Thoughts on employers potentially having to offer 4-day week?
- Thread starter Freefaller
- Start date
On a kind of related note something I would like to see is more time off available to people around Christmas Day itself, albeit if you work in certain industries not getting great time off over Christmas is kind of something you have to accept going in.
Albeit I think some of it was a knock on effect from the pandemic but last year couple of years far too many people I know were back at work 9am Boxing Day which made for a less than ideal Christmas experience all around.
Not to forget there are other significant days for other religions, etc.
Albeit I think some of it was a knock on effect from the pandemic but last year couple of years far too many people I know were back at work 9am Boxing Day which made for a less than ideal Christmas experience all around.
Not to forget there are other significant days for other religions, etc.
That sounds like your company sucks at hiring people.
Very naive to think that how it works. Look at musk. Snapped his fingers and 50% were gone. Had to hire people back as he'd got rid of key staff. Reality is an accountant who doesn't know the people will just slash and burn. The best people will be the first out the door, they won't stay with a sinking ship.
They tried this fear argument with salary sacrifice and promotion to get people back from remote working and it failed. Because everyone knows it's far easier to change companies to get promoted and salary increases than get it internally.
He's actually gotten rid of 80% and people were predicting that the site would collapse and not be recoverable etc.. people were sending goodbye tweets etc.. but in reality it's still running today and they're shipping new features. Don't conflate the fact that a few people were hired back with the fact that the vast majority of people there were disposable.
Not at all. What Musk did is absolutely not the norm, and even in that scenario apparently he used number of commits as deciding factor in who to lay off so in that scenario defintiely the people who decided ot work 5 days a week would be much safer than those who would have worked 4.
In reality, layoffs are all about improving efficiency and reducing OPEX by removing employees who's output to cost ratio is poor. That can mean some relatively productive senior employs are eliminated due to high salaries, but in general layoffs are done by performance factors at equal grades. I know, I have been in this process many times .
And anway, all of that is completely besides the point. It is quite logical that people that decide to work 5 days instead of 4 days per week will simply naturally have contributed more, networked more, been available in more meetings, critical outages, presentations.. While a company that offers a 4 day week at 80% pay may try and normalise some KPIs, at the end of the day human nature always means there will be biases that are impossible to remove.
Your last point is also not exactly true. OK, salary increases can be easier by changing employers but this isn't universal , e.g. currently market conditions are pushing salaries down in IT unless you are in specific areas like AI. For promotions, the opposite is true and it is nearly always easier to get promoted internally, especially at more senior levels. Companies don;t want to take a risk in hiring an external candidate into a senior position if they already have good evidence that an internal candidate is performing at the right level. The only factor is the employer might not need the more senior role at the current time while other companies might be looking to fill a position. But it can be challenging to get a real promotion that brings increased responsibility if you haven't evidence that. Perhaps you want to beocme a manager but have only worked as a IC - don;t expect any other company just to pick you and give you a chance. Best bet is getting internal promotions, gain the experience and then if thigns are still not where you want them to be start applying elsewhere.
Even Musk admitted he fired the wrong people. Why? Because it wasn't productivity or role based. Because it based on the neanderthal mindset of if you can't see someone at their desk, they ain't working, and more hours is more output. Zero awareness of how long people to do things. Besides he fired people on critical systems. Which then went down lol.
Firing the expensive people without considering why they get paid more is simply dumb.
There's a statistic that more people leave when they are internally promoted than if you don't promote them. But the reason for this is a lot of companies often only promote once they get wind of someone might be leaving. The promotion doesn't hold them, because the person has already decided to leave. There also the daft idea of promoting people with more responsibilities and workload, but with no, or low salary reward for the promotion. So that doesn't hold people either.
Ultimately thats your argument. That someone who's seen in the office does more. Not because they do more. But you associate seeing them with getting stuff done.
(comic) Be like Bob. He works long hours.
Comics about work. Made with love and lots of coffee.
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... and it doesn't make sense because the 4 day week is either 5 days hours in 4 days. Or 5 days output in 4 days. It's the same amount of work.
But it does illustrate the difficulty in changing people's mindsets. That's really where it's hard to get it over the line.
But it does illustrate the difficulty in changing people's mindsets. That's really where it's hard to get it over the line.
Soldato
I already do 4 days, 12hrs per shift. Cant see an issue.
ehhh, i think you are completely failing to follow the conversation which is why you ate entirely wrong.
The whole debate is about if you give people the chance to work 4 days a week then there will always be people willing to work the same hoirs per day but for 5 days and earn more money. In this scenario they are working and networking 25% more which directly gives them benefits.
E.g. instead of 8 hours a day for 5 days per weeks an employer offers 10 hours hours a day in 4 days but also for people that want to work 8-10 hours extra on Fridays with salary at time or even ti'e and half, then a lot of people will want to work and earn at 5 days, and get all the additional benefits i outlined. Especially given most people in professional jobs work 10 hours a day anyway, then simply doing what you were already doing for 25% pay rise would be very tempting
i see maths isn't your strong point
Soldato
I worked 4 days a week in a call centre job. Yet they didn't increase time for breaks, getting more water, going to the loo by 25%. As spent an additional 1.5-2 hours per day on the phones. The more you talk, the more water you need to drink, the more loo visits needed. Plus for a week the nearest loos were out of action so had to go upstairs, await someone to go through the doors as our ID passes didn't allow access the area where the toilets were - just on the other side of the doors.
I spent the first day off doing sod all as knackered as worked 4 days in a row.
4 days weeks do work if the management extend breaks in line with someone working 5 days
I spent the first day off doing sod all as knackered as worked 4 days in a row.
4 days weeks do work if the management extend breaks in line with someone working 5 days
Man of Honour
In my new job I'm allowed to do a 4 day week if I like, compressing my time into Mon-Thursday.
I work in Corporate Information Systems, so we have to be careful because many of us, including me, are supporting users and often across multiple time zones.
With that said, a lot of people in Austria knock off on a Friday around 1-2pm anyway, so it's not a huge leap.
I haven't done it yet as I'm only just out of probation, but from time to time I probably will. 9 ish hours a day is fine, it's not like I'm labouring in a field.
I work in Corporate Information Systems, so we have to be careful because many of us, including me, are supporting users and often across multiple time zones.
With that said, a lot of people in Austria knock off on a Friday around 1-2pm anyway, so it's not a huge leap.
I haven't done it yet as I'm only just out of probation, but from time to time I probably will. 9 ish hours a day is fine, it's not like I'm labouring in a field.
Man of Honour
Yes, but that's shift patterns, which isn't really what's being discussed here.
This is "normal" M-F pattern jobs with the option to do all the work in 4. Shift patterns of 4 on 4 off are not that.
On top of that we have all these companies telling everyone they need to return back to the office now, taking away WFH.
Soldato
One of the best jobs I had in terms of work life balance was 30 hours a week at a big DIY warehouse before I went to uni; mostly shifts of 2-9pm or 12-7pm with a half hour and 2x15min breaks, worked every other weekend and got two days off during the week. Really was quite enjoyable for a retail job - having the mornings free and days off during the week was great, and most socialising didn’t start until after 9pm anyway.
From what I hear they changed the contracts sometime after I left and reduced the amount of breaks/made them unpaid, got rid of double time on Sundays, etc so probably not great now.
From what I hear they changed the contracts sometime after I left and reduced the amount of breaks/made them unpaid, got rid of double time on Sundays, etc so probably not great now.
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