
More bosses give four-day workweek a try - hhs
https://www.npr.org/2020/02/21/807133509/enjoy-the-extra-day-off-more-bosses-give-4-day-workweek-a-try
======
mjayhn
I can't begin to explain how much less stress I encounter in day to day life
having just one week day to stay home. Just having a day to be able to easily
knock out chores between Jira issues; drop the car off at the dealer, sell
something on craigslist, complete a house project, go to the dentist, meet the
handyman, go to the bank, etc is so nice.

All of these things wind up on the back burner when I'm in the middle of high
stress projects and forced to sit at a desk for 8-10 hours a day.

All that does is lead to more stress because now I'm falling behind on my life
tasks and have to burn a weekend catching up when I should be able to spend
that weekend de-stressing.

I know not everyone is as sapped for energy as I am after work, I hate that
I'm this way. But after leaving work and siting in an hour of traffic my
energy is just sapped from me by the time I make it home. I have enough energy
to feed myself and sometimes work out to maintain my health..

~~~
volkk
> I know not everyone is as sapped for energy as I am after work, but I leave
> work and sit in an hour of traffic. My energy is just sapped from me by the
> time I make it home. I have enough energy to feed myself and sometimes work
> out to maintain my health..

I know that some people just dont have the privilege of living close to their
jobs, but after spending one internship getting up at 5;45am to drive with my
dad to work to beat the traffic for 1hr, and then spending 1.5-2 hours driving
back in heavy traffic in NYC, I vowed to never ever live in a place where I
have to drive that far to get to work. 2 months of that and I was already
losing my will to live. My dad did it for 15 years and I can see why towards
the last leg of that job, he was bitter and angry on a daily basis. That is
not a way to live.

~~~
tombert
I live in NYC, and I have a roughly 1 hour commute each way, but I just take
the train everywhere.

Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that taking a train to
work is a _lot_ less stressful than driving every day. At least on the train,
I can read, or pull out my laptop, or just play a video game.

~~~
kempbellt
I had the same experience when I lived in NYC. A 45 minute commute on the
subway was a lot less stressful than the 45 minute bumper-to-bumper driving
commute I do now (in Seattle). I would usually play mindless puzzle games and
listen to music on my commute. Other people mention the train delays being
stressful, but my company had a standing "subway delays ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯" attitude
about showing up late. People would show up between 9:30 and 10:30

I don't ever recall feeling comfortable pulling out a laptop on the train
though. Not even for fear of someone stealing it. I'd be worried about a
subway monkey doing some spinning dance move and destroying the screen, or
some hipster spilling coffee on it when the train slows down. Fond memories...

~~~
kevindong
An interesting lifehack I hypothesized earlier this week and confirmed today
is to work from home for the first hour or so of the day and then head into
work after the morning rush has substantially subsided.

Until today, I've typically gotten on the subway between 9:45am and 10am for
my 30 minute commute to work (that's bed to desk travel time). The train
usually wasn't packed, but I was certainly squeezed up against people.
Perfectly tolerable, but certainly not comfortable.

Today I did an hour's worth of work from 9:30am to 10:30am and then I commuted
to my office arriving just before my 11am standup. The 10:30am train was
wonderfully empty in comparison to the 9:45am train. I got a seat for the
first time in months! Furthermore, that hour of work was wonderfully
productive since my apt is dead silent and no one was around to disturb me. I
got most of my "heads-down, high-concentration" work done for the day in that
hour.

~~~
SenHeng
I live in Japan and have done this last year to great effect.

My work place is about an hour and a half commute and the trains are
incredibly packed starting from around 7am all the way till 9.15am.

What I've done was wake up and started working from home sometime between
7-8am till around 9.15am, then leave for the 9.30am train and I'll be in the
office by 11.

Work gets done and I don't get stressed from silly crowds. I also do the
reverse and leave work around 4pm to avoid the return rush.

It's a small change but it's an incredible quality of live improvement. This
is literal pareto, 20% effort with 80% effect. Do it.

~~~
anthony_barker
Doing the same in Paris. 1-2 hours at home and then go in. Leave work later
though 7-7:30 pm to available for US west coast people

------
Ididntdothis
It seems a lot of these experiments are a success. But after a while somebody
gets greedy and thinks “we get good productivity at 32 hours. I wonder how
much more we could get at 40 hours?” And soon you are back at the old
schedule.

Something similar happened at my company. For once a project was ahead of
schedule. So instead of thinking that the system worked well and keep working
in relaxed manner management decided to “pull in” the deadline and suddenly
the project was a death march again.

For some people it’s hard to accept that relaxed people are productive. They
want to see stress and overtime or they will think that people are
underperforming.

~~~
toper-centage
Is it not also the responsibility of employees to ask for that benefit?
Specially developers have that leverage. We have the ability of changing the
whole job landscape.

~~~
castlecrasher2
>Is it not also the responsibility of employees to ask for that benefit?

