings I’m interested in, but if a recruiter dropped by and said they needed an expert and had a company-wide 4-day workweek I’d probably take their call. That’s a perk that can not be matched at FANG. Truly a way to set yourself apart.

habosa 4y ago
Google (and maybe some of the others) does let some employees do a 4-day work week for 80% pay. I’ve met more than one such person, but they are rare.
- ed25519FUUU 4y ago
  It has to be company wide. If you take 80% and everyone else does 100% you end up missing important meetings or just having to make up the work when you get back.

Apocryphon 4y ago

Why not have some workers working M-Th, others T-F, and some other combination, and managers working all five days to coordinate? After all, they get paid the big bucks.

andsoitis 4y ago

Creative work doesn't keep office hours.

HEmanZ 4y ago

In America I would really like to see people balance work and life better, and normalizing a 4 day workweek would go a long way to help that. We have a business culture and set of laws that I think results most people sacrificing too much life to get stuff that doesn’t make them happy. BUT I disagree strongly with this idea that anyone who works more than 30 hours per week is just unproductive. That’s just factually false. With many jobs productivity scales close to linearly long past 30 hours. Sometimes working more many hours is exponentially more productive. Some people want to work many more hours to get more money, maybe because working more doesn’t bother them, maybe because they’d rather have the money, whatever. I think people want “how many hours should humans work” to have a unified answer, when in reality it ranges from 0 to 100 depending on the person (what they want and what they can do) and situation(e.g some peoples jobs are literally life saving, an extra few hours can be life-or-death). For example: I believe the most productive time of my life, by far and above, was the time I worked insanely long hours, and in fact those hours were exponential since knowledge work and the fruits of knowledge work often compound. Now watch how many people tell me my experience is wrong and I’m either lying or delusional, just because they don’t want to believe that sometimes long hours really are more productive.

blitz_skull 4y ago
I think most folks, especially the ones I’ve spoken to on the issue—specifically object to the idea that more than 40 hours nets any real gain for KNOWLEDGE work. Results may vary. I don’t think anyone is arguing for example that our paramedics aren’t doing anything useful after 40 hours. That’s the key distinction and as someone who has worked a distinctly bullshit job his entire career; I’m not rushing to spend any more time than I need to sitting at that desk.
- HEmanZ 4y ago
  I still argue against this for all knowledge work. I keep seeing this term “bullshit jobs” and need to probably look more into it, but it seems to refer to office jobs where huge amounts of time are wasted on unproductive work. I’ve had this kind of work in the past. But not all knowledge work is like this. I’m a software engineer, and on some of the big projects I’ve been on I have squeezed massive amounts of real productivity out of long long hours. I know managers, bankers, real estate agents, and lawyers who also work long hours and get significantly more done for it. They take an hour less of work per day and start to legitimately fall behind (maybe that’s a good litmus test for how “bullshit” job is? How much time can you take off before it becomes noticeable?). The reality is a spectrum and we shouldn’t bring down some subset in favor of another.

Bloating 4y ago

Cool, lets also advocate for year-round school. The school schedule is what really dictates our family schedule

Bloating 4y ago

At least in my experience, a good part my unproductive time is spent satisfying the demands of the self-perpetuating bureaucracy

askvictor 4y ago

Where do people feel the extra day should fall? While Monday or Friday is convenient, I can definitely see a point to making it Wednesday, so you can re-charge and be more productive for the second half of the week; in a normal 5 day week, I definitely see tiredness creeping in by Thursday and Friday.

Gigachad 4y ago
I've been doing it on Monday and it works well. I just take the days off as unpaid days in the leave system so I can request a different day whenever I want or when Monday is a public holiday.
gopalv 4y ago
> I can definitely see a point to making it Wednesday You probably agree a lot with CGP Grey on this video[1] I really liked when Cloudera did "unplug days" which basically threw in an extra day off every 3 weeks and a double extra off every 3 months, but it was a Friday so there was always the temptation to drive out somewhere or go do something for 3 days. If it had been Wednesdays, we'd have just slept and relaxed instead. 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw
rizach8 4y ago
Friday or Monday allow us to plan better for longer activities. 3 days makes a weekend trip super smooth and easy to pull off. Having Wednesday off, I would find it harder to disconnect.

robswc 4y ago

Well its hardly a shocker that most people prefer to work less for the same pay, lol. IMO, employers should just let employees work to whatever schedule fits, as long as they can make any meetings and reasonable goals are met.

psvv 4y ago

It's a 50% increase in your days off for only 20% reduction in work days.

pard68 4y ago

I'd love a four day work week so I can have an extra day to work on other things. I'd also be happy with 5 or 6 hour days, or even just saying, "you're an adult, get your work done then get out of here."

