Where/How did you find your job? If you started at 40 hours per week, how did you negotiate it to 32?
I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week.
My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview process wasn’t arduous, and I felt I could do the job, I went through with interviews in good faith.
Every time I did this, I got to the offer phase. With nothing to lose, at that moment I asked to work four days a week. I didn’t demand it. I just asked for it. I think I even said the exact words “I know you’ll probably say no to this, but I want to work four days a week.”
One place made an offer that wasn’t better enough compared to my existing job. I didn’t accept and moved on.
Eventually a place made an offer I couldn’t refuse. I have been here almost two months. Have yet to work on a Friday. I’m actually working harder than ever on Monday through Thursday. I am motivated to make this last, because honestly it is just as fantastic as I imagined. My life is so good right now despite the world being terrible.
My new salary is higher as well.
The world is overwhelmingly amazing, not terrible.
For the majority of people this is one of the best times to be alive in all of human history. Rivaled only by the years prior to the pandemic.
What the fuck are you on about, the world is olympic diving into the garbage heap.
Edit: If you downvote, please have the decency to explain your reasoning. Are you saying this opinion is incorrect? Why? It is to my understanding a race against time, when concerning climate change alone. One we are losing. Do you just dislike hearing about it?
The current wars are barely a blip compared to wars in years past.
Deglobalization at the scale it’s happening is a good thing so I’m not sure why you’re upset about it. The scale at which we were doing it was unsustainable and was causing more harm than good in the more recent past.
Resource scarcity is something people like to cry wolf about but never actually comes to pass.
Economic bubbles have existed for millennia and aren’t new or that scary.
Inflation is indirectly taxing people more and more and our society is going to hell because wealthy people brainwash people and destroy families.
Governments all around the world are becoming closer and closer to China every day.
Sure, we may have more technology nowadays (thanks capitalism) - but frankly I would have preferred being born in the 50s.
For example, one person can say “The world is terrible because fascism is on the rise in many countries.” Another person pointing out that polio infection rates are very low does not cancel out the first statement. Everybody gets to have a subjective opinion!
Well... it's better than sleeping with the fishes :) JK JK
Thanks for the write up!
Do you mind sharing your job, how long the process took/how many different companies you interviewed?
The process took less than a year. I entertained pitches from many many recruiters. I can't even remember how many. Most of them I rejected immediately because the jobs were beneath my high moral standard. I had introductory interviews at maybe 10-ish places. I actually went through the full interview process at only 3 places.
I was able to do all this purely because my existing job was stable and excellent. I would go back to it in a heartbeat if necessary. I was negotiating from a position of extreme strength with absolutely nothing to lose if the prospective new employer said no. I'm honestly afraid of a situation where I have no job and have to accept the first offer I can get. I might end up in a spiral of changing jobs frequently while trying to get back to a place that I find acceptable.
Earlier you mentioned
> Eventually a place made an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Did you need to sacrifice morals for this offer? Or is there some other reason you took the offer?
As someone who has spent > 15 years in the tech-only industry, both in massive corporations and startups, I'm curious to know how someone finds these roles. I think I'd quite like something like this when I am ready to move on from my current (startup) role.
1) get to the offer phase
2) get an offer that isn't a lowball
The key is that I would be living a life of complete and total leisure. Wake up whenever I want. Sleep whenever I want. Eat whenever I want. And each day, each moment, I would do whatever in particular I happened to feel like doing. I would not spend one moment of my remaining short life doing something purely because a capitalist system forced me to do so. That's the ultimate, probably unachievable, goal.
I ended up in essentially this state for several years. It was about as blissful as you would imagine. The problem is, what got me in to that state was an intense drive (among other things) that becomes increasingly hard to sate without a meaningful purpose.
So I've voluntarily made my way back into "capitalist systems" and have to consciously remind myself that it is optional and a choice I've made. It's hard to find lasting contentment.
Animals live a life of leisure without much work, and they don't have the infrastructure that we as humans have. They don't collapse.
How much work is essential in a society? Medical, agriculture, logistics? If we stopped creating new hardware or software for a few years, how much impact will that have on society? I would want to run a test to see the results.
^ This claim doesn't really sound like it has a lot of evidence to back it up.
As i see this problem I can break it down in 2 parts: - systems (including animals & humans) evolve or decline - our species doesn't have a central decision system
So, as I see it, animals live a life of constant pressure where the strong survive and the weak are culled out. No judgement here on the implications of striving for strength.