I've been on both sides of this equation and yes employees have a
responsibility to speak up, but given the dynamic of the relationship it's
easy to see why they wouldn't. If managers aren't interested in listening then
speaking up can just get you on their bad side.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Organizing activities to form a union is protected by US federal law.

If you’re afraid of management, why are you working there if you’re not
attempting to level the playing field?

------
gdubs
When the 40 hour workweek was first proposed, doomsayers said it would be the
end of the American economy. The opposite happened, and as injuries and
illness decreased, productivity increased. [1]

Something to keep in mind, as it’s counterintuitive and the instinct is to
say, “that can never happen here”, or, “it’ll never work.”

1: Robert Gordon, “The Rise and Fall is American Growth”

~~~
mortenjorck
I'm genuinely impressed that the Overton window on hours seems to have changed
since the last time the 4-day work week was in the headlines.

Not that long ago, it was unquestioned that four days meant 4x10. It was
simply unthinkable that we would consider less than forty hours "full time." I
even skipped this article initially, expecting it to have the same
assumptions! And yet, they specifically report that Shake Shack cut back to
_32 hours without cutting pay._

I would have expected service-sector jobs to be the last to see something like
this. And if a burger chain can do it, an office where we spend 40 hours in a
combination of productivity and reading HN can absolutely do it.

~~~
wasdfff
Service sector does not want you working 40 hours a week for benefits
purposes.

~~~
piffey
You can never afford those benefits on a service sector job anyways.

~~~
dv_dt
At a time of coronavirus outbreaks in the news, I have to think that models of
propagation should account for national differences like which areas have
required vacation & sicktime benefits as well as universal healthcare.

------
kody
I worked 4x10s when I worked for the Army and it was awesome. 3 day weekends
take off so much pressure, and come Sunday night I was starting to feel the
itch to get back into work rather than the dreadful feeling that I 'wasted' my
weekend. The only work experience that was better than this was 100%
flexibility to work remotely and/or flex hours.

So there's my anecdata for you :)

~~~
standardUser
10 hours really seems extreme. I am certain that the vast majority of office
workers could produce the same level of output at a 4x9 schedule as they do in
a 5x8 or would in a 4x10.

And most would be profoundly happier people.

~~~
burnte
The vast majority of people I know who can do four 10s love it, and find the
10 hour days aren't really much different then the 8s. I'd love it if I could
do four 10s, but in a company that does 24/7 healthcare, that's not an option
for support staff like IT, not even at my level.

~~~
kody
Yeah, in my experience the difference between 8 and 10 hour workdays were
negligible (except certain times of year where I'd get to my desk before
sunrise and leave well after sunset). Anything I'd do with my "extra" 2 hours
per day I'd happily batch into my free Friday.

~~~
davidjtighe
I completely see where you're coming from, but having kids changes the
calculus completely.

~~~
burnte
Not necessarily. Most folks have kids, most folks I know that prefer four 10s
have kids, and like having that fifth day off.

~~~
duderific
I barely see/interact with my kids on an 8 hour day. On a 10 hour day, I'd
probably miss them completely.

I would like one day a week when I'm not working OR looking after the kids,
however. That would be amazing. It would be great to give it a try and see how
it worked out. Unfortunately my employer is a hardass and doesn't even allow
work from home, let alone fewer days a week.

------
lwb
Something felt fishy about their claim that number of hours worked has been
climbing in the United States so I checked their source. It turns out that
"average annual hours worked" has changed from 1,780 in 2011 to 1,786 last
year. This seems like barely a rounding error...

On the other hand, if you look at the FRED website it shows that average
annual hours worked has massively decreased in the last 50 years:
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEUSA065NRUG)

1951, for example, shows 2,030 hours worked on average. That's the equivalent
of more than six additional weeks of full time work.

I would say that Keynes's prediction that economic growth could get to the
point where we would only need to work 15 hours a week (750 hours per year,
assuming 2 weeks vacation) is ... trending towards becoming true? At current
trends, it will take another ~280 years.

(Obviously this is a silly prediction but, an interesting thought experiment.)

~~~
dcre
The overall average per person has declined (though not really since the 80s).
However, in the same time frame, the proportion of women in formal work went
from 35% to 60% [1]. So the story for men and women looks very different. Note
also that for women this is a shift from domestic labor to formal labor, so
it's probably not much of an increase in hours worked even though it looks
like that on paper. However, in the same time frame, I believe men spend a bit
more time on housework than they used to, which is not included in formal
hours worked.

The point of all this is simply that it is difficult to make conclusions about
labor market trends from average annual hours worked.

[1]
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002)

~~~
twelvechairs
There's more too - an apparent rise in unpaid 'off the books' overtime [0],
the rise of mobile and email creating expectations of evening/weekend work,
and increasing travel times to work.

[0] An average of 4.6 hours per week in Australia across all industries
according to this
[https://www.tai.org.au/sites/default/files/GHOTD%202019%20Fi...](https://www.tai.org.au/sites/default/files/GHOTD%202019%20Final_0.pdf)

------
ausbah
"Natalie Nagele, co-founder and CEO of Wildbit, has heard from other leaders
who say it didn't work for them. She says it fails when employees aren't
motivated and where managers don't trust employees."

