4 Day Work Week

[Scroopy Noopers]

I negotiated 4 days at 80% of my pay a year ago and it’s basically saved my life.

It should be a more widely available option to some. I get why most can’t or won’t do that.

[Bunk]

Four day work week, false hope. Been talked about forever

https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/...ZIlj1zs_mQY9Hg

[81MC]

Don’t think I’d ever go back to 5 days. The quality of life improvement is worth staying in a soul-crushing job.

[lazypucker]

Screw the 4-day work week, 996 is the way to go - according to one of the richest dudes in the World:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/busin...ina/index.html

[Weitz]

The real answer is be good at your job so that you get flexibility and freedom to only work 4 days a week but get paid 5 days a week.

Only works though if you have something to bring to the table.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Weitz

The real answer is be good at your job so that you get flexibility and freedom to only work 4 days a week but get paid 5 days a week.

Only works though if you have something to bring to the table though.

Do you think that the total amount of good employment situations in this world outnumbers the amount of people who work hard?

[GirlySports]

4 day work week talk is like wfh talk 3 years ago. It took a pandemic to make it happen and now its slowly being phased out in some companies. Downtown is busier as people go back to 5 days in the office.

[81MC]

I actually find it amazing we’re looking down the barrel of climate emergency, and throwing #### at the wall to see what sticks to curb emissions and waste, while the simplest practical approach with tangible benefits to the earth and its citizens is withdrawn because bigwigs don’t trust middle management to do their jobs.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by 81MC

I actually find it amazing we’re looking down the barrel of climate emergency, and throwing #### at the wall to see what sticks to curb emissions and waste, while the simplest practical approach with tangible benefits to the earth and its citizens is withdrawn because bigwigs don’t trust middle management to do their jobs.

Sorry, but what are you saying the solution is here? Maybe I’m just slow this morning.

[Sliver]

Right now I've given my staff the option of 36 hours per week or 40 hours per week. So basically you can work 8, 8, 8, 8, 4 (half the staff do this, myself included) and the other half work 9, 9, 9, 9, 4. Those Friday afternoons off are like gold to us.

I've also proposed just four nines, but my caveat is you need to work it with your coworkers so we have people in on Mondays and Fridays. So, like, if you want Mon-Thurs at nine hours a day and Fridays off, you have to coordinate with somebody else to be working four nines Tues-Fri. Nobody is really interested in that, which surprised me, but people seem happy with things the way they are and if they aren't happy I'm pretty flexible. Probably my favourite thing about a small business...if we don't like things we can just change them.

[chedder]

One place I know does 4-10's and how they get Monday and Friday coverage is split the workforce in half and one works mon-thurs first week then Tues-fri the next. The other does the opposite. This way you get a 4 day weekend every other weekend.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

Screw the 4-day work week, 996 is the way to go - according to one of the richest dudes in the World:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/busin...ina/index.html

And we should drop the working age to 11.

[OldDutch]

If you work at a plant I get you can’t cut down to 4 days, but at head offices why can’t you look at outcome based work for many roles?

If you have a project and finish your work earlier why not go home? What advantage is there to you sitting there to meet an hourly quota? Instead go home early, and if you have to work sometimes on a Saturday do it. As long as outcome is met.

My team has been doing this for years. We’re highly productive. I answer emails at 9PM sure, but some Fridays I leave early. Heck I encourage my people to take a break and play video games during the day to keep them sharp. They have phones with Teams I can call them if I or anyone need them. Key here is we trust each other to deliver.

This whole factory system of hourly work for knowledge based roles is antiquated and frankly unproductive.

Our enterprise will never officially sanction 4 days, but its already happening. As lead, I am not watching anyone, your results speak for themselves. It also amazing how uncommon that is.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Torture

Was just reading this article "4 day work week gaining momentum in Canada" and frankly, I don't really think that's the case as much as I wish it was so.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/four-day...poll-1.1872369



They claim that 91%(!) of senior managers polled support a 4 day work week and the majority think their company will transition to it in the next 5 years.
Maybe it's cause I work for an American corp but this is not my experience and it's not on the radar for us, but maybe I just work with out of touch managers and business is more progressive. Would be interested to see how Robert Half framed the question and who they polled..

Hell, how many companies are forcing people back to the office just to have buts in seats, but now we're going to cut a work-day?
Anyways, discuss. Is your workplace considering a 4 day work week?

[KTrain]

Originally Posted by Slava

Sorry, but what are you saying the solution is here? Maybe I’m just slow this morning.

