6 ms·

That's literally missing the entire point of it. You already have this now - always had it. There's nothing new or interesting about what you're "proposing". W

by jd115 5y ago

That's literally missing the entire point of it. You already have this now - always had it. There's nothing new or interesting about what you're "proposing". What IS new and interesting is getting employees who work 20% less, AND THEREFORE are 20% more productive (and presumably 20% happier), at the same cost.

IshKebab 5y ago
> You already have this now - always had it. There's nothing new or interesting about what you're "proposing". That's not remotely true. There's a real stigma about part-time work and most employers would just say NEXT! if you said "please can I work 4 days a week for 80% pay?".
- mettamage 5y ago
  It is possible, you need to be at a company where work is viewed as work and the rest of your life as the rest of your life. Not all companies are like this, some companies think that your work is your life. With those companies they'd probably next you. Then again, I'm just n=1.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    Yeah I mean, I've done it for about a year. But we're definitely the lucky ones.
- thesuitonym 5y ago
  Yes, but the person you're replying to is talking to an employer who wishes they could hire someone to work 80% time for 80% pay, but somehow isn't able to do that (Hint: It's because they don't really want to)
  - krickkrack 5y ago
    Employees can and do work part-time. What a silly 'diss' lol.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      Not as much as they would like to. I'd love to exchange a day for 20% cut, but it's not an option. Nobody will agree to that. Same with my colleagues. We don't need that 20% money but nobody cares. Even now when we're working from home at least a few days a week. It's simply not an option. But thanks to global changes, country by country, this mentality will slowly be changed and finally 4-day week won't be some strange option but a norm.
    - thesuitonym 5y ago
      You sure can, and you can enjoy not having health insurance, vacation time, retirement contributions, or anything else that makes working less unbearable.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Well, it's not 80% pay given benefits and overhead costs associated with having an employee. Probably more like a 30%+ cut. ADDED: Assuming it really is a 20% cut in productivity which, for office workers, probably isn't the case but would be for many others including white collar jobs like lawyers, doctors, consultants, etc.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    Yeah mean a 15% cut right, because the fixed overheads stay the same? Yeah that's probably why most employers aren't keen on it.
krickkrack 5y ago
Wow... So like magic? Why aren't all successful businesses already doing this if they can get more productivity for less time?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  In fairness - there are a lot of studies on how much people actually work in white collar jobs. I don't know of a consensus, but I've seen many studies where >20% of people self report working ~20 hours per week. Many studies like this: https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-average-worker-is-productive-for-this-many-hours.html https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver... - say that the average white collar worker only works ~20 hours per week. There is little reason to believe the vast majority of workers can't keep the same work load with less hours. Sure - maybe 20% or your workers get 80% of your work done - and those people actually do work the full 40 hours (or more). But who's to say they won't continue working more than "required"? For non-white collar jobs - particularly service workers - I think this is a completely different story. You can't give the same amount of hour-long massages in 4 days as you can in 5. You can't wait on as many tables or work the cash register for as many hours and so on... The thing is - most of these people are paid hourly - so you just need to find more workers (which currently, at full employment, is hard). If you're trying to push up wages - this seems like it obviously will. I can see why businesses would be against that. But in a world where all wages go up - there's obviously winners AND losers. Not all businesses will be hurt by higher wages. If your labor inputs are a large portion of your COGS and you don't have pricing power - that's bad (traditional restaurants, discount retail). If labor inputs are low - and you do have pricing power (digital services, luxuries) - now you have many more people with higher incomes and more time to buy your products! To me, this seems like it is good for the biggest businesses and lower-end salary workers and bad for the most common small businesses and upper-end salary workers. But I have no clue how this will turn out. I don't think anyone does, really. But I think it's a very exciting experiment we shouldn't be too pessimistic about.
  - 5y ago
dahart 5y ago
The article didn’t make any arguments about increased productivity, it was suggesting that better work-life balance was healthier and helps parents with children. What evidence is there for an increase in productivity when moving from 40 to 32 hours/week? I believe productivity increases have been demonstrated in some cases for hourly reductions when moving from overtime (say, 60 hours/week) down to 40. This is grounded in two parts - the diminishing returns of working more than 40 hours/week, and the fact that above 50 or 60 people start getting too tired and too focused on narrow tasks to make good long-term judgements. But I haven’t seen studies showing what you’re suggesting, which is a complete 100% reversal of productivity from 32 to 40 hours/week. The logical extension, of course, doesn’t work. It’s not possible to work 100% less and therefore be 100% more productive or happier. (I mean, maybe happier, but not more productive, right? ;)) And we already know the delta change in productivity for a given delta change in hours depends heavily on how many absolute hours we’re starting with, and also depends heavily on the job at hand. So is the question about what number of hours gives people peak productivity for a given job? Or peak happiness? Or is this just about making sure employment has reasonable limits, and not even trying to optimize productivity? * Edit: I googled it, and found the story about Microsoft Japan and it’s 4 day work week. I totally remember reading about this a few years ago. Lots of commentary on HN. The claim is a 40% increase when going to a 4 day week. It was measured for only 1 month, and they changed many other aspects (notably, they capped meeting times). Many people pointing out this is likely Hawthorne Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect). Personally, 40% seems completely implausible, which is why I wrote it off and forgot about it. It seems obvious that if that’s true, it means something was going terribly wrong with their 5 day week. Or that this effect isn’t measuring the change in hours at all.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  I think we can agree that working 100% of the time leads to poor societal outcomes and 0% of the time leads to poor societal outcomes. We probably have some shared view that it’s Laffer-curvish without being sure of the shape. It just seems unlikely to me that 40 hrs is a total system optimum since it was a historical accident. Personally I think it might be 50 hrs/week but it just seems strange that we’d believe that 40 is the peak of this curve.
parasense 5y ago
> You already have this now - always had it. There's nothing new or interesting about what you're "proposing". Where are these rainbow unicorns who produce 20% more value in 80% of the time?