I would muse that employees usually aren't motivated because they hate their
working conditions, usually imposed by shitty managers / company cultures.
Managers & companies may complain about "unproductive" or "motivated"
employees as if its some personal failing of their employees, but news flash
people aren't going to care unless they have a reason to care. If you want
employees to enjoy their work and actually be motivated to some degree greater
than the bare minimum, give them working conditions that they enjoy. Give them
retirement benefits, less working hours, less micromanagement, more pay,
remote working options, etc.

This is a problem that stems from crappy notions of how work cultures "ought
to be" in America, and can only be solved by destroying those notions and
getting rid of the idea "productivity above all else" in companies.

~~~
globular-toast
Unfortunately some people are just lazy. At my job they introduced 10% time to
be used for personal development, but it's been abundantly clear that most
employees are simply taking it as holiday.

------
perfunctory
In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every
person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every
painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures
may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by
sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence
needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will
have lost the taste and capacity. Men who, in their professional work, have
become interested in some phase of economics or government, will be able to
develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of
university economists often seem lacking in reality. Medical men will have the
time to learn about the progress of medicine, teachers will not be
exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine methods things which they learnt
in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.

\-- Bertrand Russell

[http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html](http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html)

~~~
jariel
This is a funny kind of bubble quote, by someone I think out of touch with
most people.

I believe most people would watch TV, play cards, play video games. This is
what they already do with their spare time, there's no reason to believe there
wouldn't be more of it.

It's amazing what a 'schedule' and 'working with others' and 'requirements'
and 'deadlines' can do - it brings people to life and is probably the only way
hard things get done.

For a certain kind of person, some free time would lead to a lot of
exploration but for most people it would not.

~~~
nathan_compton
Who cares? Sounds like a win/win to me. Some people get to relax more and the
curious or creative get to explore or create more.

~~~
jariel
When nobody works it's definitely 'lose lose lose' for almost everyone.

------
amyjess
Going down to a 32-hour workweek would be lovely, but I'm simply not
interested in doing 4×10. I'd rather get home at a decent hour than have an
extra day off.

~~~
echelon
To each their own. My work week is spent on work and I can't really enjoy the
time before or after work. I'll never enjoy M-F.

I'd rather have a 4x10 than a 5x8.

If my side hustle ever graduates into a startup and I start hiring other
people, we're doing 4x10 or 4x9.

~~~
TrueGeek
Why not let your employees choose? From what I’ve seen single people love
4x10, people with kids don’t. 2 extra hours a day means my kid can’t possibly
make it to practice in time 4 days a week.

~~~
geddy
No kid yet but 2 more hours working currently would guarantee that I did
absolutely nothing but work and do random household bullshit for the entire
time I am awake, with zero time to decompress from work.

9 hours maybe, but 10 hours? I'm a software engineer, I can't produce quality
work for 10 straight hours. Most good, solid work gets done in a 4-5 hour
period. 10 hours in front of a computer isn't good for anyone.

------
k__
I'm from Germany and none of my friends works 40h anymore.

They're all down to 50-80%

This is even regulated by the law, your employer has to allow you to reduce
your work time, only in some extreme cases they can deny it.

Works like a charm.

~~~
frockington1
I like the idea of working less, but it's going to be hard to use Germany as a
poster child. The German economy hasn't been doing to great recently. In my
opinion it's largely due to carrying lagging EU economies, but it will be hard
to use a struggling economy as a positive indicator

Germany: [https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-
growth](https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-growth) US:
[https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-
growth](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth)

~~~
standardUser
The German standard of living is exceptional. Abstract worries about "the
economy not doing too well" don't really matter until the standard of living
declines in some meaningful way for a lot of people.

Owners demand perpetual growth. People demand comfortable lives and occasional
vacations. Most achieve that in Germany. There probably isn't a single better
"poster child" of a prosperous society with anywhere near the same population.

~~~
frockington1
I'd rather be an owner in America with perpetual growth. Difference of culture
I guess.

~~~
siquick
That growth only really benefits a tiny minority of the country though. There
are far more people in a precarious position in the US than in Germany

------
erikerikson
I am using this as a company/boss/role filter and it is fantastic. Some are
offended that I think I have any control (literally uncontrolled in their
negative response, "how dare you ask that?"). Some seem confused ("but you're
supposed to be lying to present an image of the perfect employee, aren't
you?"). Others are glad for the request and appreciate my honest
straightforwardness and willingness to discard convention to achieve better
results. There's been sufficient discussion of this that it no longer counts
as innovative but I've always been on the leading edge (sometimes, sadly so)
and am obviously willing to take risks.

Always remember that interviews are mutual.

------
saghul
I've been working 32 hour weeks ever since my daughter was born 2 years ago.
Mondays are my day off, we go to music classes, walk on the park and just
spend time together.

On tuesdays I'm "hungry" when I go back to work. I think this is the perfect
balance for me and I feel I'm more productive than ever.

It may not be for everyone, and it's definitely a privilege, but if you can, I
really encourage you to try it out.

------
jt2190
Counter-point, from the article:

> Natalie Nagele, co-founder and CEO of Wildbit, has heard from other leaders
> who say it didn't work for them. She says it fails when employees aren't
> motivated and where managers don't trust employees.

Also it would be good to keep in mind the Hawthorne Effect:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect#History)

~~~
chadlavi
> it fails when employees aren't motivated and where managers don't trust
> employees

I'd counter that _anything_ (including the standard 5x8 schedule) will fail in
those conditions.