I read that as people only commuting to work 4 days a week instead of 5 would help reduce emissions. It might help a little but most would be offset by other activities on the person's day off.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

If you work at a plant I get you can’t cut down to 4 days, but at head offices why can’t you look at outcome based work for many roles?

If you have a project and finish your work earlier why not go home? What advantage is there to you sitting there to meet an hourly quota? Instead go home early, and if you have to work sometimes on a Saturday do it. As long as outcome is met.

My team has been doing this for years. We’re highly productive. I answer emails at 9PM sure, but some Fridays I leave early. Heck I encourage my people to take a break and play video games during the day to keep them sharp. They have phones with Teams I can call them if I or anyone need them. Key here is we trust each other to deliver.

This whole factory system of hourly work for knowledge based roles is antiquated and frankly unproductive.

Our enterprise will never officially sanction 4 days, but its already happening. As lead, I am not watching anyone, your results speak for themselves. It also amazing how uncommon that is.

But even most field work can benefit from this as well, I've never worked in an office environment but we did 4 day weeks just fine, you just have other shifts cover each other. If you need 7 day coverage you have either two 4 day shifts with an overlap day, or a 4 day shift and a 3 day shift. I've done both and it works very well. If you only need weekdays then you stagger some people Mon-Thur and Tues-Fri

I agree with everything else you said, just wanted to clarify that 4 days works fine for the field too. Off the top of my head I can't think of many situations where a 4 day schedule wouldn't work better than a 5 day schedule, jobs where travel is involved/out of town work being the only exception off the top of my head

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by btimbit

But even most field work can benefit from this as well, I've never worked in an office environment but we did 4 day weeks just fine, you just have other shifts cover each other. If you need 7 day coverage you have either two 4 day shifts with an overlap day, or a 4 day shift and a 3 day shift. I've done both and it works very well. If you only need weekdays then you stagger some people Mon-Thur and Tues-Fri

I agree with everything else you said, just wanted to clarify that 4 days works fine for the field too. Off the top of my head I can't think of many situations where a 4 day schedule wouldn't work better than a 5 day schedule, jobs where travel is involved/out of town work being the only exception off the top of my head

I’m not sure we even have a 5 day work week for our field people. 7/7 14/7 or 21/5.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I’m not sure we even have a 5 day work week for our field people. 7/7 14/7 or 21/5.

Yeah, and especially if travel is involved I agree it gets tricky. Then even for in town work, if it's seasonal you want to maximize the time you do get so at least 6 days a week is normal. 15/6 was the best I ever had out of town, and I did 24/4 for years. And travel costs I understand, but other than that I find the majority of resistance to changing that is usually "well that's how we did it for years, and it worked fine"

I still personally vouch for just splitting the shifts for in town work, like I laid out in the post you quoted. But for out of town work, I definitely don't have a answer for that. I would like if the Government lowered the max days you can work in a row, because 24/4 is brutal. Even just 21/5 was amazing in comparison

[vegasbound]

Originally Posted by btimbit

Yeah, and especially if travel is involved I agree it gets tricky. Then even for in town work, if it's seasonal you want to maximize the time you do get so at least 6 days a week is normal. 15/6 was the best I ever had out of town, and I did 24/4 for years. And travel costs I understand, but other than that I find the majority of resistance to changing that is usually "well that's how we did it for years, and it worked fine"

I still personally vouch for just splitting the shifts for in town work, like I laid out in the post you quoted. But for out of town work, I definitely don't have a answer for that. I would like if the Government lowered the max days you can work in a row, because 24/4 is brutal. Even just 21/5 was amazing in comparison

24/4 is straight up awful. I've been working a 12/2 for the past six months but right now doing the 24 straight day and its brutal.



So a 4 day work week at this point would be like heaven.

[81MC]

Originally Posted by Slava

Sorry, but what are you saying the solution is here? Maybe I’m just slow this morning.

No solution, but there’s no need to continue to contribute to the problem. Don’t roll back work from home, work on improving it.

Avg. commute is an hour/day for 11.5million Canadians, assuming even just 20km round trip, that is well over 2.5million litres every day, if everyone drove an economical car. How much of that is people who are going to sit their ass in front of a computer, something they’ve been able to do from home for two years? To say nothing of the building emissions that could be reduced long term if office buildings weren’t running 24/7 for 40hrs of personnel.

Sire plenty of jobs and roles need a physical presence. But employers blanket mandating 3-5 days a week in the office for someone to sit in a cubicle and ‘collaborate’ by making small talk by the coffee machine and ####ting in an overworked bathroom stall? There’s two reasons for that, either management can’t monitor performance properly or the economy of keeping people spending all their money and time is good for a select few.