JoeAltmaier 4y ago

I estimate each year I spend one month coding and 11 months supporting, integrating, documenting, packaging, releasing.

spencerchubb 4y ago

I would be curious to see a company do 5 out of 8 instead of 4 out of 7.

impalallama 4y ago

I have a pet theory that it’s not that people are more productive when they work less but that there is less work needs doing but few are willing to say it. You go back in time and a lot of great technological innovations have the inventors talking about how great it will be when we only have to work one day a week thanks to it. All this crazy tech we have nowadays means a lot can be done in less time so more of peoples jobs is just pretending to work or inventing work that needs doing. It’s about time we reap the fruits of technological progress.

jillesvangurp 4y ago
There's difference between employment and actually doing work. A lot of us keep busy with something and get paid for that even. But that doesn't mean that that something holds a lot of value. We've just seen big silicon valley companies go through the process of shedding 10-20% of their work forces; more in some cases. Seemingly without consequence. Reason: most of those people are busy but not with something that is particularly valuable or productive. Basically before the industrial revolution, you worked to scrape together a living. Most work was related to food production (farming). The idle were rounded up and put to work typically. The only people not working were the aristocracy. Then the industrial revolution happened and a lot of people started working in factories. Early on this was dangerous and a hard life. It's only with the socialist movements of people rebelling against that things like a five day work week became common. Saturday used to be a working day in most places. Also things like retirement and time off became a thing. And the 40 hour work week. Basically as worker productivity increased (through automation), less and less people work in food production or anything else that is essential. Since the seventies, we've actually outsourced a lot of production to cheap labor countries. Most of us neither work in production nor food production anymore but in the service industry. Few of us actually even have the skills to produce anything. The logical conclusion of AI, automation is not idleness. But just busying ourselves with increasingly more frivolous and less essential things for increasingly less time. We'll need to do something with our time. But the value of that is a very loose notion. Having more time to spend basically means there is more money on spending time on each other. Arts, artisanal foods, whatever seems fun/interesting/entertaining.

cpeterso 4y ago

I knew someone who had accrued so many PTO days that he started using them to take every Friday off instead of losing his PTO. That reminds me that I should check my PTO balance.

AndrewKemendo 4y ago

>no amount of money would convince them to return to five days a week I love to hear this because it's people actually reclaiming their lives!

charcircuit 4y ago

Meanwhile China is going to make us irrelevant with their 996 work week. I would prefer to stay ahead and build great products than lounging around for half the week.

vore 4y ago
This is workable if you’re in your early 20s and dedicated to the grind, but not sustainable if you’re going on 40 with two kids. Owing my employer almost all of my waking hours is not worth it for me personally. In the end I’d rather look back on the personal relationships I’ve built outside of work than the shareholder value I’ve increased.
TrackerFF 4y ago
Unless you work in a factory: The 996 work culture is no threat - It's one of the most inefficient ways of working I've ever observed. Same goes for other equivalents found in Asia - too much of that "work" is just butts on seats either pretending to work, or straight up looking at the watch and twiddling thumbs. For any serious intellectual work, it's pure nonsense.

cf-d-ycom 4y ago

I'd like to be proven wrong on this point, but it feels to me that this trend is two things, individuals and companies reaping the benefits of technological improvements towards efficiency, and _ALSO_ the revealing redundancy of more and more work. It seems to me that the negotiating power of workers is largely connected to the dependency of the people that hired them to the output of those workers. As that dependency diminishes (ie. by realising technological advancement and thereby reducing work hours from 5 days to 4 days for example), it seems unlikely that these improved benefits will flow to the workers, as the required* negotiating power to get them is vanishing. *required in the sense that going on strike becomes much less powerful, and with technological advancements in hiring/remote work, it increases the possibility of replacing the striking workers. Also, this is largely going to affect the pyjama-laptop class, not anyone that actually needs to be somewhere, and perhaps is revealing that they have largely filled positions they could be significantly reduced. I'm guessing the coming global recession(that the tech layoffs imply are coming to at least that sector) should be a way to see if these predictions are any where close to right, or just nonsense rambling.

dqpb 4y ago

> most UK companies participating are not returning to the five-day standard, and a third are ready to make that change permanent This is a confusing sentence.

silves89 4y ago

You can eat as many fermented foods and do as much tai chi as you like, and you can get therapy and manifest and go on retreats. But nothing improves life as much as a 4-day week.

Coronon 4y ago

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jamesadevine 4y ago

Im all for a four day working week. Has any one thought about the impact on schooling and education? Education is centred around a 5 day working week (at least in the U.K.). Presumably teachers would not be eligible to work a four day week? This seems a little unfair. If workers move to a four day week, should schools do too?

jsty 4y ago
If it wasn't a government-mandated day (e.g. Friday is now part of the weekend) then you'd have to ensure days off were split such that there was coverage of the whole working week - which is exactly what service industries that need more than 9-5 x 5 days a week availability often do currently.
tarl0s 4y ago
France has been experimenting a 4-day week for primary school since the 80s [1], generally with a day-off on Wednesdays. The impacts are certainly there, e.g. "before September 2013, more than 40% of mothers whose youngest child was of elementary school age did not work on Wednesdays". It sounds like a 4-day school week would be the natural consequence of a global 4-day working week. [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rythmes_scolaires_en_France https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rythmes_scolaires_en_France

b3nji 4y ago

It would be interesting to get a breakdown of what exactly these people do.

Claude_Shannon 4y ago

If you work four days a week, others will work five days a week and will outpace you.