------
hinkley
Many of us work in spaces where servers are expected to be working and running
24/7\. Yet our bosses still want every single employee to have butts in seats
9:00 am to 5 pm, 5 days a week and in the same time zone. Sometimes with a
little guilt-tripping on the side for taking sick days and vacation.

Wouldn't we be better off with several shifts, 4 days a week, covering Monday
through Saturday or even the entire week?

~~~
wolco
Mature places have this with a global workforce.

Not so mature places put 9-5ers on call with a tiny bump in pay.

~~~
greedo
My org has been around for over 150 years, and our IT department expects
admins to take a rotating week of oncall. Not only are you expected on call
with a 10 minutes response time, but you're expected to do your normal day to
day operations/projects. And during normal business hours, a ton of extra
stuff gets dumped into the lap of the oncall person, because why not?

My boss describes this as everyone's turn in the barrel, and part of working
in IT. There's nothing more demoralizing for my coworkers than being on call.
Well, maybe having our tickets be the metric we're evaluated by.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I would argue you’re in a toxic work environment and encourage a change of
scenery via interviewing and finding a better employer.

------
tombert
I remember when I interned at Lockheed Martin forever ago, they had a system
where you normally work 9-hour days (8 on Fridays), and as a result had every
other Friday off. It equated to a 80 hours for every two weeks, and it was
really nice if you ever had to go to the bank or DMV (which are typically only
open during weekdays).

I always wondered why this wasn't more popular.

~~~
clSTophEjUdRanu
Why is this so common in defense?

~~~
tombert
What? I was just saying that I liked that system, I wasn't trying to engage in
any kind of real apologia.

~~~
jhomedall
I think he meant that as 'why is this so common in the defense industry'.

~~~
tombert
Oh, upon rereading the comment that makes more sense, that's my dumb fault :)

I don't know actually; presumably one defense company started doing it any
then the rest just followed.

~~~
positr0n
It also might be a government thing? 9/80 is common in the few national labs
I've worked at or know people in. DoE and DoD labs.

------
kosii
I'm a software engineer, I started working 4 days/32 hours per week about a
month ago, and I couldn't be happier :)

~~~
perfunctory
I started working 4 days/32 hours I think about a decade ago. Never looked
back.

~~~
tren
I was 4 days 32 hours for 7 years, now I do 3 days 24 hours. It has allowed me
to spend time a lot of time with my boy. Now that he's started school I
generally work on side projects in my 2 extra days and do the school pickups.
Of course there are days where you don't feel like coding so you can read a
book, do chores, go to the beach.

------
blobbers
"Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is backing a parliamentary proposal to
shift to a four-day week." \-- with all the Russian meddling in the U.S.A.,
maybe they can get this pushed through!

Jokes aside, I would love this. Right now in tech asking for this sort of
thing feels like a 'career limiting move', and definitely in a hiring
situation could label you as 'not a hard worker' despite your emphasis on
efficiency and productive hours.

~~~
blackearl
If not career limiting, pay limiting. I'd worry that I suddenly get a 20% cut
in salary

~~~
philshem
I consider it a 20% bump in time.

edit: or is it 25%?!

~~~
black_puppydog
it's 33%, adding one day to the two of the weekend :)

~~~
blobbers
That's a 50% increase in time!

------
askafriend
I'd really like to do 4x10hrs versus 5x8hrs. I think that'd be a significant
improvement for a lot of people.

~~~
gordon_freeman
I think stuffing 10 hours in a workday will have a diminishing rate of
productivity return during the last couple of hours during the workday.

~~~
Apocryphon
How about a compromise? 4x9 hours.

~~~
xboxnolifes
I like 4x9, because a lot of work is already 5x9 if you include mandatory
lunch break.

~~~
SauciestGNU
I have a huge problem with the 5x9 expectation. 9-5 means 9-5 including a
lunch. I promise any employer that demanding my presence from 8-5 (or any
other 9 hours) will not result in greater productivity, and furthermore will
leave me disgruntled.

There's only so much development that can be done in a day before I'm in a
haze from all the abstract thought, and that productivity asymptote comes well
under 8 hours.

~~~
jinglebells
It's 4 hours for me. Doesn't matter how long the day is, maximum concentration
tops out at 4 hours. The rest of the time is just admin work, emails and house
keeping.