by jd115 5y ago

IshKebab 5y ago

> You already have this now - always had it. There's nothing new or interesting about what you're "proposing". That's not remotely true. There's a real stigma about part-time work and most employers would just say NEXT! if you said "please can I work 4 days a week for 80% pay?".

mettamage 5y ago
It is possible, you need to be at a company where work is viewed as work and the rest of your life as the rest of your life. Not all companies are like this, some companies think that your work is your life. With those companies they'd probably next you. Then again, I'm just n=1.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Yeah I mean, I've done it for about a year. But we're definitely the lucky ones.
thesuitonym 5y ago
Yes, but the person you're replying to is talking to an employer who wishes they could hire someone to work 80% time for 80% pay, but somehow isn't able to do that (Hint: It's because they don't really want to)
- krickkrack 5y ago
  Employees can and do work part-time. What a silly 'diss' lol.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    Not as much as they would like to. I'd love to exchange a day for 20% cut, but it's not an option. Nobody will agree to that. Same with my colleagues. We don't need that 20% money but nobody cares. Even now when we're working from home at least a few days a week. It's simply not an option. But thanks to global changes, country by country, this mentality will slowly be changed and finally 4-day week won't be some strange option but a norm.
  - thesuitonym 5y ago
    You sure can, and you can enjoy not having health insurance, vacation time, retirement contributions, or anything else that makes working less unbearable.
ghaff 5y ago
Well, it's not 80% pay given benefits and overhead costs associated with having an employee. Probably more like a 30%+ cut. ADDED: Assuming it really is a 20% cut in productivity which, for office workers, probably isn't the case but would be for many others including white collar jobs like lawyers, doctors, consultants, etc.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Yeah mean a 15% cut right, because the fixed overheads stay the same? Yeah that's probably why most employers aren't keen on it.

