The authors almost always have conflicts of interest. The studies are often funded and/or staffed by proponents of the 4 day work week.
The outcomes are mostly subjective and self reported, which is problematic because employees clearly have a vested interest in claiming they are more productive than they really might be.
They’re also short term, and dont address the doubt every executive has which is whether employees eventually mean revert back to their historical hourly productivity levels.
Then there is the fact that they don’t bother controlling for how much work the employees were previously doing. Many white collar workers are underworked. If you cut their hours it won’t impact output, because they were bottlenecking on work availability not time. What employers want to know is not what happens in over resourced offices, but rather what happens in well managed offices where employee workload was already optimised.
And that is also entirely irrelevant. The relevant question is whether our society can maintain similar levels of good fortune if we all worked less. And the historical evidence is clear: there are many times more workers today, using tools that are monumentally more advanced, than in the 1930s or even 1950s. And yet, we are all required to work just as much as we used to 100+ years ago, while being paid less in real terms.
What I want to know is, whether we can manage a society, where one part is not always overworked and the other part bored to death. But rather a healthy balance. 4 days workweek might help as a step in that direction, but I agree that there is way too much wishful thinking involved in those studies proposing them.
(Not that I’m against a 4-day week. My company moved to compressed hours and it’s been fantastic.)
Maybe people can't produce more than 4 days of work per week or 5 hours per day; in that case the productivity would be the same and people working more are essentially wasting time.
My empirical evidence say otherwise (sample_size=1) I can be quite productive up to ~70hrs doing knowledge work (I've been on it for 8 months, hours are tracked and connected to tasks, no idling is counted), but that's pushing it and it might not be sustainable for longer period of time. My will to live is certainly at historical lows.
Lawyers in big law can also do 60-80 hours (while ruining their life) so I think it's reasonable.
I've heard people in other professions (eg. nurses) pushing 90-100hrs but they are not actively thinking all their working time.
surely there's diminishing returns, and it doesn't seem obvious that 40 is the sweet spot.
While it's hard to increase productivity by 25%, it's not a problem for workers to drop productivity by 20%. Owners can work as much as they want, of course.
Since are a lot of questions surrounding 4dww - Thought I might be able to offer some insights.
1. “four days but actually working longer” or “four days with reduced hours”.
-- We offer 32hrs work week, rather than the standard 40hrs in our home country. This is generally taken as 4 days, but some work 5 days with less ours (especially those with school aged children).
2. "What employers want to know is not what happens in poorly managed offices, but what happens in well managed offices where employee workload was already optimised."
-- I am going to be biased but we spent 3 year with standard work week, and I think we were highly productive as an organisation, our internal metrics, output and surveys agreed with this assessment. After 2 years, we haven't seen any noticeable / measurable decrease in output or performance compared to 5dww, or since we started.
3. "Do these companies close on a week day, like they just don’t open on a Monday." -- We generally allow people to choose any day off they want, put have them put it in ~4 weeks before hand. Most people take either Monday or Friday, which means we always have some staff covering the days others have off. In smaller teams that speak with customers (sales/cs) they agree among the team who takes what days, and can trade, as long as we always have coverage.
4. "4 days week sounds great, if you hate your job and you already earn less than you deserve." -- We pay top percentile as other startup/tech companies in our country's HQ. Anyone joining us shouldn't feel they are being paid any less than someone on 5dww -- and that is because we expect their output to match those of others working 5dww.
Overall we've found the move to be extremely successful at attracting and retaining talent with I believe helps us be significantly more productive than other startups I know doing 5dww.
We have a few things that I think help with our 4dww, include remote async with very flexible hours, hiring worldwide, transparent salaries and virtually no meetings in engineering.
One thing this flexibility allows us to do is ask our staff to be 'switched on' when they are working -- if for any reason they aren't being productive, we encourage them stop working, do something else, and come back later. We expect our staff aren't reading reddit, posting on hacker news, etc during work-time -- in return for the 32hrs we want to see it (almost) all productive.