Suppose humans stop advancing our way to creating supporting tools that enable our weak to live. In my view this means those tools will decline and tend to disappear. Thus as a species we would be heading to the type of life animals live - I described above.
So, I argue that all work is essential work because when the outskirts of the bell curve of essential work are cut off, then the height of the bell curve drops as well.
This is not necessarily true. We could maintain systems without evolution or decline. For example, I don't think that cloth manufacturing has evolved much since the 70s. Shops have new ways to sell (via the internet), but we as a society could wear clothes from the 70s and have the same quality of life (in terms of clothing) as people back then. Think about how much unnecessary work and waste have we created by consuming clothes every year. How much damage could be avoided by not manufacturing more clothes?
> So, as I see it, animals live a life of constant pressure where the strong survive and the weak are culled out
Animals have the pressure to eat. They hunt, they consume what they need, and they rest until they are hungry again. They aren't constantly accumulating food or killing other species. That's the difference between animals and humans. The fisherman goes fishing every single day from 9 to 5, no matter if society is hungry or not.
And this totally doable, and I think a lot of people could live in leisure for quite a while.
At some point though unless we live much more nomadically and never storing up for the future, we will need to make sacrifices in life again for some higher goal, to those who come after us in order to once again have the fat of the land.
This is just the way of life though.
With you all the way in this, including the probably unachievable part. starts to shed a tear
I'm not sure any system will let you live this life without a significant investment back into it, first.
It sounds nice, but will never happen on a global scale IMO because people will always fight for positions of power. Complete freedom/autonomy/no agency is not what a government wants of its citizens.
So if there was some kinda revolution, sure, but I speculate it would be quite isolated.
Given your profession, a capitalist society is by far the most likely way for you to get what you want. What do socialist-type EU countries pay software engineers again compared to the United States? How much money do you need to save to achieve your dream? The US is without question the best country to chase that goal.
The first two points are false, I could present to you high double-digit countries where it's much worse than the United States. Charitably though, I assume you mean non-developing nations, in which case, you have a point.
It also does not apply to the parent poster.
By the end of the month I got tired of sitting on the beach.
But boy is it great for a stroll with ice cream on a hot summer night.
Productivity will probably be better too.
In my youth (for some definition of youth) I could work flat out for 10 hours+. I'd get in the groove and just fly.
I'm a little (or lot) older now - and I can do maybe 6 hours at a time now. I now fill the rest of the time with non-code work, like docs etc. Or I just knock off early.
I don't abuse this deal: When I really want to get things finished, or when there's something critical, of course it happens that I am still at work Friday 4PM. It works the other way, too: When there's something critical at home (and no planned interaction at work), I may not show up at all, and it is Ok.
That's the thing - if you respect your employees, they'll respect you.
Engineers right now are negotiating from a place of power when it comes to employment. It's just that for whatever reason, our current employer at any given time usually struggles to see that. So we can ask for things and very well might get them (whether that's compensation, work-schedule, or something else), but we're going to have much better luck doing that at the time of getting a new offer (while still employed). That's where our negotiating power comes into focus for the other party.
For you it was a four-day work week, for me it was getting them to drop the overbearing inventions-ownership clause in my contract. But I think that, if there's anything important missing on a person's work-life wishlist, this is the way to go about getting it.
For anyone else thinking of doing this I’d recommend asking for this up front. If a company isn’t open to it, then they’re not going to be later on after you’ve both invested all that time.
I as an applicant would also not want to be ruled out only based on that, I would want to have a chance to present my own full offer to you as well.
Allowing someone to work the hours that they work most efficiently in increases productivity.
Everyone knows that meetings are a waste of time and lead to poorly thought out solutions.
Asynchronous communication is more efficient AND gives better results.
Both of these things are objectively good for the company, and a company which sees that will outperform a company that doesn’t.
Nobody wants to work 5 days a week. Most people just put up with it. The company doesn’t really have a way to measure productivity so they just say more hours worked = more hours produced. But we all know this relationship is not linear.
I know anecdotally that my productivity is vastly higher when working fewer hours.
I have had times where I get more work done in 4 days than I did in 5 days. That isn’t always going to be the case. But if the company is paying you 80% salary then the company is definitely getting more work out of you per unit salary, and that’s all that really matters in the end.
And good meetings are good meetings. That said, 2/3 meetings are considered "unnecessary" in surveys we did - so it's a matter of killing off the waste-of-time meetings and doing that async and using tech, and using the more synchronous ways of working for things that needs that (specific real-time collaborative work)
and what if I can convince you that at our company, people with your level of talent set the bar?
