9 ms·

Who will lead the charge to a four-day work week?

125 points by robg 3y ago

blendo 3y ago
When I was 62 I went to a 4 day week with a 20% pay cut. What made it easier was backfilling the pay cut by beginning my 401k withdrawls, which you can do starting age 59 1/2. Every Thursday evening I felt like I was on vacation!
jaymzcampbell 3y ago
I swapped to a 4 day week (with relevant pay cut, which certainly made it easier to justify with my employer) in order to finish my MSc without burnout and it's changed my life. The entire balance of the working week has changed - 4 days is almost a 50-50 split which makes an enormous difference to your psychology (0.57:0.71). My employer has stated they've not noticed any change in productivity either, including on the day I'm off (I do a video handover and notes every Thursday for the rest of the team) - which I partly credit with the fact I no longer can justify "oh I'll just leave that to tomorrow" + feeling energised come Monday after 3 days of my own time. I really would struggle to entertain changing back to 5 days now.
- philote 3y ago
  So your employer is getting the same work out of you with less pay? Sounds like you should push for your old pay back.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    Kind of amazing that they just admitted that freely.
    - williamdclt 3y ago
      It’s only leverage if somebody else offers higher pay for 4d week, which isn’t too different than the standard “other companies pay better” leverage
  - subpixel 3y ago
    I see the 4-day week as a desirable perk that may be available within high-performing organizations. Modifying pay is probably more a bargaining chip for ICs who are working 4 days when others are not. Outside of knowledge work, the 4-day week appears where demand outstrips supply. It's pretty common for dental offices, an one example, to work 4 days _just because they can_. The bos can pay themselves several hundred thousand dollars a year and pay their staff competitive salaries without giving up their long weekend plans.
  - jaymzcampbell 3y ago
    tbh I was surprised to hear it myself. I work in an agency for a client 100% of my billable time. I don't work on Fridays where I certainly would've continued my day-to-day tasks. I'm kind of a tech lead on things (it's a little fuzzy) so as long as I've got things stacked up enough for the rest of the team and people are unblocked, work continues. I think they meant it in a "we haven't had to slow down or get blocked" sort of way. I think it mainly speaks to the fact that "most stuff is not actually critical". So people have adapted accordingly and the work that needs to be done, is done, and that which isn't so pressing can wait.
- TheRoque 3y ago
  I did the same as you and it felt so good. I did a break on the Wednesdays and it was perfect. I really felt way better just because of this break every 2 days. Don't know about the productivity though.
- switchbak 3y ago
  I had part of my team covertly swap to 4 day work weeks, while the rest of us were working our butts off. They kept their original pay. There's a few ways to roll out 4 day work weeks. This was probably the worst.
- euroderf 3y ago
  > 4 days is almost a 50-50 split If you're off from (say) Thursday 5pm until Monday 9am, that's 88 consecutive hours away from work, out of a week of 168 hours. Winning!
robg 3y ago
Curious among folks here: Are you aware of companies that allow for or even encourage four day work weeks?
- otabdeveloper4 3y ago
  Yes, these are the kinds of companies with 12 hour work days. Staffed by immigrants or poor people, usually.
  - anjel 3y ago
    ...And Registered Nurses
- jes5199 3y ago
  I’m on a mailing list from fourdayweek.io and they managed to find a few companies to feature every week. No one that I’ve been excited to work for, yet, but YMMV
- rowyourboat 3y ago
  Yes, we let anybody reduce their work week to 80% - for 80% pay, of course.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    That's not really a perk then. The whole idea is to generate ~95% of value with 80% of the work time, and to split the difference money-wise.
    - rowyourboat 3y ago
      You would be surprised how many companies don't allow you to work part time, period.
  - philmcp 3y ago
    Founder of 4dayweek.io here, would love to add your company to the site? If so, which company is it?
kfk 3y ago
If investors still expect the same returns, four-day work week being in effect a labor cost increase will be a no go. And before you mention “productivity”, keep in mind that from the looks of it, AI and tech driven productivity gains go to shareholders, those owning the IPs and the means of production. Yes you can push laws to push companies, but then you are over regulating your country and that too is problematic.
- soperj 3y ago
  We have laws now. Are they problematic?
  - baggy_trough 3y ago
    Certainly in many cases.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  1. Those owning the means of production converging on amassing every surplus productivity gain 2. “Over regulating” my country I wonder which I would choose.
  - kfk 3y ago
    It’s not a simple problem. Heavily regulated places like the EU don’t grow as fast. Non growth is problematic too since we need to still help millions of people out of poverty in a sustainable way. There is no free lunch and simplistic solutions like four-day workweek don’t address the full problem.
    - avgcorrection 3y ago
      > Non growth is problematic too since we need to still help millions of people out of poverty in a sustainable way. By letting surplus value go to those who own the...
- RandomLensman 3y ago
underlipton 3y ago
I've begun to think that a shorter workday is as important as a shorter work week. Doing gig delivery for ~3 hours a day, 7 days a week has been less taxing, emotionally and physically, than 7 hours (+lunch, +commute) on a standard work week waging for a retailer, at ~80% of the take-home. I imagine my current set-up would be better than divvying up that 20ish hours over 4 days. But obviously a similar take-home with the same or fewer days would be even better. And, of course, pay is important, too. I'm only able to do this by walking the TOS knife-edge, and it would be nice if I could make something similar with a "real" job instead. America's workers, in general, should be getting out far more than they do.
