
Why Basecamp CEO Jason Fried Believes 40 Hours Is Plenty - tabbyjabby
http://www.hrisdead.com/blog/2016/4/5/basecamp-ceo-jason-fried-40-hours
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wkirby
We encourage developers to work 20 hours a week. Our experience is any
engineer worth their salt is as productive in 20 hours as they were in 40 ---
if anything, they're more productive. We also have an unlimited vacation
policy, but we enforce a minimum of two weeks a year, which has really helped
ensure people actually use their vacation time.

~~~
_pmf_
> if anything, they're more productive

I cannot count the times that I've spent the whole Friday on some problem just
to have the solution occur to me out of nowhere at some moment during the
weekend.

~~~
wkirby
The most productive engineering I ever do is while I'm washing the dishes.

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acconrad
Jason Fried is a master at managerial science. Hopefully some day we will look
back on him as a pioneer in treating employees well, and we'll wonder why we
were decades behind him on employee satisfaction and retention.

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drzaiusapelord
Why not 35 or 30 hours or even 25 hours? That last hour or two or three at
work are near worthless for me and just about everyone I know. Having parents
leaving between 2-4 means they'll be able to pick up their kids directly from
school or limit "latch key" alone time. Non-parents will certainly enjoy less
time at work and more sunlight and time for physical activities while its
still light out.

Seems to me, the dominating narrative, driven by some questionable characters,
is longer school hours to match business hours. No, we should be lowering
business hours to match existing school hours. We can't compete via hard nose
puritanical work ethic turned up to 11. The puritans were, frankly, miserable
creatures and 'hard work' environments universally create miserable people who
ultimately aren't any more competitive than the less working competitors. Its
time to consider the emotional experience of being human and as we have more
and more automation options, to consider eliminating a few work hours per week
and perhaps eventually replace work as we know it.

There's a fight for the future that's particularly ugly. The "to compete with
China/India/whoever, we must become them" vs the "we can do better with less
human labor and with more automation." If the former camp wins, it'll be
horrific for our quality of life and will not produce the gains these people
expect. If the latter wins, we will all have better lives and we'll change our
society to handle high levels of unemployment and under-employment.

~~~
Jemmeh
Actually they have "Summer hours".

"4-day Summer Work Weeks: May 1 through August 31, we work a Monday-Thursday
8-hour day work week, aka “summer hours”, for a total of 32-hour weeks. Brand
new employees may have to complete a training program per their team lead to
be eligible. Note: The customer support team staggers their days off so we
always have 24/7 coverage."

[https://m.signalvnoise.com/employee-benefits-at-
basecamp-d2d...](https://m.signalvnoise.com/employee-benefits-at-
basecamp-d2d46fd06c58#.c7gk399kl)

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voxy_dale
At Voxy we have a 40 hour policy for our engineers, it's been in place for
about 15 months. Before that it wasn't unusual for engineers to work 12 to 14
hour days. It's increased our engineer satisfaction tremendously, productivity
is actually up 40% with fewer hours and we haven't had a single engineer leave
in over a year. Would do again 10/10.

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ryandvm
I've been contracting for about a year now and, personally, I'd say even 30
hours is plenty. It may be anecdotal, but I am far more productive in 30 hours
than I ever was in 40+ at any of my salaried jobs.

In large part I attribute this to my environment which, now that I'm working
from home, is almost completely free of distractions. I get started at about 8
AM and wrap things up by 2 or 3 on most days - which is right when my kids get
home. I clock out for anything more than a bathroom break which means my
clients are getting a far more potent work-hour out of me then they get from
their employees.

The reality is that the 40 work day is an anachronism; and it can't die soon
enough. Start evaluating your employees by whether they're actually giving you
the value you're paying them for and not by how much time they clock in your
building working, looking at Facebook, or goofing off in the breakroom.

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jedberg
I wonder if they have any employees in the southern hemisphere, and if so, are
the summer hours flipped for them, or do they just get winter hours instead?