------
notjustanymike
I introduced "work from home Wednesday" at our company and the reduction in
stress is palpable. Hell, I sleep better on Tuesday nights knowing I've got a
day of silence lined up. The naysayers quickly fell in line too, once they
realized how much more they could get done that day.

~~~
bananamerica
Why Wednesday though?

~~~
triceratops
In addition to OP's reply, I guess it also keeps people from turning it into a
long weekend if it's not a Monday or Friday.

~~~
bananamerica
What’s bad about long weekends?

------
theatraine
I never understand these studies. I'm bootstrapping a startup and my work
output scales linearly with hours until about 60 hours per week. 60 hours per
week is comfortable with 4x12 hour days and then 12 hours over two shorter
days. To accomplish errands and the like I just do things before 2pm which is
plenty of time.

For me personally more time working = more output. What am I missing?

I should note that I have no family, no commute, and my gym is in my home so
I'm able to save some hours on those things. I could see how in those cases
one would have less time for work.

~~~
quietthrow
You are part of the hyperactive onsite mainstream HN crowd.single or married
but no other responsibilities (children, aging parents and other such
commitments). When you live the other life you will see how work just fills up
and an extra day feels like a miracle.

~~~
genocidicbunny
Exactly this. Once you have other responsibilities or hobbies outside of work,
a 12-hour workday will leave you with absolutely no free time. Add in your
typical bay area commute time, and you'd hardly have time to sleep.

~~~
adele11
When I was single, no kids, I couldn't do 60 hours a week. Just not possible
for me to keep focusing, keep writing good code.

------
minikites
Worker productivity has gone way up over the recent decades but wages have
stagnated, so why shouldn't we work fewer hours? It's not like the average
worker is reaping the benefits of working longer.

------
mikkergp
I don't know if I'm pro a 4-day work week, (I'm personally not for it if it's
4x10 instead of 5x8)

But I'm reading the book [peak performance]([https://www.amazon.com/Peak-
Performance-Elevate-Burnout-Scie...](https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Performance-
Elevate-Burnout-Science-
ebook/dp/B01N1RNP9N/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1582313496&sr=8-4))
(Highly recommended) and I generally think that companies should really
encourage those employees to work at a schedule that works best for them (This
is obviously harder for shift work where the value comes from having a person
in a chair at certain times)

We have all these norms about 8 hour days, and 5 day weeks and not sleeping at
work, and I think people should be given the freedom to work in the way that
works best for them.

One norm I'm trying to get used to breaking right now is the norm about
"sleeping at work". I would be much more productive if I napped for 15 or so
minutes twice a day. I know that when it comes to coding or writing I could
get a ton done in a 3-4 1-hour-sessions day if those 3-4 hours were clear,
well defined and rested. I could get much more done in "3-4 hours" than an "8
hour day" with meetings and other administrivia thrown in. I'd guess my
optimal work week is somewhere around 26 hours, assuming that the space
between those 26 hours is spent resting and focusing and getting ready to work
hard those 26 hours.

~~~
Darkphibre
> Nap time adds to productivity

Amen to this! I pushed for, and saw implemented, a dual nap room for our
studio. It was used around the clock by people stretching, meditating, and
napping. I found a _huge_ productivity spike taking out 20 minutes a day.

Then, we hired a bunch more people for the upcoming launch, and it was re-
purposed into a storage room for old rack hardware (I pushed against this, but
was told it was a temporarily unavoidable allocation for the space...
meanwhile, the dedicated Lego room sits unused 38 hours a week). So we lost
the nap room right as we enter our year of crunch.

Boggles the mind.

Ah well. Have an interesting read on recent research into the commonality of
four (rather than two) chronotypes (which I'd used in laying out my position):
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886919303071)

~~~
sloppycee
Most children stop napping around four years old.

Maybe there's a deeper problem at your job if people need a nap room. Just get
more sleep at home, you're not being paid to sleep.

btw, a 'dedicated lego room' sounds like another symptom of a toxic
infantilizing culture that eats confidence and breeds reliance.

~~~
tayo42
Napping as an adult is normal. There's plenty of research and info about this.
No need to be judgmental.

------
abecedarius
I used to work 4 days during a contract job with a very long commute. I was
made to stop because of a new state law requiring overtime on >8 hours.
Thanks, Sacramento.