bloopernova 3y ago
Considering the opposition to working from home from some parts of (USA) society, I have trouble seeing this get widely adopted. At least in the short to medium term. The anti-WFH people appear to fall into 3 camps: landlords and property owners, middle management who believe people are not as productive or efficient at home. And, as pointed out in a reply, there's also the group who believe that face to face communication is more agile and fosters more innovation. Perhaps one question to ask is: who will lose money and/or power due to this move? Somewhat offtopic: How has WFH been treated in European media? Has it been much the same as the USA?
- savanaly 3y ago
  I'm not even in the anti-WFH camp, but notice you've selectively omitted the most sympathetic camp (what is this argument tactic called? Strawmanning?). People who think teams will be more agile and innovative when they can have impromptu face-to-face conversations. I personally think that's true, but not a big enough deal to make me favor RTO. But it's not good to summarize an issue in such a way that the other side sounds like greedy bastards and yours sounds eminently reasonable.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    > what is this argument tactic called? Strawmanning? Yeah, think like how you challenge yourself in deliberate practice. Putting up a "straw man" to fight doesn't really help one learn to fight.
    - ska 3y ago
      Hence the idea of Steelmanning.
  - darreninthenet 3y ago
    Hasn't it been disproven now though? My employer at the time during lockdown saw productivity and collaboration increase, and they are a mostly agile approach organisation. And there are many companies large and small with mostly or fully remote teams delivering complex projects every day as we speak. Whilst I'm sure there are edge cases where that face to face actually is essential, the idea that for teams to be agile, innovative and collaborative they must physically sit near each other has been shown to be unnecessary...?
Syonyk 3y ago
I've "corrupted" (from the point of view of GDP productivity and such) a lot of people into asking for (and mostly getting...) a 32h/week work schedule. I've been doing it for almost 8 years now, and at this point, it's simply a non-negotiable in any sort of employment discussions (that, and not carrying a pager). I work Mon-Thu, 8h/day, and I'm generally unreachable Fri/Sat/Sun (doesn't mean I won't put in a long week on rare occasions, but think "once a year or less" sort of frequency). The work/life balance is far better, and it aligns better with my family (the local public school is only Mon-Thu as well). Just ask about it. I know some people who've managed full pay for 80% hours, but generally "80% pay for 80% hours" is entirely reasonable too, and I've found (as a rather extreme DIY sort) that the extra money isn't missed, because I have more time to do things myself on the weekend. I can practically spend quite a few Fridays a year doing major DIY work, and come out ahead. I genuinely cannot say enough good things about it. Try it. You won't miss 40s.
- nine_k 3y ago
  I'd be tidally fine working 40h a week in four 10h days. A whole new free day is such an improvement that longer hours on other days can't hope to outweigh it.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    s/tidally/totally/; talk about creative autocorrect!
- burkaman 3y ago
  > it aligns better with my family (the local public school is only Mon-Thu as well) This is interesting and makes me think the answer to the title's question is public schools. Most Americans are not in a position to individually ask their employer for a 4-day week, but if the local school system does it, suddenly there's a unified block of thousands of people who really need Friday off to take care of their kids. I had actually never heard of this but according to NPR it's fairly common already: > Seven percent of school districts in the U.S. are now just four days long. In Missouri, it's 30% of districts. In Colorado, it's 67%.
throwitaway222 3y ago
Do we really need another slap in the face to "employees that have to move muscles" - if 4 to 20x pay, working from home wasn't enough, now they only work 4 days a week!! Yes those people read reddit, hackernews and other sources. edit: OK - didn't notice this was for "employees that move muscles" Carry on then
- meheleventyone 3y ago
  Are you saying manual labourers shouldn't also get a 4 day work week? It's just I don't think that was implied anywhere else.
- tikhonj 3y ago
  The article started by talking about UAW negotiations—it's about "employees that have to move muscles". Not that it matters. "We shouldn't try to improve things for one set of people if things are bad for a different set of people" is an incoherent and toxic attitude regardless of context.
michaelt 3y ago
Once when buying a house, I had to go through a lengthy paperwork process with someone who worked a three-day week, and it was an infuriating experience. They wanted a great deal of documentation sent by post, and their three day work-week meant they'd ask me on Tuesday for some piece of documentation, I'd mail it the same day, and by the time it arrived they'd left for the week so I couldn't expect a reply until the next Tuesday at the absolute earliest. I sure hope any move towards shorter work weeks doesn't turn into an excuse for lengthy bureaucratic processes to become even lengthier.
gregdoesit 3y ago
The Netherlands is arguably one that heavily embraces the 4-day workweek. In this country, employees can request a shorter work week (4 days) for proportionality less wages (so eg for 4 days get 80% of wages). More than 80% of working moms utilise this option and around 10% of dads. [1] Among my friends I have parents where both of them work 4 days, taking the 5th day off on separate days, and their kid goes to daycare 3 days a week. Note that most government subsidies (for childcare) are set up to encourage working at least 32 hours per day. [1] https://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2013/07/10/worlds-shortest-work-weeks/index.html https://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2013/07/10/worlds...
