Jesus I'm so tired of the 4x10 comments. Nobody wants to sit at their desk for a couple extra hours a day doing basically nothing just to satisfy some arbitrary total that doesn't have anything to do with productivity
But that's a different conversation. You want there to be an option to spread the 40 hours out differently. Fine, by all means, I agree that you should be able to do what you want. Others are saying a work week should be 32 hours because that's better for humans.
Not everyone has a desk job where they aren't required to be working the whole time. For the rest of us putting an extra two hours a day in for a three day weekend is well worth it. If you're actually doing forty hours worth of work imo it's the better system because even with errands on your days off you should always be able to have just one day of doing absolutely nothing with a three day weekend. But I guess office workers opposed to this get a lot of their getting nothing done done at work
Productivity generally drops off around the 6 hour mark for a lot of desk jobs anyway. There's only so much brain someone has in a day. I code. I really am not getting 8+ hours in without loss of quality. Usually meetings and general paperwork and conversations and all that fill the remaining 2 out so it's not like I sit there doing nothing but a 4x10 would kill my productivity. I can see them working more for hard labor if you don't have kids to pick up from school. Work hard 4 days get 3 off.
Yes! 4 day work week is not 40 hours! That is just your typical 5 day work week shoved into 4 days! I like what Bernie Sanders' new bill was talking about. Employees should be reaping the rewards of higher production via AI. Employers should be paying overtime pay at 32 hours.
Right but if you're advocating for a change, you should have a justification for the change and some form of thought how you got there.
If you're advocating for a change that had no justification in the first place, or that justification was arbitrary - you are just lobbying the same way.
Well, I mean the 40 hour work week was made as a pro-labor movement back in the early 1900's.
There were reasons and data as to why that number was picked, it was found to have boosted morale by Henry Ford and then congress formalized it to reduce exploitation shortly after.
It wasn't arbitrary. If you're going to try to drive a movement, you have to understand the history. You can't just say "I want change" without having sounds reasoning. "Just cause" isn't a good reason.
Since the 40 hour week was introduced the productivity has risen by a lot, so the same output we produced in 40 hours we produce it less hours, this productivity didn't benefit the workers, if my work is more valuable now, why they pay me the same for the same hours?
Take a step back and ask yourself why has productivity increased? Is it due to you (I don't mean you specifically) from having tried harder, or done something to intrinsically improve it?
A lot of the efficiency gains have come from implementing process' and methodologies, independent of effect from the individual worker. Things like the assembly line instead of cellular manufacturing, tools & fixturing, automation, the Toyota production system method etc.
If those improvements were due to the efforts of the worker, I would agree. If you hit a nail better because you're given a better hammer, should you get paid more for doing so? If I invest in and apply DFMA to make a product easier to assemble by reducing the number of screws, only make it able to be assembled one way so less thought required etc, should you get paid for that?
I'm just playing devil's advocate, because I already pay my employees more because I don't want them to have to work a 2nd job etc. It's just the right thing to do, and it drives better retention and ouput by having better employees due to a better wage. But if I invested in a process that improved their output, and they asked for more pay because of it, I would push back unless it was their idea (then I usually give bonus' etc for implemented ideas).
But pay should be tied to effort & skill, not output. 99% of the time, the operator has no direct causation in the improvements that were made. Sometimes they do, but it's very infrequent.
The 5 days week was achived in the industrial revolution with steam machines. Now we have computers. Neither of those things were invented by the workers or the company owners.
Why only the people on top gets to benefit?
We should be demanding 4 days weeks, the 5 days week wasn't achived because generous owners.
Nobody said the 5 day week was generosity, you're moving the goal posts.
Companies spend ridiculous amounts of money on improving/simplifying designs, making process' more efficient etc. I have 9 full time staff that just chase process improvements.
The worker doesn't have to do anything for those improvements to manifest. Often times they benefit from less wear/tear & fatigue from improved ergonomics.
If the discussion is going to be "Hey, any time you make something easier I want a raise", then I'm just not going to make anything easier anymore. Or I'm going to automate, I'm going to outsource, I'm going to end profit sharing. There's no point, and I won't need those 9 full time staff any more.
The efficiency going up is always phrased in a way that it implies the workers are better than they were as the driving factor. If you looked at a worker in the 50's, and a worker now, workers in the 50's didn't take 45 minute bathroom breaks on their phone 2-3 times a day, check their phone 100 times during the day etc. Those workers genuinely worked harder, and nobody can argue otherwise. It was also exploitative and wrong. All these implemented efficiency improvements now allow workers to work less hard, and get more output, through almost no effort of their own. Why should that be rewarded? If I've invested $500M over the last 20 years to simplify a process and make it easier/faster to make, and you didn't contribute to that, why do you deserve anything additional? You don't work any additional hours, you don't try any harder, and you didn't contribute. All the improvements is due to my investment, and my employment of additional high skill & high cost people explicitly to achieve that goal.
What is your basis for demanding a 4 day week @ 8 hrs a day, other than "Because I want it."? What have you explicitly contributed to make the organization more profitable? If you did something, you earned it and deserve compensated. If you didn't, you don't. It's pretty straightforward. You're not owed anything just because someone else is doing well, unless you're being impacted in a negative way, or your efforts aren't being rewarded.
We did a 4day/10hr thing but we only worked most of the time for 8 hrs and just hanged around the office waiting to clock out for the last two hours unless we really need to finish something that day.
It's next to impossible if you have young kids. Daycare, before/after care aren't open long enough. Plus even if they were, I'm not putting them in there for like 11 hours a day. My 9 month old is only awake for like 12 hours a day. I'd never see her.
Of course not. I took your comment to mean that a whole day is inherently better than 2 hours spread over 4 days. Sounds like that's not what you were saying, but rather it's just better for you.
What I really want to see normalized is five days on, five days off throughout the year, with a big five-day holiday for everyone at some point. It just maps out so nicely on our calendar.
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u/gr4n0t4 17d ago
If I read one more time 4 days 10 hours week, I'll lose it, no, that is not a 4 days week. 4 days 7'5/8h. That is a 4 day week.