It absolutely blows my mind that 99% of office roles are still 5 days / week, Monday to Friday - why is there basically no variation on this model?
It annoys me so much that I've just launched https://www.fourdayweek.io/ (shameless plug)
probably because most people don't want variation? if you have to work forty hours a week, you might as well work the same forty hours as your partner/friends/family so you can easily schedule non-work tasks and social events in the evenings or on the weekend. if you have children that need to be shuttled to/from school, 9-5 aligns well with that.
ah I see from your website that you are questioning the forty hour workweek to begin with. I'm sure most people would happily work eight hours less for the same pay, but I'm not sure how much interest there is in 80% time for 80% pay. also going back to my previous point, the value of that extra free day is diminished somewhat if it doesn't align with activities you want to participate in or availability of people you want to spend time with. I guess you could just treat it as a "chore day" to free up more time on the actual weekend.
For those with friends and family not in the service sector.
Most people in the service sector have mid-day availability a few days a week.
I spent a few years working weekends, so the only time I could hang out with friends outside of work was monday-tuesdays.
You could certainly do core days too.
I suspect this claim is not borne out by the evidence. There might be cohorts that enjoy this routine. Here are folks that might enjoy substantial variation, but often get "squashed" by institutional momentum:
- parents (especially moms)
- athletes (professional or amateur)
- community-minded/service-oriented persons
- caretakers of aging parents (this group happens to be the currently 30-50 year old crowd, who theoretically are the most appropriate for a 40-hr-week schedule.)
I have available to my mind many instances of persons who would _vastly prefer_ 80% pay for 80% work, myself included. (er, feels like I should mention I'm a business/customer-oriented software developer who loves RoR and growing teams, open to work arrangements)
Heck, I could provide a list of a dozen very strong engineers that would drop almost everything to investigate a 4-day work-week.
Are you a company who wants to hire the best of the best? Give your employees some of their time back, treat them with respect, and advertise that you work four days a week.
You've now solved your hiring problems. You're welcome.
People are proven to be more productive when they work less than 40 hours a week, so I'm not sure why they'd take a pay cut. If anything, they should get paid more for producing more value.
Also not mentioned: when you work less, you burn out less and are less likely to quit your job. Yet another argument for a < 40 hour work week.
There are people who want or need the full pay but need flexibility. An example is parents, like wonder_er mentioned. At my work, there is a flexible work schedule option where you have to hit 80 hours biweekly and need to work the core hours of 10-2 at least eight days during that period, but other than that you are free to work whenever. This option is super popular with parents because random things come up with kids all the time where you need time in the morning or afternoon but can easily make it up on the other side or another day. It's also popular with younger folks because they can work a bunch at one side of the two-week period and take a three or four day weekend (or even longer if you plan back to back biweekly periods right) without burning any vacation time. They like lots of time off but want full-time pay and are fine with longer hours some days to make up for it. That's variation in schedule even though it's still 40 hours a week on average. All these examples are people still aligned with their connections. In fact, the variation produces more opportunity to shuttle kids to school, participate socially, etc.
To your point, the type of variation where you work less and aren't aligned with the schedules of others in your life is definitely not desirable for anyone with others in your life. I was in the military and worked these schedules for about five years on a 24/7-staffed watch floor. The schedule format changed every time someone new came in and took over, so we probably changed structures every year or so during that time. I can say with surety it wasn't a particular shift schedule but just the off-normal-schedule part of them that made it hard. One that stands out as particularly bad was 12 hours on, 12 hours off (midnight-noon or noon-midnight), three days on, three days off. That was brutal for everyone. Your first day off was a recovery day where you tried to back on normal schedule, and your first day back to work was about trying to not fall asleep as you adjusted back. It switched later to 12 on/12 off, three on four off, but having more time off a week still didn't help. Everyone spent their first day trying to recover so they could do stuff with people in their lives. Later we went to three shifts a day, and workers on the midnight to 8am shift kept that up, but the number of days off til the next shift were fewer, making it worse. The best I figure out to do working that for a few years was stay up when the shift was done and try to sleep at like 4-6pm, but that only was successful because she wasn't working.
I'm sure most people would happily work eight hours
less for the same pay, but I'm not sure how much
interest there is in 80% time for 80% pay.
I would take it immediately!
The last time I kept asking about this possibility at job interviews, the best offer I got was 80% time for cca 50% of my market salary. Even then the company felt like they were doing me a huge favor.
> the value of that extra free day is diminished somewhat if it doesn't align with activities you want to participate in or availability of people you want to spend time with
On the other hand, the value is increased if you want to avoid people. For example, shopping is better when there are fewer people in the shop. Generally, less standing in the line anywhere.
This also double screws you due to crowding. When do people drive to work? Same time you do. When do people go to USPS? Same lunch time you do. What time can you go to the fancy restaurant? Same Friday night everyone else does. Traffic, parks, grocery stores are all crowded at the exact same time.
In the DC Metro region we have congestion-based tolls and it seems like it has shifted commuting times a bit, but it also causes a lot more congestion on the secondary traffic arteries.
Thankfully I think the pandemics has sort of disrupted employer ideas about flexibility. It's clear more workplaces are offering remote work and flexible schedules and I think that change will last.
Then the tax is not high enough. There exists a number where people will say this job isn’t worth it. And you can even toll all roads since license plate scanners are relatively cheap.
Right now, the unpaid externalized costs of everyone driving to work at peak times is diffused across so many people’s inconvenience and time sitting in congestion. Not to mention the environmental costs of making a road 8 lanes wide for 4 hours of traffic out of the whole day.
Anything higher and you basically accept you have no life.
Still able to pay the bills, but I'm working to live, not living to work. I really hope this option is possible when I decide to go for a new challenge in a few years.
I really like what you try to achieve with the platform. Will keep an eye on it.
I just asked my boss if I can move to 4 days per week and he said yes, changing next month - cannot wait...
Or, we can track how many hours people actually spend working. Most office workers will (anonymously) self report that they work roughly 3.5 hours a (edit) day; the rest is spent doing non-productive things. Assuming a five day week filled with only work, that gives us about 17.5 hours a week.
... relative to day, when 40 hour week was established. Which was pretty low standard of living compared to what people are used today.
I’d also assert that a lot of pointless work is getting done. If workers are self-reporting that they work ~3.5hrs a day, then perhaps we wouldn’t even need to give up any quality of life if we just eliminate the need to fake being busy for 40hrs a week.
First three days -- shift A; second three days -- shift B; one free day for all together. You want more time together? Synchronize with your family members to work the same shift, and you get four free days together.