- martijnvds 3y ago
  32 hour days? Don't know if I could handle that :)
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Lazy ass. Back in my day, before walking up hill both ways to school, we had to wake up before we went to sleep and our parents would kill us every night!
    - wussboy 3y ago
      > would kill us every night! Luxury! I used to dream of my parents killing us every night.
- sverhagen 3y ago
  In the Netherlands, they're also looking at high labor immigration, and a (probably at least in part) related housing shortage. There are real questions about the sustainability of this part-time "culture".
- darreninthenet 3y ago
  I used to work for a Dutch bank (in London) ~20 years ago and pretty much all of our colleagues in The Netherlands worked a four day week although with full pay and hours, just working longer days over the four day week.
zooq_ai 3y ago
4 hour work-week ain't happening. 1) Due to AI advancements, companies and business models are going to be disrupted. The last thing a firm wants is to work 4 day / week when competition can do 60 hour per week and leap frog them (including crushing them) at a crucial period. tl ; dr -- we are entering a crunch mode for many firms (vs stability where we can think of these luxuries) 2) US is already facing labor shortage in many critical fields esp human services. A 4-day work week faces massive inflationary pressures. Again, when we enter deflation we can think of 4-day work week. A classic example would have been 2008/09 when unemployment touched 10% 3) AI will make people who work 70 hour per week even more productive. So in knowledge work roles, firms may opt to have one 70 hr extreme workaholic vs 2 32 hour people I know sensitive topic to HNers who downvote just because they don't like the message
- jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
  The article is about a 4 day work week, which is commonly 32 or 40 hours depending on context. Not sure why you had to make this about AI.
  - deltree7 3y ago
    [dead]
- Syonyk 3y ago
  > 4 hour work-week ain't happening. Four hour or four day? Both are terms that have been tossed around, though this is discussing four day (which you then discuss as 32h weeks later). > AI will make people who work 70 hour per week even more productive. So in knowledge work roles, firms may opt to have one 70 hr extreme workaholic vs 2 32 hour people Have you ever had to debug code from people at the wrong end of a 60-70 hour week? For a while, I had a coworker who tended to to this sort of thing, and I eventually started looking at the relevant commit messages. If they were incoherent, expect the code to be "not even wrong" grade interesting - you basically had to re-write it to get it do what it was supposed to. The sort of people who enjoy 70h grinds also seem to not particularly enjoy writing tests.
stratigos 3y ago
thoughtbot, inc had been "leading this charge" for over a decade
browningstreet 3y ago
If people were able to choose to work M-Th or Tu-F I will suggest that productivity will skyrocket given that people will have one day they work where some percentage of their co-workers don't. Fewer meetings and more working time will make up for the fact that some questions will have to wait one business day.
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  And it nicely sets us up to move to the Three Day work week!
braza 3y ago
I really miss some empirical economics and management research during that 4-day workweek debate. Most of the debates come from parties with a vested interest in them. What makes me more curious is: what is going to be the minimum or maximum performance time offset in terms of competitiveness that the companies will need to overcome to adopt or not?
Mizza 3y ago
Has anybody tried a 3x12h? I think I'd get just as much done and be way happier. I hate the commute, the meetings, the office bullshit. I just want a long list of tasks, some drum and bass music, and a fresh pot of coffee. Let me do 3 heavy sessions a week and give me freedom to be human the rest of the time.
- TylerE 3y ago
  I don’t know how anyone could function like that. I’m a zombie after a hard 6-7. I can keep staring at the screen and poking at the keyboard, but Nothing of value is getting accomplished.
- carabiner 3y ago
  I know a guy who did and he hated it. 9 to 9 at the office, going to the gym afterwards was out of the question and he was eating a lot of crap from the vending machines.
dcchambers 3y ago
To be blunt: at this point, no one. If the 4-day work week didn't happen during the ZIRP, it's not happening now. I know there are studies that show it can be better and more productive, but employers don't care. They want butts in seats as long as possible.
- jakupovic 3y ago
  Is that a smoke able Blunt? Otherwise none care.
addicted 3y ago
A 4 day work week makes a lot of sense to me but I think it will be even more useful if the 3rd day doesn’t just mean a longer weekend. One of the best uses of the 3rd day off would be being able to do things that are usually closed on a weekend (doctor visits, bank transactions, etc). So if we implemented a 4 day workweek by simply adding Friday to the weekend we would lose this benefit. What inthink would be great is if we keep the 2 day Sat/Sun weekend and then add a rotating 3rd day off, where some people take Monday, some Tuesday, some Wednesday, etc off.
karaterobot 3y ago
> Between the rise of generative artificial intelligence this year and the reckoning of work-life balance that came with the Covid-19 pandemic, efforts to shorten the workweek have accelerated. It's not clear to me how these things are connected. How does generative AI make it necessary or feasible to shorten the work week? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to try it, but I don't get the sense that generative AI has made people 20% more productive across the board. In certain cases, sure, but I'm skeptical about making that claim for every member of a large-sized company. We could say "it's okay to be less productive but have a better work-life balance", and that's fine, but it doesn't explain the quoted sentence.
nickd2001 3y ago