We pay above market rate because we are looking for 40 hours of above average talent, which is equivalent to 55 hours of normal talent.
But that is the point.
If someone believes they can do a full-time workload in 4 days, how else should they approach this in a way that works?
Put another way: How many employers, do you estimate, would not even do an interview with someone if they knew they wanted to do 4 days? How would you, as a recruiter, figure out a candidate is capable of that? How would you pitch them candidate to an employer looking for full-time?
- salary
- stock options
- contractual terms, like non-competes
- etc
I'd love to see full transparency on both sides, but until we do I don't think they did anything wrong, and in fact just applied the same approach used by many companies, waiting until they were committed before making their big ask.
This isn’t a flaw to be fixed. It’s just how human interactions work. It has always been this way and always will be, no matter what you try to do about it.
Also there isn't really part time / full time with salaried work. I doubt you're paying overtime if someone stays in the office for over 40 hours. Hiring for presence over productivity doesn't seem like a good metric.
That to say; recruiters, team leads et al have little idea of how workload converts to time. If you're measuring hours you've already lost. The only thing that matters is output value.
> Michael Scott: Jim Halpert: Not a hard worker. I can spend all day on a project, and he will finish the same project in a half an hour.
Applying for a "full time" job, if you expect to be able to handle a "full time workload" is not a great stretch.
Also, as several other commenters have pointed out, employers routinely leave a lot of critical details out in the early stages — especially details that might make applicants not bother applying at all. Unless you're very clearly a rare exception to that norm (i.e. an applicant can tell that easily from the job ad) then it's a bit rich to expect applicants to lay everything on the table before you've even met.
There is an information asymmetry. People want to disclose things that make them less attractive to employ as late as possible. Similarly there are things you don't tell the candidate beforehand too.
> Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed
Yet when there is demand from prospective employees for something that is not offered (4 day week) but known to exist if you ask later in the interview process with some companies people will have to try if you are some company. Whether you are offering reduced time jobs or not for some positions that is available is an information you hold. You do not seem to want to hold that information back so you can make a decision depending on the candidate so you should very visibly perform send a costly signal that makes it clear reduced work hours are not possible. A costly signal would be "we are not able to consider non full-time applicants for this position".
I know, there must be reasons for that, but from my point of view, it makes me lost a lot of time, and just for context, I spend 3 months looking for a job (with several interviews each week), this is just the proper market research everyone should do. And the end I was able to double my salary, work less, and get a lot bunch of great benefits.
And of course, the most annoying thing from this, was all the wasted time because recruiters 1) didn't wanted to handle me the proper information (like salary ranges or benefits) and 2) recruiters didn't make their own job, there was like 3-4 companies I applied for where, at the end of the process they wanted to hire me, but we're not able to do it since they have a contract with my previous company. Recruiters (or somebody else) should check that info before starting the process.
For candidates who have this as a dealbreaker with a hard-sell like this, I have one suggestion: Don't tell them it's a deal-breaker, just say you're looking at another offer with this perk and see what they can do. That way it doesn't look like you're gaming their hiring process, nor that you were interviewing in bad faith.
And honestly it’s the best thing ever. I get a whole day each week where my son and I get to explore and play and have fun together. He’s 15 months old and he’s never going to be this young again. I’m super grateful to my work giving me the flexibility, and I enjoy work more than ever before because I get to have a better life balance.
I’m a contractor at a large IT integrator in Australia.
It helps that my boss was (see below) a good friend. I think it was mid-last-year, I just realised I’d be mentally healthier if I worked 4 days a week. So I said, I’m going to start working 4 days a week. And he said, okay. Because he’s great.
And it is glorious. You go from spending almost three-quarters of your life at work (71.4%) to just over half (57.1%) and I know those numbers are silly but I put them there because that’s really what it feels like.
Previously the weekend was this fleeting thing that came and went. I barely remembered it before it was over. Now … well, right now it’s Monday morning, and Monday is the day that I don’t work. Monday is the day that I spend on my side projects. Monday is the day that we go to the movies or go shopping or to a gallery.
FAQs, do I still work 40 hours? No. I did for a spell, when it was busy. I’d say my average has been 36. But now I’m on 32.
Do I get less done? Not really. There’s so much wasted time in the typical day, and I do think that this has focused me the times that I am at work. When I’m on, I’m on.