krickkrack 5y ago

Wow... So like magic? Why aren't all successful businesses already doing this if they can get more productivity for less time?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
In fairness - there are a lot of studies on how much people actually work in white collar jobs. I don't know of a consensus, but I've seen many studies where >20% of people self report working ~20 hours per week. Many studies like this: https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-average-worker-is-productive-for-this-many-hours.html https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver... - say that the average white collar worker only works ~20 hours per week. There is little reason to believe the vast majority of workers can't keep the same work load with less hours. Sure - maybe 20% or your workers get 80% of your work done - and those people actually do work the full 40 hours (or more). But who's to say they won't continue working more than "required"? For non-white collar jobs - particularly service workers - I think this is a completely different story. You can't give the same amount of hour-long massages in 4 days as you can in 5. You can't wait on as many tables or work the cash register for as many hours and so on... The thing is - most of these people are paid hourly - so you just need to find more workers (which currently, at full employment, is hard). If you're trying to push up wages - this seems like it obviously will. I can see why businesses would be against that. But in a world where all wages go up - there's obviously winners AND losers. Not all businesses will be hurt by higher wages. If your labor inputs are a large portion of your COGS and you don't have pricing power - that's bad (traditional restaurants, discount retail). If labor inputs are low - and you do have pricing power (digital services, luxuries) - now you have many more people with higher incomes and more time to buy your products! To me, this seems like it is good for the biggest businesses and lower-end salary workers and bad for the most common small businesses and upper-end salary workers. But I have no clue how this will turn out. I don't think anyone does, really. But I think it's a very exciting experiment we shouldn't be too pessimistic about.
- 5y ago

dahart 5y ago

The article didn’t make any arguments about increased productivity, it was suggesting that better work-life balance was healthier and helps parents with children. What evidence is there for an increase in productivity when moving from 40 to 32 hours/week? I believe productivity increases have been demonstrated in some cases for hourly reductions when moving from overtime (say, 60 hours/week) down to 40. This is grounded in two parts - the diminishing returns of working more than 40 hours/week, and the fact that above 50 or 60 people start getting too tired and too focused on narrow tasks to make good long-term judgements. But I haven’t seen studies showing what you’re suggesting, which is a complete 100% reversal of productivity from 32 to 40 hours/week. The logical extension, of course, doesn’t work. It’s not possible to work 100% less and therefore be 100% more productive or happier. (I mean, maybe happier, but not more productive, right? ;)) And we already know the delta change in productivity for a given delta change in hours depends heavily on how many absolute hours we’re starting with, and also depends heavily on the job at hand. So is the question about what number of hours gives people peak productivity for a given job? Or peak happiness? Or is this just about making sure employment has reasonable limits, and not even trying to optimize productivity? * Edit: I googled it, and found the story about Microsoft Japan and it’s 4 day work week. I totally remember reading about this a few years ago. Lots of commentary on HN. The claim is a 40% increase when going to a 4 day week. It was measured for only 1 month, and they changed many other aspects (notably, they capped meeting times). Many people pointing out this is likely Hawthorne Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect). Personally, 40% seems completely implausible, which is why I wrote it off and forgot about it. It seems obvious that if that’s true, it means something was going terribly wrong with their 5 day week. Or that this effect isn’t measuring the change in hours at all.

renewiltord 5y ago
I think we can agree that working 100% of the time leads to poor societal outcomes and 0% of the time leads to poor societal outcomes. We probably have some shared view that it’s Laffer-curvish without being sure of the shape. It just seems unlikely to me that 40 hrs is a total system optimum since it was a historical accident. Personally I think it might be 50 hrs/week but it just seems strange that we’d believe that 40 is the peak of this curve.

parasense 5y ago

> You already have this now - always had it. There's nothing new or interesting about what you're "proposing". Where are these rainbow unicorns who produce 20% more value in 80% of the time?