I believe this, along with staff dropped the least important work gives us a similar/same output as 40hrs. With the benefit that we've been able to attract talent that otherwise may have gone elsewhere, with a turnover of virtually 0%.
Happy to answer any specifics about how we've implemented thing, or what I've seen as a co-founder leading a small (16 people) engineering team.
I can see how this makes sense, if this perk is enough to stop your low cost labor from chasing greenbacks instead.
Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2024)
Do you track engineering hours worked?
We don't track hours at all -- staff are expected to track their own hours and keep them to 32hrs. Occasionally something happens and people work longer hours in a week, however we then give them time off the following week.
Working hours is simply a negotiation between employers (who obviously want more hours for the same price), and workers (who want the opposite). Again culture has a large influence on that - it's very difficult to persuade people to work 6 days a week (in the West) because culturally we no longer do that.
You can't ignore culture and just say "let the market decide" because culture is part of the market.
I am not sure what are the mechanisms for that. Would that simply be what maximizes short term profits?
It sort of sounds like a suggestion to remove all restrictions on the work week so that the free market can choose the winning system.
Why not decide instead to take a more human approach where people can work productively and still have enough workless time to rest and be healthy and also have time and energy for hobbies, family, exercise, etc.?
That said, some employees do work full-time, particularly those in operations and other roles that require broader availability to communicate with external parties. There are also situations where someone needs to stay longer to complete a critical task, these exceptions are inevitable, but having clear guidelines helps ensure they remain just that: exceptions.
A related challenge, as highlighted by @rsavage, is the use of social media during work hours, especially in a remote setting. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to fully control, but what matters is cultivating a company culture that balances flexibility with accountability. The key is staying aware and making adjustments before things get out of hand.
In my town, the shopping high street closes at 5pm. So when I finished work, I'd be back in my town at 6pm, where everything is dead. The only way to do any shopping is to drive to a supermarket that’s open until 10pm or shop online.
It's like everything is catered to people who don't work.
Something astonishing happened in 1994: the first time a government coalition was installed that excluded any Christian party. Capitalism prevailed.
I think it may have had a malware injection
Those employed during the transition phase benefit from full salary yet work 80% hours.
New employees will get 100% for the four days they work while the company operates for five days.
Employee wages are usually the largest expense in any business.
Stepping outside that though - how is this going to impact the wider economy? The UK is in a tough spot. Partially self-inflicted, partially political, partially just the way things are now.
Will this improve things? Will it help or hinder?
So some people might have an extra day off, but if they can’t pay their rent, it doesn’t really help anything. Those workers will pick up a 3rd or 4th job and nothing will change.
Unfortunate, but I think the UK has still a ways to sink before it comes to grips with the current reality and starts to climb out of it.
UK wages are already poor and cost of living is insane.
Are you going to spend that day in your sorry mould ridden flat with other housemates also skint with nothing else to do?
Where do you even go? Shops are dead, public transport is unaffordable and state of it resembles soviet union near its collapse, entertainment, attractions out of reach. Sure there are some free things, but how many times you will go there before it is boring?
So I don't know, 4 days at main employer and 1 day doing Deliveroo? Selling weed? Only Fans?
You can tell UK is going downhill fast.
Well, take example from France, if you ever do. In 1936, the glorious Leon Blum signed the first national paid leave of the world (Congés Payés). We have literal photos of us going to the beach by train in 1936.
Meanwhile the Germans were working in factories for countless hours building bombs. Congés Payés cost us an alarming defeat. What a chance we were at the beach before those hard times.
(I confirm this comment is a tribute to all the English and US youths who had to save us from our sins).
The govt doing this would be political suicide, especially in the UK. Although we may see it as progressive, political opposition would absolutely leap on it
You cover your normal working hours in a shorter number of days and get an extra day off.
My work offer the same scheduling option and i'd say 80% of the the tech team take it.
Depend of work, 3 days break often means a lot of effort to catch up and refresh memory on Monday, that could lead to staying late anyways and probably create false economy.
Almost like being smacked with a carrot.