I've done this for 12 years now, at 3 different employers, first and current one for proportionally less pay, middle one was full hours compressed into 4 (not as good). Its a no-brainer. We tech workers are well rewarded. Most white collar westerners are more starved of time than of money. Extra day off means more time to spend with family, do hobbies etc. Employer definitely gets more than 80% out of me as I'm more rested. Pay hit is less than you might think because the last 20% is taxed more heavily than the first 20%. (due to the first X amount being tax free). Can save money by cooking from scratch more, shopping around for things. I'm not very practical or good at fixing things - if I was I'd probably save even more.
black_13 3y ago
[dead]
datadrivenangel 3y ago
I know multiple people who have moved to 4 day work weeks. Most of them are 4x10, which they still much prefer.
animitronix 3y ago
Unions.
k__ 3y ago
Most of my friends and family work part time. Those who don't at least have home office and/or can freely decide when to work. I'm a freelance technical writer, and I don't get more than one draft/outline done a day. I work 3-5 days a week, but never more than 5h. When I'm done with a bigger task for the day, the following work won't be as good. It only works if I'm really hyped for the next task.
carabiner 3y ago
It won't happen until we eject the gerontocracy from Congress. So, probably not in our lifetimes. It will become a norm to see sitting Congress persons in wheelchairs with oxygen tanks and freezing in speech. AI lol? These people don't get AI any more than my parents. They want to fund wars abroad and think houses cost $200k. They are completely out of touch.
goqu 3y ago
So far, the highest number of 4 day week companies in the private sector appears to be in the US, followed by the UK. Source: I maintain a page listing 120 4-day week companies. For every 10 new companies I add, 6-8 will be from these two countries. For anyone interested:https://okjob.io/companies/ https://okjob.io/companies/
Veliladon 3y ago
For the US the biggest impediment is healthcare is based on a per employee charge, not per hour charge. So there's this perverse incentive to extract every possible hour of labor from an employee, even with overtime at time and a half, to defray another fixed cost. Without public health care and the subsequent lifting of healthcare costs from employers back over to a progressive tax system, I can't see the 4 day week being widely adopted.
- mqoca 3y ago
  Is that really the case? I was under the impression that part-time jobs in the US such as retail, food, etc. were so common precisely because part-time employees do not receive the same benefits (health insurance, retirement, PTO) as full-time employees.
  - NateSwift 3y ago
    Under the Affordable Care Act employees that work more than 30 hours per week (or 130 hours per month) are considered full time and require health insurance. I’d assume then that most part time employees work less than 30 hours a week
irthomasthomas 3y ago
A rabblement of lemmings. They ran down to the cliff with their economies in hand and plunged into the sea.
ysofunny 3y ago
what about a 6 hour work day and a 5 day week?
thegrim33 3y ago
Is there any argument that can be made for a four-day work week that couldn't also be made for a three-day work week? Or a two? I guess I'm trying to get at where's the line? If everyone switches to four-day, will the next rally cry be for three-day after that? What argument is there for why four-day in particular is the "right" amount and not three or five or some other number?
- soupfordummies 3y ago
  The line is—-and Im just spitballing here—-probably somewhere around 26-30 hours or so.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  I think we can look back and ask why we went from a 6 day to a 5 day. And then we can ask: are we happy with the outcome? Maybe one day it will be time to push for a 3-day workweek. Then maybe 2. Then 1. And maybe the post-scarcity, automated society will actually exist and we have 0.
j45 3y ago
Whomever leads the productivity of 40 hours to result in 32. This should be reasonably possible with all of the overheads that are impediments to progress given a consistent effort level between 32 and 40 hours.
llamaInSouth 3y ago
lets cut to the chase and make the robots do all the work now
SirMaster 3y ago
I'd rather stick with 40 hours and a 25% pay bump then. Never had a problem with 40 hours personally and already have more time than I know what to do with outside of work.
boring-alterego 3y ago
A majority of American nuclear plants have had a 4 day 10 hour day work week for about 20 years now. The others have alternate Fridays off to the best of my knowledge.
mbgerring 3y ago
I negotiated a 4 day workweek at my last 2 jobs and can’t recommend it enough. Still getting your full salary is tougher though.
plutoh28 3y ago
Just switch to an 8 day week with Uranusday
iteratethis 3y ago
I think the discussion should be reframed into household hours worked. It fundamentally changes the discussion. A couple working 4 day work weeks amounts to 1.6 FTE, which is considerably more compared to the traditional breadwinner model. Now if you add that life got a whole lot more demanding/complex outside of work, the sum work load of a family is rather high instead of low. Another interesting aspect we see in the Netherlands, where we work part-time a lot. Perhaps a little too much. There's a kind of defeatism regarding working more hours. People feel it doesn't really change their life for the better. When you're already settled, can pay the bills and have reasonable disposable income, working more doesn't really improve your quality of life in a very tangible way. Young people are even more apathetic. They figure they can't ever afford a home anyway, and with a pension age heading towards 70, they conclude they can't ever retire. In light of this, might as well maximize free time here and now. Society wants you to work more to combat the population ageing or to compete with China, but on the ground people don't care about this call to arms. The societal contract is broken.
perryizgr8 3y ago
If we are going to have another day off, I'd rather it be Monday than Friday. I'm the least productive on Mondays.

