Burnout, Stress Lead More Companies To Try a Four-Day Work Week (reuters.com) 147
An anonymous reader shares a report: Work four days a week, but get paid for five? It sounds too good to be true, but companies around the world that have cut their work week have found that it leads to higher productivity, more motivated staff and less burnout. "It is much healthier and we do a better job if we're not working crazy hours," said Jan Schulz-Hofen, founder of Berlin-based project management software company Planio, who introduced a four-day week to the company's 10-member staff earlier this year.
In New Zealand, trust company Perpetual Guardian reported a fall in stress and a jump in staff engagement after it tested a 32-hour week earlier this year. Even in Japan, the government is encouraging companies to allow Monday mornings off, although other schemes in the workaholic country to persuade employees to take it easy have had little effect. Britain's Trades Union Congress (TUC) is pushing for the whole country to move to a four-day week by the end of the century, a drive supported by the opposition Labour party. The TUC argues that a shorter week is a way for workers to share in the wealth generated by new technologies like machine learning and robotics, just as they won the right to the weekend off during the industrial revolution.
In New Zealand, trust company Perpetual Guardian reported a fall in stress and a jump in staff engagement after it tested a 32-hour week earlier this year. Even in Japan, the government is encouraging companies to allow Monday mornings off, although other schemes in the workaholic country to persuade employees to take it easy have had little effect. Britain's Trades Union Congress (TUC) is pushing for the whole country to move to a four-day week by the end of the century, a drive supported by the opposition Labour party. The TUC argues that a shorter week is a way for workers to share in the wealth generated by new technologies like machine learning and robotics, just as they won the right to the weekend off during the industrial revolution.
Beware (Score:5, Interesting)
From personal experience: one employer offered a 4x10 week for better "work/life balance".
My local manager saw that and said, essentially, "oh, so you can work 10hr days. We need you in on Friday too."
Beware.
Re:Beware (Score:5, Interesting)
I had implemented Flex Time at my previous job. Giving employees freedom, isn't taking your hands off the reigns. You need to be sure you have people covering every day that your business is open. So if they all take Friday off, then you need to make sure there is some sort of rotation, or rule. Either you have a first come first serve, or a rule that you cannot take the same days off every week. Or make sure there is enough coverage every day, by other means.
Re:Beware (Score:5, Interesting)
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We have several people working four 10s and taking off Fridays
Unless they are paid overtime, this is illegal in some states, including California.
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I've always seen that as normal time is for 40 hour weeks, with only over 40 hours per week being OT.
I've not seen OT defined as over 8 hours in a day anywhere before....?
CA does it by the 8 hour day?
Re: Beware (Score:1)
No they don't, the above poster doesn't know the law. It's based on 40 hrs in a week
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Yes, if you work more then 8 hours in a day or more then 40 hours in a week. So if you worked 8 hours M-W, then 4 hours on Thursday, followed by 10 hours on Friday, you would get 2 hours of overtime. This obviously only applied if nonexempt.
See https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/how-to-guides/pages/californiahowtocalculatedailyandweeklyovertimeincalifornia.aspx [shrm.org] for examples
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We have several people working four 10s and taking off Fridays
Unless they are paid overtime, this is illegal in some states, including California.
California specifically allows flex-time schedules, such as 4x10 and 9x80. In some areas, your company can even qualify for a tax credit for implementing them (it reduces traffic congestion).
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California specifically allows flex-time schedules, such as 4x10 and 9x80.
They allow 4x10 is there is a vote by the "work unit" to approve it. But it can't be done with a simple agreement between a single individual and an employer.
9x80 is illegal [shrm.org] since it is more than 40 hours in one week. You can't do it, even if both the workers and the employer want it.
your company can even qualify for a tax credit for implementing them (it reduces traffic congestion).
I am interested in learning more about this. Do you have a citation?
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Not illegal at all - my company does it in MA and NH, and DC at the least. You simply have to mark your "week" correctly. Our week for 9/80 starts and ends at "mid-shift" (whatever that is for you, but must be fixed and not change week to week) on Friday. So week 1 starts Monday and ends mid-shift on Friday: 40 hours. Week 2 starts mid-shift that day, ends the next Thursday: 40 hours.
Lawyering at its finest.
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I had implemented Flex Time at my previous job. Giving employees freedom, isn't taking your hands off the reigns. You need to be sure you have people covering every day that your business is open.
It's also nice to have some common time where you can schedule meetings etc. without people getting annoyed. Where I work the "core time" is 9 AM-2:30 PM where you're usually expected to be in attendance unless the boss has signed off on the whole day. Other than that you can work any time 6 AM-9 PM on weekdays (max 12 hours) or 7 AM-6 PM on Saturdays (max 5 hours) for the rest of the hours and you also have some flexibility to save them up. It's a nice system for development, who really cares when the code
Re: Beware (Score:1)
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From personal experience: one employer offered a 5x8 week for better "work/life balance".