~~~
aaronchall
I wonder what you'd say to the lawmakers who caused that change...

~~~
abecedarius
It's pretty small on the scale of other damage. I liked
[https://equilibriabook.com/](https://equilibriabook.com/) for an interesting
recent perspective on this sort of thing, not limited to politics. Still,
nobody _made_ them go into that field.

------
gist
'More bosses give 4 day workweek a try'. How weak is that? What does 'more'
mean anyway? .001 more? 40% more. Of course there is no answer to that. What
about 'more bosses think wearing blue shirts in the office is fine' (Everyone
would laugh at that right on the surface right and say 'how many exactly
percentage wise'?

Unclear why people seem to think there needs to be some kind of 'one size fits
all' approach. If a job is such that 32 hours works fine. If it's not fine.
And the media saying things like 'a move toward' and 'more companies are' when
clearly there is no significant push in this area appears to be just some kind
of evergreen story to sell advertising. Media does this frequently. Keys are
statements not backed up by anything but anecdotes such as 'and questions are
being raised' and so on. That one 'questions are being asked' is literally a
nightly occurrence on network news broadcasts (says me using the same
technique but it is happening).

Guess what? Some people don't mind working 5 days. Some people like working 7
days. Some people would rather sit and not work at all. Everyone is different.

------
annoyingnoob
I feel like my best work happens in about 6 hours on most days. Beyond 6 I
feel like I'm less motivated/productive, I get things done but it goes a
little slower.

I've previously done a 9/80 schedule with every other Friday off. The 9 hour
days made my personal life harder, harder to meet family obligations like
pickup/dropoff. I'm cool with 5 shorter days, I would be happier and probably
more productive.

------
SimianLogic2
My current job is a 4-day workweek (not the whole company, just me), but it's
also not the most interesting job. I've seen other jobs posted that look more
interesting in the last year or two (and would likely be for higher pay), but
after doing this for almost 2 years I decided that the chill work-life balance
is more important than total comp or having "interesting" work.

------
ndespres
I met with someone recently who offered 4-day workweek as a benefit, but it
wasn't a 32-hour week over 4 days, it was just 4 longer days with the same
number of total hours. It would be great to have 1 less commute, a 3 day
weekend etc but where are the benefits of these computers that were supposed
to save us all time?

------
jacquesm
It's interesting to note that in Europe that 32 hour workweek is fairly
standard and nobody would even bat an eye or think this is special in any way.

[https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/11/working-
hours.html](https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/11/working-hours.html)

~~~
nagyf
Source for this? I'm from Europe and I have friends working in 2-3 different
countries in Europe, but 32 hour workweek is not standard anywhere. Never even
heard of such a thing being standard in Europe.

~~~
jacquesm
It depends on the country. Sweden, Denmark, Norway, NL, Germany, Switzerland,
France.

Others probably less so, depending on how well the economy is and general
attitude towards workers rights. Eastern Europe much less so, in some cases
(Romania, Bulgaria) conditions are still terrible.

~~~
timwaagh
Lawful workweek in nl is 40 hours I'd wager the others are similar, with
perhaps one exception.

~~~
jacquesm
That's the 'normal maximum' in NL (overtime is also a thing). Plenty of people
on part-time contracts working 32, 24 or even 20 hours per week.

~~~
timwaagh
Yes, we're the part-time champions of europe.

------
ivanhoe
I worked 4 days a week on one project that lasted 14 months. It's really great
for motivation and productivity. I actually started to enjoy Mondays first
time in my life, and I'd be coming to work full of inspiration. The downside
is obviously that as a contractor you earn 20% less that way.

------
stitched2gethr
I would love to go to a 32 hour work week, but not for the obvious reason. I
would still put in 50 hours but it would give me more of an edge over everyone
else. I don't feel like I'm in direct competition with my peers, but I always
hold myself to a sometimes unreasonable standard for what I "feel I should be
getting done," and I use those around me as a ruler. I always just want to be
better, and especially faster, but without losing the clean thought process.
For as long as I have been doing things slightly outside my comfort zone, so
always, I only get there with more time. Am I totally alone or does this
resonate?

------
Ericson2314
Everyone always asks "why don't well all do this". Well, let me tell you. The
system doesn't reward productivity like you imagine it, profit / per time
work. It rewards profit / hours. Never mind if working more makes you less
productive per the first measure, as long the extra time spent offsets the
loss in productivity you will be compelled to do it.

Well, almost. If you are willing to be paid less that helps. But how many
people are rich enough to be able make that choice? Enough to change the
cultural and mores?

We need UBI or laws to break that. There is no distributed / individual way to
escape the baton of the market here.

------
hkt
I'm just about to start a job where I'll be working 30 hours a week. This is
nominally over 4 days, but I'll have the right to do it over three. I haven't
been so excited about work in years, and I'm sure it'll be challenging but the
rewards - time for hobbies, study, side projects and family - promise to be
massive.

I was a pretty high earner before and have given up 60% of pay to do this. The
premium I place on my time is huge. It'd be lovely to see more companies who
understand this and offer the same kind of arrangement.

------
airstrike
I've recently come up with a crazy pet theory. If we are indeed living a
simulation, maybe this simulation is just to test whether 5-day workweeks make
better modern civilizations than 4- or 6-day ones...

------
bash-j
In Australia it's pretty common to be paid for 38 or 36 hours a week and take
a RDO (rostered day off) once a month or fortnight depending on what you
choose. This plus minimum 4 weeks paid annual leave for full timers, 2 weeks
paid sick leave, 13 weeks paid long service leave if you have worked at the
same company for 10 years, paid parental leave, carers leave, grievance leave,
volunteer leave, etc. If you work casual hours then you usually receive a
17.5% more per hour. Weekends and public holidays usually attract higher wages
too.

