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Comment by 8fingerlouie | Hacker News Reader

Mandatory hours for most employees is "9am to 3pm". Opening hours for our customers is 10am to 4pm. Everybody is employed at 36 hours /week.

Most people get in between 7am and 8am, and leave between 3pm and 4pm.

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We have the same policy. Mandatory hours so there is common time where everyone is at work, but if you do your other hours after or before mandatory hours is up to you. Works really well. There is plenty of time when everyone is at work and can communicate but late and early people can set they schedule as they like. Plenty of tasks to do when you don't need other people.

Just curious, in which country is 36hours/week standard? Or is it just your company?

I think most of Europe has a 37 hour/week work schedule, and because "we're better" we have 36 hour/week.

At least some of mainland Europe: Germany, France, Scandinavia, and IIRC the UK.

I’m in Sweden, so Scandinavia. Every company I know has 40h work weeks. Lunch break is not included so if you start working at 8, take a 1 hour lunch break around 12, then you can log off at 17.

The normal (office) working hours here are 37.5 hours per week, excluding lunch break, which is usually 30 minutes. That breaks down to 7.5 hours of work + 30 minutes of lunch break, meaning you get in at 8am and leave at 4pm.

AFAIK only France has a 35hrs week (7h/day), most of the other countries has 40hrs week.

If we are counting actual working hours, it is also 7 hours a day in Poland. (8hr/day inclusive of 30 minutes lunch plus cumulative 30 minute break from staring at a screen).

Ok, but where are you located? Where is "here" and who is "we're"?

Europe is not a single country but every EU nations has different labor laws and working hour contracts.

Last gig I had in Germany: it was 40h/week. I never seen a 36h/week schedule in France either... (I'm talking about standard software engineer positions).

In France base is 35h/week, 37/39 are frequent with the extra 2-4h hours then available 1:1 as extra vacation time ( RTT, you get hours on top of 35 worked over the year / 7 ( standard work day) of them over the year).

I'm currently on 35, might move to 37 ( majority at my company).

Here in UK 37.5h is standard. 8 hour days with mandatory 30 minutes for lunch.

Same in Croatia, I honestly thought it was standard in the EU with exceptions such as France.

Spending 9 hours at work seems awful even if your lunch break is 60 min instead of 30.

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