My local manager saw that and said, essentially, "oh, so you can work 8hr days. We need you in on Saturday too."
I mean... I see what you're saying and agree with the problem of some management mentality, but I don't know that I completely agree with this conclusion. A manager will get as much out of an employee as the employee will allow. The form of the work week doesn't make a boss better/worse.
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Given the choice between working one employee twice as hard or hiring another employee, they will work the existing one twice as hard every time. Free work.
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And likely shitty, unproductive work too. It's amazing how many managers correlate hours at the desk with work getting done, when that's really not the case. Nothing like putting in hours more time than your brain has capacity, then coming in fresh the next day only to spend all that rested, productive morning time fixing the shit you (or someone else) fucked up the evening before.
There is definitely such thing as negatively productive work, and it's mindblowing to me how many managers do not get that.
Re: Beware (Score:4, Insightful)
Grow a pair.
Yes. You heard me. Grow a pair.
The minute you say, "No", is the minute they back off. You work too much, because you're afraid they might decide they don't need you. But, if they needed you so much to force you to work that much, they need you too much to fire you.
Simply say, "No. You don't pay me for that. You pay for 40 hours. You got 40 hours. See you Monday."
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My father used to work extra hours. He'd come home with a stack of papers to go through every night. On weekends, he'd have even more papers to do over Saturday and Sunday. I asked him once why he did this and he said that his boss expected this level of work from him. At the time, I thought "he expects it because you provide it." He wasn't paid overtime or anything. This was him doing work on his time essentially for free.
When I got my current job, I told my then-boss that I wasn't working nights and weeke
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The minute you say, "No", is the minute they back off. You work too much, because you're afraid they might decide they don't need you. But, if they needed you so much to force you to work that much, they need you too much to fire you.
Been there, done that. First job out of college I was asked to be on-call for the midnight to 8am shift. You know, "You'll only get called in like, once a month, if that." I gave a giant Nope to that. I was fresh out of undergraduate, but I wasn't an idiot. Salaried and underpaid, there wasn't a hit of either a raise or OT there.
My coworker? An idiot. He volunteered, and then ended up on call a day or two a week. Once in awhile I'd walk in to find him asleep at his desk.
Now granted, when the layoffs came I
Re: Beware (Score:1)
It is totally not true though. The reason why there is such a lack of people in highly educated tech fields is because employers refuse to pay for them. And when they can just push for more lenient visas to get highly educated and skilled people from outside the country who didn't have to pay nearly as much for an education as they did and who's cost of living is generally much lower so they work for much cheaper, why bother?
If US students can't find a way to pay for their education without getting paid a d
Re: Beware (Score:4, Interesting)
Try being a programmer. You're exempt [...]
Whoa whoa whoa. Who says you're exempt? I'm a full-time software developer and I'm not exempt. I've never been exempt. I get paid time-and-a-half for every minute over 40 hours and always have.
If your employer has you categorized as exempt and is abusing it in the ways you're suggesting, you're at a bad company, plain and simple. The only valid reason I can think of to classify a programmer as exempt is if there's an expectation that they be on call, and if that's the case, there should already be additional compensation established. Anything less and you're working at a bad place. Leave.
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Depends on the jurisdiction. Virtually all tech workers are exempt in BC, for instance (the EA law).
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Gets worse, in most provinces the company can apply for a permit to work you over 40hrs/week and preemptively pay a fine at a lower rate. BC and Ontario were the two provinces that led the way on this.
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So, in looking into it more, it sounds like I've simply been fortunate. At least across the US, the exempt vs. non-exempt classification is handled via federal regulations set by the Department of Labor, so it should be common across most states (though individual states are permitted to have stronger protections for employees). It specifically says that computer programmers (as determined by what we're primarily doing, not our job titles) are exempt, provided we meet a certain minimum salary threshold ($45
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10 hour days just suck in general.
Re:Beware (Score:5, Interesting)
We do a 4-9-4 schedule, and I really like it. It makes Friday a pretty chill day, and I only need to take 4 hours of PTO to have a 3-day weekend. 4-10 Is painful, especially for the poor saps that end up working 10 hours on Friday. I guess they can get Monday off, so YMMV...
I don't think 4-10 would reduce burnout. The main factor for combating work-related burnout is to make work fun and interesting... which simply isn't always possible.
Maybe I will propose a 4-1 schedule next year...
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The oddest schedule I've ever seen was an 8-12-12-8 four day work week... on Friday through Monday. The position was doing international tier 3 tech support, and paid well, but it was absolutely the kiss of death for a social life.
France went to 4.5 days a week (Score:2)
France had a 39-hour week, variously interpreted as eight-hour days and leave an hour early on Fridays, or 5 equal days of 7 hours 48 minutes, or (often) as "a minute here or there doesn't really matter, just work".