------
OldGuyInTheClub
9/80 schedules are common in my industry. We are paid based on 80 hours/2
weeks. Week 1 is 36 hours (4 days x 9 hrs/day) and the Friday is off. Week 2
is 44 hours (4 days x 9 hrs/day, 1 8 hr Friday). There's flexibility around
this with management approval.

I think most people like this arrangement, especially those with long
commutes. A full free day for appointments, errands, or just relaxing can be a
big help.

------
yosito
Apart from occasional experiments, I can't imagine this ever catching on as
the "norm". Another reason to become a freelancer though. If you're a
freelancer, you could alternate between 4 day workweeks and 3 day workweeks,
and take a few months off every year.

------
nbrempel
Some shameless self-promotion: I run a job board for jobs like this.

[https://30hourjobs.com](https://30hourjobs.com)

------
torgian
Four day work week sounds great, but how do you prevent employers from taking
advantage of that and saying, "Hey, as an hourly employee working four days a
week, we don't have to cover your insurance because reasons".

I'm sure there are a lot of loopholes or rules that companies can't wait to
exploit to pay people less money or fork over less money overall.

------
ocdtrekkie
I feel like I'd probably be as-effective with a four-day work week. I monitor
and respond to issues when I'm at home anyways. But I think it'll still be a
while until this becomes substantially more popular.

At a previous job I was furloughed one day a week for a while, and it was
definitely time I enjoyed having available, I just wasn't fond of the 20% pay
cut that went with it.

------
gaogao
We have No Meeting Wednesdays, which being salaried and having generous work
from home policies, is roughly a four-day work week if you want.

------
KoftaBob
As another thing to try, how about making the “standard” workday 9-4 instead
of 9-5? This way, it ends up being 3 hours of work, 1 hour of lunch, then
another 3 hours of work.

It’s more balanced, people get an extra hour in their day to spend on
themselves, and it seems that for many people, the extra hour from 4-5 is
relatively low productivity compared to the rest of the day anyway.

~~~
icedchai
I think it's already that way in many places. You just have to pretend to work
for the other hour or two.

------
brozaman
In Spain it's somewhat common to do 9 hours Monday to Thursday and only
working 4 hours on Friday. Unfortunately I only worked for a company that did
this only for one year, but it is the one thing I miss of this company.

Personally, I'm reluctant to the 4x10, but doing 4x9 and 1x4 was simply
awesome, plus you could get a 3 day weekend by just spending half day of
vacation.

------
Mountain_Skies
Some of our hourly employees are on a 4x10 schedule. One wrinkle that has come
up is for holidays and vacation days, which are paid at 8 hours each. The 4x10
employees end up being two hours short each paid day off. The company won't
change it to ten hours as that is unfair to the 5x8 employees. Maybe if 4x10
became the standard, they would.

------
anderson7
Cockroach Labs (nyc) used to have a 4 day workweek as their version of “20%
time”, looks like it’s still in place:
[https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/can-a-4-day-work-week-
wor...](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/can-a-4-day-work-week-work/)

------
bboygravity
These recurring 4-day work week discussions on HN show how non-European this
site is.

4-day work weeks have been completely normal for lots of people in Europe for
decades. In the Netherlands it's almost the norm to chose whether you want to
work 4 or 5 days. 4 day work weeks are not always accepted everywhere, but
usually they are in most places.

In France the standard work week has been 35 hours for the past 2 decades,
which may or may not equate to a 4 day work week depending on how you organize
your work days.

The Netherlands and France are still alive and kicking. They have plenty of
successful businesses.

Conclusion: no, 4 day work weeks will not destroy your country, economy,
business or lifestyle. The one and only reason to have 5 day or longer work
weeks is: greed. IMHO.

Having said that IMO a more important factor in time savings would be remote
working or not. Assuming a commute of an hour a day to and from work (2 hours
total per day, reality for lots of people) you waste 10 hours per week of your
life commuting. Unpaid.

5 days a week without commute = -10 unpaid hours spent on work related things
(vs with commute)

4 days a week with commute = -2 unpaid hours spent on work related things.

~~~
SnowProblem
> The Netherlands and France are still alive and kicking. They have plenty of
> successful businesses.

Are they? I can't think of a single technology company coming out of either.

~~~
nmd
Booking.com, TomTom GPS are both from Amsterdam. As is Adyen, the payments
provider used Linkedin, Uber, Spotify, Microsoft. Philips is also from the
Netherlands.

~~~
SnowProblem
Booking.com - sold in 2005. TomTom - dying since smartphones. Philips - an old
appliance company. Ayden - hadn't heard of it, but granted.

I hear of new companies from China all the time.

~~~
the-dude
Philips is succesful in pivoting into medical.

------
eatbitseveryday
> Also, he did away with open-floor office plans and saw workers spending far
> less time on social media.

While mentioned as an aside late in the article, I wonder how much this
contributed to overall productivity. The author may be undervaluing this
change in the work environment.

------
combatentropy
I'm still waiting for someone to do a study of a three-day (24-hour) work
week.

