> I love that I [..] can (shock!) go out to lunch with my wife during the week while the kids are at school
(Genuine question) but why wouldn't someone be able to have lunch with their OH while working a traditional 5-day week? Surely a lunch break is something everyone is entitled to even when they're working that day?
Not the OP, but I suspect it's more a question of time. My my wife and I work on opposite ends of town, so if we where to both hop on a bus, meet in the middle, enjoy a nice and leisurely lunch at a nice restaurant (as opposed to just grabbing some fast food) and then hop on a bus back to our respective offices, we're probably looking at at least 2 hours door to door.
Hell, even if I'm just going for lunch by myself there are lots of restaurants I cannot really go to, simply because it takes too long to get there, eat, and get back. Basically, while I always have time to eat lunch, but very rarely have time to enjoy lunch.
So, given we're talking about employers offering flexibility, how about allowing people to take a longer lunch break so they can go for lunch with their OH, but either start their day earlier or stay at work later?
Many professional / salaried roles would be fine with that.
I get in early, only take 10 minutes at lunch but then I head home at 3-4PM to miss rush. Sometimes I log back in from home and do more hours (especially if there is a problem), sometimes I leave even earlier and don't, sometimes I WFH on a Friday and spend 3 hours in the middle of the day getting the train out to my parents for a long weekend then the afternoon is half heartedly watching emails while drinking coffee with my parents.
At the end of the day as long as I'm not inconveniencing colleagues then it comes down to does my output make me worth my salary.
Many employers allow that already, i’d be surprised if all the companies that self selected into this experiment didn’t already have the facility for an employee to arrange this.
It’s not the same thing though. It’s avoiding the pressure to crush wasteful time in the working day (think 30 person zoom meetings that consist of 2 people talking and 28 people quietly doing emails). This pressure is unavoidable with the typical “100 per cent pay, for 80 per cent of the time, while maintaining 100 per cent productivity” 4 day approach.
Oh, absolutely! I have all the regular breaks etc. When I said "go out to lunch" I meant it more in the sense of "go out for a _loooong_ lunch involving a few courses and a bottle or two of wine". ;)
Depends on what you consider a traditional 5-day week; not long ago, people were Expected to be in the office all day, often a commute away. And it's only white collar workers that have gained the priviledge of working from home.
With children, one or both parents often have to sacrifice their lunch breaks to get 40 hours of work in while still dropping off/picking up children at school, activities, etc.
honest answer: both my partner and I work, but she works four days per week to balance childcare. If I worked four days then we would have a whole day together to enjoy hanging out with our son.
My commute to the office is over an hour (London, England) from my home, so returning home for lunch is not an option.
In NL, working less hours (24, 32 or 36 hours) is normalized, to the point where some families have a schedule where either parent has one day a week off, the kids spend one day at their grandparents, and the remaining two days in day care (or something to that effect).
The 4-day work week is fairly normalized here to try and balance careers for both parents with raising children, so these articles seem really weird to me. The tradeoff is you get paid for 32 hours instead of 40, and any other benefits (holidays, bonuses, expenses, etc) are adjusted according to how much of a percentage of full-time (40 hours/week) you work.
(Genuine question) but why wouldn't someone be able to have lunch with their OH while working a traditional 5-day week? Surely a lunch break is something everyone is entitled to even when they're working that day?