125 points by robg 3y ago

When I was 62 I went to a 4 day week with a 20% pay cut. What made it easier was backfilling the pay cut by beginning my 401k withdrawls, which you can do starting age 59 1/2. Every Thursday evening I felt like I was on vacation!

jaymzcampbell 3y ago

I swapped to a 4 day week (with relevant pay cut, which certainly made it easier to justify with my employer) in order to finish my MSc without burnout and it's changed my life. The entire balance of the working week has changed - 4 days is almost a 50-50 split which makes an enormous difference to your psychology (0.57:0.71). My employer has stated they've not noticed any change in productivity either, including on the day I'm off (I do a video handover and notes every Thursday for the rest of the team) - which I partly credit with the fact I no longer can justify "oh I'll just leave that to tomorrow" + feeling energised come Monday after 3 days of my own time. I really would struggle to entertain changing back to 5 days now.

philote 3y ago
So your employer is getting the same work out of you with less pay? Sounds like you should push for your old pay back.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  Kind of amazing that they just admitted that freely.
  - williamdclt 3y ago
    It’s only leverage if somebody else offers higher pay for 4d week, which isn’t too different than the standard “other companies pay better” leverage
- subpixel 3y ago
  I see the 4-day week as a desirable perk that may be available within high-performing organizations. Modifying pay is probably more a bargaining chip for ICs who are working 4 days when others are not. Outside of knowledge work, the 4-day week appears where demand outstrips supply. It's pretty common for dental offices, an one example, to work 4 days _just because they can_. The bos can pay themselves several hundred thousand dollars a year and pay their staff competitive salaries without giving up their long weekend plans.
- jaymzcampbell 3y ago
  tbh I was surprised to hear it myself. I work in an agency for a client 100% of my billable time. I don't work on Fridays where I certainly would've continued my day-to-day tasks. I'm kind of a tech lead on things (it's a little fuzzy) so as long as I've got things stacked up enough for the rest of the team and people are unblocked, work continues. I think they meant it in a "we haven't had to slow down or get blocked" sort of way. I think it mainly speaks to the fact that "most stuff is not actually critical". So people have adapted accordingly and the work that needs to be done, is done, and that which isn't so pressing can wait.
TheRoque 3y ago
I did the same as you and it felt so good. I did a break on the Wednesdays and it was perfect. I really felt way better just because of this break every 2 days. Don't know about the productivity though.
switchbak 3y ago
I had part of my team covertly swap to 4 day work weeks, while the rest of us were working our butts off. They kept their original pay. There's a few ways to roll out 4 day work weeks. This was probably the worst.
euroderf 3y ago
> 4 days is almost a 50-50 split If you're off from (say) Thursday 5pm until Monday 9am, that's 88 consecutive hours away from work, out of a week of 168 hours. Winning!

robg 3y ago

Curious among folks here: Are you aware of companies that allow for or even encourage four day work weeks?

otabdeveloper4 3y ago
Yes, these are the kinds of companies with 12 hour work days. Staffed by immigrants or poor people, usually.
- anjel 3y ago
  ...And Registered Nurses
jes5199 3y ago
I’m on a mailing list from fourdayweek.io and they managed to find a few companies to feature every week. No one that I’ve been excited to work for, yet, but YMMV
rowyourboat 3y ago
Yes, we let anybody reduce their work week to 80% - for 80% pay, of course.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  That's not really a perk then. The whole idea is to generate ~95% of value with 80% of the work time, and to split the difference money-wise.
  - rowyourboat 3y ago
    You would be surprised how many companies don't allow you to work part time, period.
- philmcp 3y ago
  Founder of 4dayweek.io here, would love to add your company to the site? If so, which company is it?

kfk 3y ago

If investors still expect the same returns, four-day work week being in effect a labor cost increase will be a no go. And before you mention “productivity”, keep in mind that from the looks of it, AI and tech driven productivity gains go to shareholders, those owning the IPs and the means of production. Yes you can push laws to push companies, but then you are over regulating your country and that too is problematic.

soperj 3y ago
We have laws now. Are they problematic?
- baggy_trough 3y ago
  Certainly in many cases.
avgcorrection 3y ago
1. Those owning the means of production converging on amassing every surplus productivity gain 2. “Over regulating” my country I wonder which I would choose.
- kfk 3y ago
  It’s not a simple problem. Heavily regulated places like the EU don’t grow as fast. Non growth is problematic too since we need to still help millions of people out of poverty in a sustainable way. There is no free lunch and simplistic solutions like four-day workweek don’t address the full problem.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    > Non growth is problematic too since we need to still help millions of people out of poverty in a sustainable way. By letting surplus value go to those who own the...
RandomLensman 3y ago

underlipton 3y ago

I've begun to think that a shorter workday is as important as a shorter work week. Doing gig delivery for ~3 hours a day, 7 days a week has been less taxing, emotionally and physically, than 7 hours (+lunch, +commute) on a standard work week waging for a retailer, at ~80% of the take-home. I imagine my current set-up would be better than divvying up that 20ish hours over 4 days. But obviously a similar take-home with the same or fewer days would be even better. And, of course, pay is important, too. I'm only able to do this by walking the TOS knife-edge, and it would be nice if I could make something similar with a "real" job instead. America's workers, in general, should be getting out far more than they do.