Strom 4y ago
Why stop at five? What about six days a week? Also I doubt the amount of time worked is anywhere near as good of a predictor for success as willingness to work.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago

Edit: sorry for the long post, the TL;DR is at the end I have a job that combines highly stressful times (managing quickly evolving crises) and governance points (policies, useless meetings, some useful meetings). And socialization on top of that. I work 3 days at the office and 2 days from home. The days at the office are dedicated to the most exhausting meetings - the one everyone hates where people battle about who has the longest penis and stresses everyone. Productivity is close to zero. These are also the days where I socialize with my team around coffee and chatter. Strictly productivity wise these days are very poor. The fact that I meet people and have actual meaningful meetings as well saves the day. Ideally, I would compress the dick show meetings on a Monday and start the real week on Tuesday. Two days in the office from 9 to 18 are acceptable then. Effective work wood be probably about 4 hours per day. The days at home are for thinking and quick Zoom calls focused on a given topic. I set 30 minutes per call, with the possibility to extend to 1h if needed. Anything more means another call. Effective work time: about 5 hours a day. I am exhausted after the dick show meetings and I know I won't do any good work afterwards. Despite having a very senior position at my company I know I cannot change these meetings. A crisis is not a problem, I can do it over hours and hours and be very positive. That is before my management arrives "to help". Sorry for the long post, the TL;DR is that it would be great to have 4 days weeks, but this would need to come with major changes on how companies are managed or we will end with less productivity because of the mentally draining part that is endangering the useful one.

mclightning 4y ago

This, and remote working. People need to understand how capitalism works. Value extraction always comes back around in your final bill. None will give you that extra day without eventually adjusting the salary. This is not a predatory action, but how markets work. You can already observe this by comparing salaries offered by fully-remote jobs and on-site jobs.

1602 4y ago

I went to four days a week, by using holiday allowance during covid to look after newborn. It was a huge game-changer for me, so I never looked back and eventually switched to working part-time (3 days a week). I still feel productive and useful at work, but less mentally drained and have more of life to live, recently I started sketching, I enjoy time with my toddler, feel much happier despite being poorer. I know not everyone can afford taking pay cut, but I also know that lots people in tech earn more money they can spend, for these people I would strongly recommend - do not take more money, take more of your time back, no matter how in love with your profession you are.

dustedcodes 4y ago

I've been doing a 4 day work week since early 2019 and it this has had a tremendous positive effect on my mental and physical wellbeing. Despite being in a 4 day work week just over 4 years now I can confidently say that I'm not thinking now that 4 days are too many and I need to go down to 3 days. Actually I am very content with 4 days. I am a lot more productive than I was during 5 day work weeks. I feel so much fresher on Mondays and ready to tackle some programming tasks that I even get up early on Mondays nowadays and enjoy to have an early start. I WFH (something I already did before Covid) and when I wake up I normally make myself a coffee and then I'm straight at my laptop. The hours between 7:30 AM and 11:00 AM are my most productive hours of the day. Often I have some late meetings which can drag until 6PM so I tend to take a longer lunch break which allows me to hit the tennis court during sunlight hours and have a hit at my local club or go to the gym. By 6PM I have had a super productive work day and got a good 1.5-2h sport session in as well. In the evening I am completely free for my family which is a big bonus point. The biggest benefit of the 4 day work week is that I never get to the point where I run low on energy as the week progresses. A lot of my friends who work 5 days never have enough time to recover over the weekend so they enter work on Monday still not fully recharged and then deplete their energy even more, so as weeks go on they get more tired until they have a holiday or fall ill for a few days. This never happens to me, so not only do I feel more focused and energetic for work, family and hobbies but also it means that when my weekend starts on Friday I don't actually waste my Friday to mostly sleep and recover. I honestly can't see myself to ever go back to 5 days a week, unless I was really desperate for a short term income boost where someone pays me an unreasonable high amount to slave myself off for a few months but otherwise there is no way I will sacrifice my health for something where I don't even arguably achieve more than in my current 4 day work week.

cko 4y ago

I still play World of Warcraft Classic. A lot of my guildies are playing while at work.

EchoReflection 4y ago

No paywall: https://archive.is/2023.02.21-232019/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-21/four-day-work-week-uk-study-finds-majority-of-employers-shifting https://archive.is/2023.02.21-232019/https://www.bloomberg.c...

W4nn4B_h4x0r 4y ago

A few years ago this would have been interesting, even exciting news, but considering that we are legitimately getting close to having AI do our jobs - a 24x7, hyper-efficient worker - this seems to be concerning news. While better worker rights and shorter working hours are of course things we should strive for, I feel that as automation takes over, most management would prefer to take on a worker that, while initially possibly very limited in scope and error-prone, can learn quickly and soon perform the tasks the human was doing more efficiently, for a much lower cost, and with close to zero breaks. Of course, this scenario may be 5-10 years away, but it's round the corner and therefore scary for human Workers.

aagha 4y ago

I wonder how much of this movement (which I support) is a function of business builders/entrepreneurs/founders having worked OVER 40 hours a week to create their businesses, and this ethos carrying over into the culture of businesses.