I would literally do any of those for a four-day week. It would be nicer if my job just sliced a day off, but since I know that’s unlikely, I’ll make sacrifices to get it here quicker.
The attitude of being willing to compromise to get what I want, rather than waiting until my perfect conditions are met? I just don’t think it’s a reasonable expectation for people to stop thinking like that. I use compromise every day of my life - I used it ten minutes ago, to choose a slightly damaged monitor for less money over a brand-new, more expensive one.
I am of the mind that the faster we can get a few companies offering a four-day week, the faster it will become standard - or at least common. We saw it happen with WFH: Companies now have to expect to compete with offers that include remote work, so they either have to provide it as well, or improve other parts of their offer.
That's not compromising, it's groveling at their feet begging them to give you the slightest bit of respect, a tiny little crumb of the ever growing profits.
I know what a union is. Unless you’re about start one, recruit people, and bargain collectively with your employer, I suggest you start somewhere more realistic.
It’s true, between my full-time job and home improvement projects, I would not be able found and run a union. I don’t think anyone who knows me would describe me as ‘lazy.’
You sound like a hormonal teenager. I hope for your sake that you actually are.
What an outrageous take. I am making an exchange that makes me happier. I get something; they get something. Otherwise I sit and wait and fume and get nothing.
I can want one thing and accept that my current reality won’t provide it to me without being an enemy of the cause. I’m genuinely shocked that such a hardline, absolutist mindset is the prevalent one in this community.
Unless you're one of the very few people who's pay has been even close to keeping up with inflation, they've already taken more from you, and you haven't gotten shit in return. Don't give up more for no reason just in the name of "compromise". The bare minimum is wage increases and better work life balance
Bending over for big daddy business only fucks you and your fellow workers
Fewer vacation days? Heck no. If I wanted to burn vacation to get a 4 day week, I’d do it already.
Longer commute? Heck no. WFH or I walk.
Pay cut? Heck no. You KNOW that 99% of people will be just as productive with a 4 day work week as a 5 day, so why take less money for the same output?
Taking a step back in career? Not like I’m shooting for being a VP or anything, so I guess I don’t care if I don’t get promoted to senior middle manager meeting organizer, so who cares on that one.
So yes, they can absolute go fuck themselves. The only way a realignment will occur is if workers organize, unionize, and demand it at a national level.
I guess I’m actually a strong data point for the four day work week. I have never been psychologically stable on a five day work week. On every five day schedule, I shake myself apart. I end up suicidally anxious and depressed, have repeatedly considered inpatient treatment. I worked four days at my last job and work four at my current job. I was/am the highest performing employee at both of these jobs. I even enjoy the longer hours per day. I get the dip in productivity at hour 5-6 that people have mentioned in here, but I just need a break for lunch and caffeine to have another four or five hours outperforming my coworkers. It’s that third day off that I need, the one in the middle that doesn’t touch any workday. If I get that one untethered day, I show back up enthusiastic and ready to kick ass. It definitely helps that I genuinely love my industry and job overall (I work at a dispensary, which is very important to me) but that didn’t stop my latest attempt at a five day work week from trying to kill me like all the others.
Same here. I’m a fiber tech for a cable company, and working 4×10’s are awesome. I only work 2 extra hours, and I barely get more work than I did when I worked 8 hours.
Not to question msnbc or anything, but these stats seem like utter bullshit. Only 10% of offerings are remote? They must be including fast food and manufacturing jobs in their data, because when I look at LinkedIn it’s like 70%.
Unfortunately for LinkedIn I found out a lot are fake and they dont actually hire you remote, and they tell you straight up at the first interview… They’re basically doing it as SEO and wasting everybody’s time
This is not the way, it’s better to work less hours per day than working more hours and fewer days. Productivity peaks at 6 hours, after that you’re either less focused or just doing unproductive things. It’s also gonna burn out harder.
I think flexibility is key. There are days where I peak my productivity at 4 hours. There are days where I get in the flow and can be productive for 12.
That’s admittedly a great point. I think my record was either 12 or 16 hours a day, but it’s incredibly exceptional. Anything above 8 hours of actual, productive work is the result of high enjoyment and focus or a deadline panic mode that’s not sustainable. I think setting 6 hours as a baseline and being able to tweak from there would be ideal, but setting an expectation of over 8 hours as a tradeoff for fewer days is harmful imo.
How does me thinking it’s more sustainable to work fewer hours per day instead of more make me out to be a greedy businessman? I didn’t even propose working more days, just fewer hours.
What about less days and less hours ? That’s just me (or is it?), but I’m always better and more enthusiastic at anything I do when that thing doesn’t take up 80% of my awake time. I always solve problems when going back to them after a pause -always !