bloopernova 3y ago

Considering the opposition to working from home from some parts of (USA) society, I have trouble seeing this get widely adopted. At least in the short to medium term. The anti-WFH people appear to fall into 3 camps: landlords and property owners, middle management who believe people are not as productive or efficient at home. And, as pointed out in a reply, there's also the group who believe that face to face communication is more agile and fosters more innovation. Perhaps one question to ask is: who will lose money and/or power due to this move? Somewhat offtopic: How has WFH been treated in European media? Has it been much the same as the USA?

savanaly 3y ago
I'm not even in the anti-WFH camp, but notice you've selectively omitted the most sympathetic camp (what is this argument tactic called? Strawmanning?). People who think teams will be more agile and innovative when they can have impromptu face-to-face conversations. I personally think that's true, but not a big enough deal to make me favor RTO. But it's not good to summarize an issue in such a way that the other side sounds like greedy bastards and yours sounds eminently reasonable.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  > what is this argument tactic called? Strawmanning? Yeah, think like how you challenge yourself in deliberate practice. Putting up a "straw man" to fight doesn't really help one learn to fight.
  - ska 3y ago
    Hence the idea of Steelmanning.
- darreninthenet 3y ago
  Hasn't it been disproven now though? My employer at the time during lockdown saw productivity and collaboration increase, and they are a mostly agile approach organisation. And there are many companies large and small with mostly or fully remote teams delivering complex projects every day as we speak. Whilst I'm sure there are edge cases where that face to face actually is essential, the idea that for teams to be agile, innovative and collaborative they must physically sit near each other has been shown to be unnecessary...?

Syonyk 3y ago

I've "corrupted" (from the point of view of GDP productivity and such) a lot of people into asking for (and mostly getting...) a 32h/week work schedule. I've been doing it for almost 8 years now, and at this point, it's simply a non-negotiable in any sort of employment discussions (that, and not carrying a pager). I work Mon-Thu, 8h/day, and I'm generally unreachable Fri/Sat/Sun (doesn't mean I won't put in a long week on rare occasions, but think "once a year or less" sort of frequency). The work/life balance is far better, and it aligns better with my family (the local public school is only Mon-Thu as well). Just ask about it. I know some people who've managed full pay for 80% hours, but generally "80% pay for 80% hours" is entirely reasonable too, and I've found (as a rather extreme DIY sort) that the extra money isn't missed, because I have more time to do things myself on the weekend. I can practically spend quite a few Fridays a year doing major DIY work, and come out ahead. I genuinely cannot say enough good things about it. Try it. You won't miss 40s.

nine_k 3y ago
I'd be tidally fine working 40h a week in four 10h days. A whole new free day is such an improvement that longer hours on other days can't hope to outweigh it.
- nine_k 3y ago
  s/tidally/totally/; talk about creative autocorrect!
burkaman 3y ago
> it aligns better with my family (the local public school is only Mon-Thu as well) This is interesting and makes me think the answer to the title's question is public schools. Most Americans are not in a position to individually ask their employer for a 4-day week, but if the local school system does it, suddenly there's a unified block of thousands of people who really need Friday off to take care of their kids. I had actually never heard of this but according to NPR it's fairly common already: > Seven percent of school districts in the U.S. are now just four days long. In Missouri, it's 30% of districts. In Colorado, it's 67%.

throwitaway222 3y ago

Do we really need another slap in the face to "employees that have to move muscles" - if 4 to 20x pay, working from home wasn't enough, now they only work 4 days a week!! Yes those people read reddit, hackernews and other sources. edit: OK - didn't notice this was for "employees that move muscles" Carry on then

meheleventyone 3y ago
Are you saying manual labourers shouldn't also get a 4 day work week? It's just I don't think that was implied anywhere else.
tikhonj 3y ago
The article started by talking about UAW negotiations—it's about "employees that have to move muscles". Not that it matters. "We shouldn't try to improve things for one set of people if things are bad for a different set of people" is an incoherent and toxic attitude regardless of context.

michaelt 3y ago

Once when buying a house, I had to go through a lengthy paperwork process with someone who worked a three-day week, and it was an infuriating experience. They wanted a great deal of documentation sent by post, and their three day work-week meant they'd ask me on Tuesday for some piece of documentation, I'd mail it the same day, and by the time it arrived they'd left for the week so I couldn't expect a reply until the next Tuesday at the absolute earliest. I sure hope any move towards shorter work weeks doesn't turn into an excuse for lengthy bureaucratic processes to become even lengthier.

gregdoesit 3y ago

The Netherlands is arguably one that heavily embraces the 4-day workweek. In this country, employees can request a shorter work week (4 days) for proportionality less wages (so eg for 4 days get 80% of wages). More than 80% of working moms utilise this option and around 10% of dads. [1] Among my friends I have parents where both of them work 4 days, taking the 5th day off on separate days, and their kid goes to daycare 3 days a week. Note that most government subsidies (for childcare) are set up to encourage working at least 32 hours per day. [1] https://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2013/07/10/worlds-shortest-work-weeks/index.html https://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/economy/2013/07/10/worlds...