Almost 20 years ago France moved to 35 hours, with no change in monthly pay, recommending (I think it was a recommendation) that work days continue to be 8 hours but that employees be given whole days in proportion. The legislator (quite correctly IMHO) estimated that 48 minutes less per day woul
Re: Beware (Score:1)
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Yeah just watch out for things like firefighting and policing, which is where this brainwave is currently heading as well. Every police service that I know of in Ontario that's tried it, has had massive screwups, jumps in complaints, more gun-draw incidents, and so on. The brain only handles working for so long before you start screwing up rather hard. Luckily, most realize how bad of a screwup it really is. Sadly a friend of mine who's currently in Division E(BC) is stuck in a 4x12(3.5 off) rotation fo
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Do the RCMP have detectives and people who fill out all their paperwork for them while they smoke a pipe and mumble at evidence?
No the RCMP doesn't have detectives, they have inspectors. Same with other police services and forces in Canada. Paperwork though accounts for between 40-70% of your job as a cop these days in Canada though.
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It's not just the total hours or amount of work per week, but the shorter and medium term rates of work also matter.
Running at 120% nominal all the time leads to fatigue, burn out and health issues, let alone the impact on having a life.
Technology tends to enable greater efficiencies - rates of work, but also comes with learning curves.
A given set of tasks has a maximum rate at which they can be done, and not result in immediate exhaustion, or long term fatigue.
Management knows this but deThrow in Pareto a
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4x10 or 5x8. 4x8 if you really insist, but certainly not 5x10.
Agree or two weeks notice.
Yes, I love working in a field where there are WAY more jobs going around than there are people willing and able to do them.
In New Zealand (Score:1)
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The original plan was that to improve moral and team unity the New Zeland group would play the German group in FortNiteBR Squads on Friday's, but they could never agree on what "Friday" meant.
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The question is where is all your stressors in life?
I don't find my work that stressful, however I find not being able to run chores, or be with my family during business hours as stressful.
For me there is little difference getting home at 6:00 at night vs 8:00 at night. I am still tired at the end of the day and really don't want to do too much. So the time from when I get home from work to when I go to bed, it mostly wasted time. However If I had a day free during the week day where places are open, and t
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This.
So much this.
I work on some big personal projects. The sort of things that require setup time to even get started. For a great many of them, that time in the evening provides just enough time for the setup and cleanup. For instance, just about any sort of composite layup. With commuting, dinner and personal hygiene all mixed in, most evenings just allow a few minutes of TV before heading to bed.
What good is a day off? (Score:2, Insightful)
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I thought BOFH was busy playing video games and deleting users accounts.
Re: What good is a day off? (Score:1)
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calls you on your personal line
"Hello. This is Lenny."
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The PHB is the one who refuses to follow policy calling your personal line any time they want. The BOFH is the one who routes the PHB's company phone to a dodgy NSFW, when accounting asks about the PHB charging 900 numbers to the company card, BOFH supplies HR with the PHB's call log.
Re: What good is a day off? (Score:1)
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The telephone does not have a constitutional right to be answered, you know. Grow a pair and tell him that your time is both valuable and not theirs.
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Sadly my house has no land line, and I have very poor cell reception. My position is not an on-call position, and I cannot/will not take an on-call position because of this.
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Re: Government IT... (Score:1)
Well thats all good but in the USSA (Score:1)
you will work like a dog so the masters could rule the planet
Employers' Other Work/Life Balance Strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
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Labor laws get in the way too (Score:2)
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That is what happens when progressiveness goes unchecked. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now is screwing people.
Meanwhile states like TX and NY kept the overtime definition limited to 40 hrs/wk, employers implemented 4x10 as an option greatly improving work-life balance, and now if some yucklehead tries to add an 8 hr/day stipulation they'll get their hand slapped before the bill even makes it to the floor.
Many Americans already have a 30 hour work week... (Score:5, Insightful)
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4x10 Works for OBVIOUS reasons in certain scenario (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an awful idea in healthcare, emergency services, and law enforcement; the same applies to 3x12/4x12 cycling hot in healthcare specifically. The only reason it's being pushed in those fields successfully is each one of those lacks oversight, accounting, and personal responsibility for mistakes up to and including death of those being served. And it's just piles of additional days off for those people who corner themselves (accident I swear) into as much overtime as the bosses will let them get away with.
Side note: these remarks apply to the US. I've heard the rest of the world is mostly more reasonable and people who work public service jobs are actually interested in public service rather than Cadillac pension plans.
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The 4x10 work week is great for people with low to moderate stress desk jobs
Not really. How many people want to in an office for 10 hrs, much less 8. I honestly check out around the 5-6 mark.
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Three quarters of the way down the page, mostly through comments about ten hour days, before I hit your post.