~~~
tren
I've been doing this for 3 years now and it works great for me. 3/4 of our
company are 4 days or less a week and in the last 5 years we've turned a loss
making company into something quite profitable. We generally have one short
meeting a week, outside of that we do 1 on 1s when necessary. The rest of the
time we can sit down and focus 100%.

------
namelosw
I feel burned out from time to time.

Then I found this really works for me: don't spend vacation all at once,
instead, spend it on every Wednesday. It's not just one day off, it actually
changes the workdays from 5 days to 2 days.

------
ropiwqefjnpoa
I did this (4x10) for about a year at a previous company, really enjoyed it.

The hardest part was coming back after the 3 day weekend, it always felt like
coming back from vacation.

~~~
tasogare
If were an a 4 day week I would like to have Wednesday free instead of Friday.

~~~
rabidrat
I thought so too, but it turned out for me that having a 'break' in the middle
of the week interrupted my work momentum, and I also never got the luxurious
feeling of a 3-day weekend. 4+/3- worked a lot better for me (both work-wise
and emotionally) than 2+/1-/2+/2-.

------
barbs
As a software developer, how do I advocate for a 4-day work week in my current
and future workplaces?

Can I demand a 4-day work week in my future contracts?

------
duxup
I fear this is likely an advantage just a few will have... a lot of folks who
are poor with multiple jobs will still have to muddle through.

------
ojbyrne
I feel like the “bosses” Should work 4 day weeks. The rest of us would get
more done on the 5th day than the other 4 combined.

~~~
allset_
This is the work from home day each week.

------
BlameKaneda
Wonder how hourly employees who work 4-days weeks at 32 hours would feel about
this proposal.

~~~
izzydata
If they increase the hourly pay by 20% then probably quite happy.

Edit: 25%.

~~~
echelon
Conversely, I'd accept lower pay for 4x8.

I'm close to financial independence and would rather have my time than more
money.

~~~
clarry
> I'm close to financial independence and would rather have my time than more
> money.

I'm not close, but I'd still take time over money. I need enough money to live
healthy and have a bit of fun sometimes. After that, I just need time and
energy to actually live my life.

------
cft
Karl Marx saw it as of vital importance to the workers' health, writing in Das
Kapital (1867): "By extending the working day, therefore, capitalist
production...not only produces a deterioration of human labour power by
robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and
activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labour
power itself."

------
toephu2
What companies in the Bay Area have a 4-day work week?

------
adapter
Unpopular opinion: It's not 5 days that wear people out but the routines[0].

[0] same commuting, same people, same updates, same stand-ups, same gossiping,
same negativity, same office politics

------
polyphonicist
I have a regular five-day workweek but to be honest, I work productively only
4 days a week. I find it hard to work productively all 5 days. On the day's I
am not working productively, I just pretend to look busy to my manager. It
would be nice to formalize this working pattern as a four-day workweek.

Where can I find such four-day workweek jobs?

------
sky_rw
I encourage everybody to work as little as possible, that way the competition
for me is lower.

~~~
postsantum
Many people optimize for life quality, they are not competing with you

------
timwaagh
honestly would be pretty bad for singles who just want to hustle and make some
money to afford plans later in life. i can see the appeal for families to take
some time off, but currently there are enough facilities for dad-days and the
like (at least, where i am). yes you need to pay for those, as is only fair.
If this becomes law i'd guess the 'solution' for a lot of people would be to
take two jobs. suddenly these plans dont look so amazing anymore.

~~~
deadbunny
I don't follow your logic. If you're working 4x8 rather than 5x8 for the same
pay (as discussed in the article) you are not losing any money and have
another whole day to "hustle".

~~~
timwaagh
Well, i made a few leaps. I will try to explain. In economics there are no
free lunches. That's a pretty basic economic dogma (it might sound extreme to
an outsider, but take a 101 class and it's what they will tell you). So you
don't really get to have your cake and eat it too. The article's 'proposal'
therefore doesn't really make sense. My reaction kind of assumes people
already sort of know this, perhaps intuitively. my apologies for not
explaining. What pm Medvedev (as mentioned in the article) is proposing is, to
me, the only interesting thing to talk about, a reduction of the lawful
workweek to 32 hours. Even if he requires (as you propose) the salaries in
existing contracts to stay the same countrywide, salaries for new positions
will be affected as they can be set by the employer. As for those already
employed, well the country is likely to be producing less because of less
input (labor productivity being mainly a function of technological progress,
ie, it doesnt change in the short term) and thus their trade balance will
suffer, because more needs to be imported and less is available for expot. So
in the end the rubble will get cheaper to make up for it and the employees get
their salary deduction anyways. Whether that is the exact way the price will
be paid is not certain, but what is certain is there are no free lunches in
economics. Because of the reduction in salary, employees will have reduced
spending power. Which is particularly relevant if you are without a partner
and/or don't own a house yet. In that case, your best (and only) option to
stay competitive might be to take two jobs and work 7 days a week to make up
for it. I hope I made my argument more clear now.