martijnvds 3y ago
32 hour days? Don't know if I could handle that :)
- fragmede 3y ago
  Lazy ass. Back in my day, before walking up hill both ways to school, we had to wake up before we went to sleep and our parents would kill us every night!
  - wussboy 3y ago
    > would kill us every night! Luxury! I used to dream of my parents killing us every night.
sverhagen 3y ago
In the Netherlands, they're also looking at high labor immigration, and a (probably at least in part) related housing shortage. There are real questions about the sustainability of this part-time "culture".
darreninthenet 3y ago
I used to work for a Dutch bank (in London) ~20 years ago and pretty much all of our colleagues in The Netherlands worked a four day week although with full pay and hours, just working longer days over the four day week.

zooq_ai 3y ago

4 hour work-week ain't happening. 1) Due to AI advancements, companies and business models are going to be disrupted. The last thing a firm wants is to work 4 day / week when competition can do 60 hour per week and leap frog them (including crushing them) at a crucial period. tl ; dr -- we are entering a crunch mode for many firms (vs stability where we can think of these luxuries) 2) US is already facing labor shortage in many critical fields esp human services. A 4-day work week faces massive inflationary pressures. Again, when we enter deflation we can think of 4-day work week. A classic example would have been 2008/09 when unemployment touched 10% 3) AI will make people who work 70 hour per week even more productive. So in knowledge work roles, firms may opt to have one 70 hr extreme workaholic vs 2 32 hour people I know sensitive topic to HNers who downvote just because they don't like the message

jasonwatkinspdx 3y ago
The article is about a 4 day work week, which is commonly 32 or 40 hours depending on context. Not sure why you had to make this about AI.
- deltree7 3y ago
  [dead]
Syonyk 3y ago
> 4 hour work-week ain't happening. Four hour or four day? Both are terms that have been tossed around, though this is discussing four day (which you then discuss as 32h weeks later). > AI will make people who work 70 hour per week even more productive. So in knowledge work roles, firms may opt to have one 70 hr extreme workaholic vs 2 32 hour people Have you ever had to debug code from people at the wrong end of a 60-70 hour week? For a while, I had a coworker who tended to to this sort of thing, and I eventually started looking at the relevant commit messages. If they were incoherent, expect the code to be "not even wrong" grade interesting - you basically had to re-write it to get it do what it was supposed to. The sort of people who enjoy 70h grinds also seem to not particularly enjoy writing tests.

stratigos 3y ago

thoughtbot, inc had been "leading this charge" for over a decade

browningstreet 3y ago

If people were able to choose to work M-Th or Tu-F I will suggest that productivity will skyrocket given that people will have one day they work where some percentage of their co-workers don't. Fewer meetings and more working time will make up for the fact that some questions will have to wait one business day.

datadrivenangel 3y ago
And it nicely sets us up to move to the Three Day work week!

braza 3y ago

I really miss some empirical economics and management research during that 4-day workweek debate. Most of the debates come from parties with a vested interest in them. What makes me more curious is: what is going to be the minimum or maximum performance time offset in terms of competitiveness that the companies will need to overcome to adopt or not?

Mizza 3y ago

Has anybody tried a 3x12h? I think I'd get just as much done and be way happier. I hate the commute, the meetings, the office bullshit. I just want a long list of tasks, some drum and bass music, and a fresh pot of coffee. Let me do 3 heavy sessions a week and give me freedom to be human the rest of the time.

TylerE 3y ago
I don’t know how anyone could function like that. I’m a zombie after a hard 6-7. I can keep staring at the screen and poking at the keyboard, but Nothing of value is getting accomplished.
carabiner 3y ago
I know a guy who did and he hated it. 9 to 9 at the office, going to the gym afterwards was out of the question and he was eating a lot of crap from the vending machines.

dcchambers 3y ago

To be blunt: at this point, no one. If the 4-day work week didn't happen during the ZIRP, it's not happening now. I know there are studies that show it can be better and more productive, but employers don't care. They want butts in seats as long as possible.

jakupovic 3y ago
Is that a smoke able Blunt? Otherwise none care.

addicted 3y ago

A 4 day work week makes a lot of sense to me but I think it will be even more useful if the 3rd day doesn’t just mean a longer weekend. One of the best uses of the 3rd day off would be being able to do things that are usually closed on a weekend (doctor visits, bank transactions, etc). So if we implemented a 4 day workweek by simply adding Friday to the weekend we would lose this benefit. What inthink would be great is if we keep the 2 day Sat/Sun weekend and then add a rotating 3rd day off, where some people take Monday, some Tuesday, some Wednesday, etc off.

karaterobot 3y ago

> Between the rise of generative artificial intelligence this year and the reckoning of work-life balance that came with the Covid-19 pandemic, efforts to shorten the workweek have accelerated. It's not clear to me how these things are connected. How does generative AI make it necessary or feasible to shorten the work week? Don't get me wrong, I'd love to try it, but I don't get the sense that generative AI has made people 20% more productive across the board. In certain cases, sure, but I'm skeptical about making that claim for every member of a large-sized company. We could say "it's okay to be less productive but have a better work-life balance", and that's fine, but it doesn't explain the quoted sentence.