I mean yeah, that could absolutely work. My point isn’t so much about the total amount of hours or days, just that it’s not worth piling up too many hours just to work fewer days.
Yeah, totally respect your opinion, but I emphatically disagree with it. The goal of what’s being discussed here isn’t to maximize production for the sake of shareholders, it’s to maximize quality of life for employees. To that end, five six-hour days are worse than four 8-to-10-hour days.
If I start work at 8 and get off work at 2:30 or 3, I still can’t start my camping trip a day early, or spend the day at the water park with my kids. I still have to give up n x 10 hours of my life, where n is my commute time, assume I work in-office.
I would much rather work until 630 Monday through Thursday, and have an extra day where full-day activities are possible every week. That’s worth more to me than 10 extra hours per week of after-work time.
I don’t see why companies wouldn’t want people to work fewer days a week. Paying at least 20% less compared to a full week seems great for them, given they won’t get 20% less value. Since some days are already largely spent twiddling thumbs waiting for things to happen.
What you’re describing is “part time” and companies LOVE part timers. Lower pay, no benefits. What people actually want is full time, but full time means 4 day work weeks. Around Europe there have been tests where everyone maintains their salary but works 4 days instead of 5. The workers are better rested and more productive so even despite less time worked per week, the net work output does not decrease.
Why not have different options for full time? Or is that what is being advocated for? But my original question was why would companies be opposed to 4 day full time?
The perception of lost productivity, whether true or false, would be the opposition. I’m sure with a lot of specific jobs, productivity is highly maximized even at 40 hours. And in customer service positions, you might still need coverage 16 hours a day 7 days a week. So ultimately if your whole team of 12 works 8 fewer hours a week each, they’ll need to hire 3 more people to cover the lost time. If nobody’s weekly pay amount changed, now suddenly your labor costs have risen 25%.
I’d assume they’d pay less so the hourly rate would be the same. Maybe it’s the training and getting up to speed the has a longer payback time? Or just communicating between more people to do the same work is difficult?
The tests I’ve read about in recent times have not netted a loss in pay - simply a reduction in hours but an increase in productivity because workers are well rested and happier with their work life balance.
Again - what you’re describing already exists, it’s called a part time job. If it comes with a loss in pay, then how improved is your work life balance when you have to go get a second job to supplement your income as a result of transitioning to a 32 hour work week? And how much more productive are you going to be if it means you’re now working a 6 or 7 day work week?
I was thinking moreso in terms of higher paying jobs. Programmers often complain about how draining their jobs are, but it pays so well they stay with it. I think a lot of them would be happy for 20% less time for 20% less pay. I’m in engineering, and I would think hard about it as well. I could live off 20% less, and I would be happier with more free time.
Part time doesn’t have benefits does it? Or as many protections against getting fired? So I don’t think that’s exactly equivalent.
Productivity has increased disproportialy to workers pay the last 40 years. Working less days and less hours is only fair considering that most of the benefits went to the employers side. 4 day/ 20 hour weeks should be the norm. And people should be able to work from home for as long as possible to avoid commuting and the barbaric micromanagement of the low/middle admins
I work a 9 day week. It’s shit. 4 day work week only works if you don’t have to do a 38hr week crammed into the remaining days.
I have to do 9 hr days to get that day off. The Friday I have to work is only a 4 hr day.
I often dream about just working all 7 days just so each day is shorter. If I did 4 hrs on Saturday and Sunday I could just do 7 hr days.
I fucking hate 9 hr days. I’m completely over it by 6 hrs.
I also consider just cutting back my hours to 24hrs, but then I think about my retirement. I don’t want to be super poor when I’m old so I need to work as much as possible for the next 10 years atleast before dialing back a bit until retirement.
I really need to go look up these work studies on the 32 hour work week. I fully believe that a 32 hour work week in an office setting may boost productivity… But since I work in construction, a 32 hour work week doesn’t seem like it would speed anything up on my end. The work generally just takes time. I can only measure, cut, attach, and repeat at a certain speed, and no amount of rest is going to speed that up.
I worked in an excavating company for a bit. One old crochety guy worked 12 hours every day running an excavator. A younger guy who had stake in the company (also drove an excavator), who never worked more than 8 in a day, looked at him and said: “Why do you only get half as much done, but it takes you twice as long?”
The young guy wasn’t wrong. Being tired does slow you down. But yeah, a four day work week in construction, might slow the project down a bit. But they should just hire more people. And on top of that 6 hour days with additional staff would make the work go a lot faster.