People really do have very fixed ideas about work.
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Yes. It was in the summary.
What happened to the promise of a 4 hour workday? (Score:3, Insightful)
For the record, 86% of the manufacturing jobs lost were due to automation, not outsourcing. We're not being out-competed, there's just plain less work to do. And instead of working less we're all fighting among ourselves to see who gets to be the lucky guy that gets to do what little work is left.
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in the 20s, 30s 40s and even up till the 60s there was talk of less and less hours. And then it just stopped. 40 hours was "standard" with most doing 50+. Why the hell was it so easy to get the working class to work so hard for so little and just grin and bear it? For the record, 86% of the manufacturing jobs lost were due to automation, not outsourcing. We're not being out-competed, there's just plain less work to do. And instead of working less we're all fighting among ourselves to see who gets to be the lucky guy that gets to do what little work is left.
There's an unlimited amount of work to do. It's only limited if you want to live with a capped standard of living. The standard of living has drastically improved since the 1920s.
Re: What happened to the promise of a 4 hour workd (Score:1)
Yeah, it improved so much that for the first time since years, the young generation has less sex than the old one. Improved my ass.
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4 hour workday?
Died with nuclear power...
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Because those who own the means of production don't want to share any more wealth than they have to.
These decisions aren't made out of a mutual desire to create a utopia. Its self-interest all the way down.
Giving you more time off does NOT help you afford your house, so it is absolutely NOT a way that you can share in the wealth of labor automation. This trend produces a near-future economy where everybody works two or three jobs that each require 20 hours a week, just to make ends meet.
Be that as it may,
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All that productivity went into the pockets of the 1%. Had it stayed with the workers, we'd be living large while working shorter work weeks. Look at what's happened over the last 35 or so years [wikipedia.org]. Productivity up something like 140%. Median family income up 40%.
A bit more complicated, perhaps? (Score:2)
Where I work, around %5 of the people do the work, while the rest are dead weight. I've been a few places and this seems to be the norm; I wonder if employees are getting "burn out" because A) They're the deadweight who aren't going to do anything anyway or B) they're the ones running around doing all the work.
Idle thoughts. I'd like to see someone study this.
Re:A bit more complicated, perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
People have. The average white-collar worker does about two to three hours of productive work per day. The rest is playing on the Internet, chatting, wandering the halls, daydreaming, etc.
Many jobs are superfluous. Apparently, some people in these superfluous jobs experience significant amounts of stress due to having to convince themselves that their job is actually useful.
Compermize? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Fuel use and transit time become an even bigger waste in that scenario.
Also this site has really started to suck, there are Nazi posts and a link to tranny porn below but legitimate anonymous cowards have to wait two minutes to post.
Get you shit together Slashdot or this AC is out!
9/80 to ease into it (Score:2, Insightful)
A company I worked at had a 9/80 schedule. you worked 9 hour days, got every other friday off and the friday on was a 1/2 day. It worked out really nicely easy to schedule all those errands that you normally have to fit in after or before work. Though I must say that the best contract I had was 4/32 and you could pick friday or monday as the day off it was amazing how refreshed you were at the start of each week after a 3 day weekend and it didn't hurt that I was also able to work from home a day each we
For best performance and morale (Score:1)
You need the 6 hour workday. 5 days is okay, 4 is better. Gives a bit more time for conjugal visits at home
Japan : work 5x12 and get paid 5x8 (Score:1)
Not a terrible schedule (Score:2)
I worked 4x10's for years with Sat/Sun and Wed ( Yes, I intentionally picked Wednesday. Explanation below. ) off.
Means I worked two days ( Mon / Tue ) was off Wed, then worked two days ( Thu / Fri ) and off for the weekend.
No matter how shitty the day was, the worst case scenario I only had to tell myself " I only have one more day before I'm off ".
Was outstanding in that no one else is off on Wednesday, so guess what days I picked for all appointments, Doc visits, etc ?
I miss that shift . . . . .
Sane outcome of automation (Score:2)
Less human labor is needed to satisfy human needs, so a little human labor buys lots of robot labor. Work 6 month per year or 3 days a week or whatever. Or buy a self driving car that makes you money driving for Uber.
It's all about money (Score:1)
When trade unions push for shorter working hours, it's usually so their members can do more overtime at time-and-a-half pay.
More time to shop (Score:2)
Any change would boost productivity. (Score:2)
Life fills the time... (Score:1)
Dominant Minority (Score:2)
Left-handed sports players are often better. It's not because being left handed is better. It's because most opposing players will be right-handed, and hence a left-handed player has more experience against right-handed players, than right-handed players have experience against left-handed players.
It's called a "dominant minority", where the benefits of a mutation come from that mutation being a minority. And it's interesting because most advantages become majorities. But in a world where 50% of players