nickd2001 3y ago

I've done this for 12 years now, at 3 different employers, first and current one for proportionally less pay, middle one was full hours compressed into 4 (not as good). Its a no-brainer. We tech workers are well rewarded. Most white collar westerners are more starved of time than of money. Extra day off means more time to spend with family, do hobbies etc. Employer definitely gets more than 80% out of me as I'm more rested. Pay hit is less than you might think because the last 20% is taxed more heavily than the first 20%. (due to the first X amount being tax free). Can save money by cooking from scratch more, shopping around for things. I'm not very practical or good at fixing things - if I was I'd probably save even more.

black_13 3y ago

[dead]

datadrivenangel 3y ago

I know multiple people who have moved to 4 day work weeks. Most of them are 4x10, which they still much prefer.

animitronix 3y ago

Unions.

k__ 3y ago

Most of my friends and family work part time. Those who don't at least have home office and/or can freely decide when to work. I'm a freelance technical writer, and I don't get more than one draft/outline done a day. I work 3-5 days a week, but never more than 5h. When I'm done with a bigger task for the day, the following work won't be as good. It only works if I'm really hyped for the next task.

carabiner 3y ago

It won't happen until we eject the gerontocracy from Congress. So, probably not in our lifetimes. It will become a norm to see sitting Congress persons in wheelchairs with oxygen tanks and freezing in speech. AI lol? These people don't get AI any more than my parents. They want to fund wars abroad and think houses cost $200k. They are completely out of touch.

goqu 3y ago

So far, the highest number of 4 day week companies in the private sector appears to be in the US, followed by the UK. Source: I maintain a page listing 120 4-day week companies. For every 10 new companies I add, 6-8 will be from these two countries. For anyone interested:https://okjob.io/companies/ https://okjob.io/companies/

Veliladon 3y ago

For the US the biggest impediment is healthcare is based on a per employee charge, not per hour charge. So there's this perverse incentive to extract every possible hour of labor from an employee, even with overtime at time and a half, to defray another fixed cost. Without public health care and the subsequent lifting of healthcare costs from employers back over to a progressive tax system, I can't see the 4 day week being widely adopted.

mqoca 3y ago
Is that really the case? I was under the impression that part-time jobs in the US such as retail, food, etc. were so common precisely because part-time employees do not receive the same benefits (health insurance, retirement, PTO) as full-time employees.
- NateSwift 3y ago
  Under the Affordable Care Act employees that work more than 30 hours per week (or 130 hours per month) are considered full time and require health insurance. I’d assume then that most part time employees work less than 30 hours a week

irthomasthomas 3y ago

A rabblement of lemmings. They ran down to the cliff with their economies in hand and plunged into the sea.

ysofunny 3y ago

what about a 6 hour work day and a 5 day week?

thegrim33 3y ago

Is there any argument that can be made for a four-day work week that couldn't also be made for a three-day work week? Or a two? I guess I'm trying to get at where's the line? If everyone switches to four-day, will the next rally cry be for three-day after that? What argument is there for why four-day in particular is the "right" amount and not three or five or some other number?

soupfordummies 3y ago
The line is—-and Im just spitballing here—-probably somewhere around 26-30 hours or so.
xboxnolifes 3y ago
I think we can look back and ask why we went from a 6 day to a 5 day. And then we can ask: are we happy with the outcome? Maybe one day it will be time to push for a 3-day workweek. Then maybe 2. Then 1. And maybe the post-scarcity, automated society will actually exist and we have 0.

j45 3y ago

Whomever leads the productivity of 40 hours to result in 32. This should be reasonably possible with all of the overheads that are impediments to progress given a consistent effort level between 32 and 40 hours.

llamaInSouth 3y ago

lets cut to the chase and make the robots do all the work now

SirMaster 3y ago

I'd rather stick with 40 hours and a 25% pay bump then. Never had a problem with 40 hours personally and already have more time than I know what to do with outside of work.

boring-alterego 3y ago

A majority of American nuclear plants have had a 4 day 10 hour day work week for about 20 years now. The others have alternate Fridays off to the best of my knowledge.

mbgerring 3y ago

I negotiated a 4 day workweek at my last 2 jobs and can’t recommend it enough. Still getting your full salary is tougher though.

plutoh28 3y ago

Just switch to an 8 day week with Uranusday

iteratethis 3y ago

I think the discussion should be reframed into household hours worked. It fundamentally changes the discussion. A couple working 4 day work weeks amounts to 1.6 FTE, which is considerably more compared to the traditional breadwinner model. Now if you add that life got a whole lot more demanding/complex outside of work, the sum work load of a family is rather high instead of low. Another interesting aspect we see in the Netherlands, where we work part-time a lot. Perhaps a little too much. There's a kind of defeatism regarding working more hours. People feel it doesn't really change their life for the better. When you're already settled, can pay the bills and have reasonable disposable income, working more doesn't really improve your quality of life in a very tangible way. Young people are even more apathetic. They figure they can't ever afford a home anyway, and with a pension age heading towards 70, they conclude they can't ever retire. In light of this, might as well maximize free time here and now. Society wants you to work more to combat the population ageing or to compete with China, but on the ground people don't care about this call to arms. The societal contract is broken.

perryizgr8 3y ago

If we are going to have another day off, I'd rather it be Monday than Friday. I'm the least productive on Mondays.