This is why I’d like to read the actual studies. I can only speak on my own anecdotal evidence of 8 hours 5 days a week isn’t draining on me to an extent that I’d actually notice an increase in productivity if I were to only work 4.
That’s what I thought until I got a union job that did 4 10 hour shifts a week. The work days didn’t feel much longer, but that 3rd day off a week made it possible to plan short trips any weekend I wanted without needing to take time off work. It also did wonders for my mental health to have a day off every week where I wasn’t recovering from, or thinking about going back to work.
Working 4-10s is good stuff when the job allows. It also does increase productivity in many ways, mostly due to less overall time setting up. Definitely a win-win.
From the few studies I’ve seen headlines for, and a lot of the stuff over in work reform, the topic is usually about 32 hour work weeks.
Is there even enough of a supply of people to just add more people? I’m with you, I’m just skeptical about the logistics of how many people are available that have an interest and skills in (or desire to learn) those trades that aren’t already employed in them.
A lot of U.S. factory jobs are 12 hour days, alternating between 4 day on, 3 days off, 3 days on, 4 days off. Probably not what most people are thinking of though.
My last cushy office job was 4.5 days/week about half the time (beginning of the quarter was 4.5 day weeks, end of quarter was 5 day week), and seemed to work well. Some stupid workaholic assholes would complain about the 4.5 day work weeks though.
In my experience, productivity per hour increases the less hours people work. Workaholics are just trying to stay away from their family, or don’t know what to do with themselves in their free-time, IMO.
12s do make sense in Healthcare where every handoff is an opportunity to miss important information. For instance if you forget to mention all the specifics of all your patients injuries after a car wreck, the next nurse might not realize their sinuses are cracked and just go ahead and insert that nasogastric feeding tube into their brain.
3 handoffs a day instead of 2 is 1.5 as many chances to make an error like that.
That said, 2x12s a week instead of 3 sounds lovely.
Ahhhhhh, but one is less likely to make an error when they’re tired. In sure that even nursing could rotate to a 3x shift per day cycle and the wheels wouldn’t fall off.
Don’t say you’re willing to make sacrifices for it, because the capitalist machine will and they won’t be the kind of sacrifices you’ll like. You want the 4 day work week do ya? Well, time to slash a little down of those benefits and any other dirty trick they’ll pull.
Inb4 “if you only want to work for 4 of 5 days then you must only want 80% pay and oh by the way we still expect you to come in all 5 days anyways because corporate culture or something.”
We can do that but dang, we’ll have to get rid of health insurance. Oh, you want health insurance? Darn, we just can’t see any possible way to do both.
Funnily enough that would push a lot more people into the Healthcare Marketplace (Obamacare) which is often better than healthcare offered through work, depending on your circumstances. Then we might get more people asking why we don’t just switch to socialized medicine and be done with it.
There was a story about a guy in Google who, as it turned out, worked only an hour a day, and the rest of the time he worked on his passion project. The thing is, he did everything he was supposed to do, every metric was OK, all the tickets were closed and everyone was happy.
When it was posted on one IT forum, the comments were full of people accusing him of stealing money from the company and how he should be fired into the sun. All of those commenters were basically a regular IT guys. The lack of class solidarity is astonishing.
As the old saying goes, companies always want to fire the IT staff because everything’s fine and nothing ever goes wrong.
If you’re doing your job properly, then you basically never do anything.
Yesterday I did literally nothing, except at 4:55 p.m. somebody rang up because the spam filter had trapped an email that he wanted. So I was in work for 8 hours in order to fix an issue that took 2 minutes to fix.
But the company know how often I receive calls, but they’ve been around for decades now, so I suspect that they probably worked out back in the 90s that firing IT staff because they that much work to do, just results in them needing to hire more IT staff later on.
When I was younger, I worked as an IT guy on a printing factory, we had 24 hours shifts. The day was a usual IT shit, and at nights we did a little bit of maintenance but mostly we were on standby to fix IT stuff in the factory, most of the printing was done on the nights so the fresh press goes out in the morning. Mostly we were paid handsomely to play WOW the whole night, and once in a blue moon go to the factory floor and reboot something or repair a patchcord or reinstall a memory stick or something.
Then the company got merged with the other media company, they took over the factory, and their first decision was to remove night shifts, because why do you need to pay those IT wankers, they don’t do anything most of the time. Of course most of us left but they had their own IT guys and everything was great, they were able to conserve so much money on salary, until one day one of the computers run out of disk space in the middle of the night and that clogged the whole damn factory, and since all the IT was home asleep, nobody was able to clear the cache, so nothing got printed, everyone involved lost millions, and the whole company was ultimately bankrupted because of this.
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