I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep this arrangement. I’m looking for a new job. The boss moved on to a different role, it’s that transition time when everyone seems to move on.
I’ve put my 4 day thing in the front section of my résumé. Which is on GitHub, so if anyone in Canberra is reading and wants to hire the guy behind Johnny.Decimal, all my details are here.
This is the most important thing to understand, at least in IT as a whole and in the integrator/MSP wrold specifically.
There were the times were the actual work didn't clocked more than two hours a day for months. Not because there was no work, but because there were meetings, red tape, e-mail chains with a dozens addresses in CC...
thank you!!!!!
Can’t say I love Canberra but it’s always lovely seeing a fellow aussi on HN.
Keep up the excellent work mate!
It's been a bliss overall on my work/life balance. I've never been that healthy and my stress level has never been so low in my life. I know I'll live longer and once I am more stable financially, I'll be able to have time to contribute to my community.
The salaries are also quite good. I highly encourage people to unionize, it is the only way to get proper leverage in this highly inequitable period we live in.
The union we have is small and consists exclusively of people with at minimum university degrees. Most of them have some form of life accomplishments due to the hiring process also. Due to the conditions negotiated, the well provisioned pension fund and general job advantages, most people coming in are experienced (5+ years) except for some amount of diversity/equity hires (which the company kinda needed since everyone stays there until retirement...).
Thus, the union is well organized to have leverage, well structured and reasonable with whom they should defend when there is abuse on the side of the employer. People are mostly diligent in their work obligations.
There is some rare exceptions, some employees with too much mastery of transferring issues to others. Frankly, I've seen the same or worst in Big Corpo, mostly in middle management, the only difference here is some employees do it instead of the managers...
I kind of get only an 80% salary, which seems a bit unfair as studies prove that part-time workers are more efficient [1], but the way better work-life balance is definitely worth it.
[1] Researching the validity of this claim is left as an exercise for the reader.
[EDIT] I have Wednesdays off, which is fantastic and somewhat based on science: https://www.rdasia.com/healthsmart/conditions/mental-health/...
That’s EU regulation. https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/employ...:
“Equal employment conditions
You must offer your part‑time staff the same employment conditions as full-time workers, including pay, leave, notice periods and other rights and benefits linked to their employment.
Modifying working arrangements
Whenever possible, you should try to accommodate requests from your employees if they want to change their working schedules, such as:
- transferring from full-time to part-time
- transferring from part-time to full-time
- increasing their working hours
You cannot dismiss an employee if they refuse to transfer from part-time to full-time work or vice versa.”
(Equal pay, leave, pension, etc. are pro rata)
In the EU, about 1:5 of employees work part time, most of them to their satisfaction (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/D...)
It’s not unusual for me to knock out a couple casual meetings on Friday morning then just sign off and go for a hike. But again, there’s a good chance I’m thinking about work on that hike. Is that a 4 day week? Is it 4.5? Is it 7? I dunno!
To me that sounds like 4.5 days–in this modern work environment I see “working days” as days where there is an expectation of availability and/or action. An off day therefore should involve no expectation that you’re reachable, or that you’ll make outwardly visible progress on your projects.
Personally I really try not to work weekends, but some weekend days I’ll have an idea, or feel the need to get ahead of things, and I’ll do some work. I don’t consider myself to have a six day a week job in that case–nobody has the expectation that I’m reachable then or that things on my todo list will be getting checked off.
This is true for me as well, but somehow my boss doesn’t seem to think that way. For the sake of consistency I think we should say time not spent at your desk is time off.
The first time I just straight up asked my boss in a conversation and with a request in writing. I said I was unhappy in my life in general and wanted more time to spend on other things than work. There is legislation in the UK that means that employers must consider these requests and reply with an answer and explanation in a fixed time frame. They accepted and I worked it for about 4 months before other circumstances meant I had to relocate and leave that company.
The job I moved to was a start-up. After a string of executive resignations and engineering team redundancies I was left as the most experienced team member. I had another job offer in hand that I didn't really want but took it to the only remaining senior lead and asked for 4 days (at full pay this time) or I'd leave. They accepted in an informal way rather than modify my contract in this case and just called it "taking a day off when you need it". I would not recommend accepting this in general as it puts you in a vulnerable position for being punished for doing what you thought was the agreed deal. In any case, working 4 days at this job was a disaster because the company was such a mess and I had so little support that I spent my day off and my weekends obsessing about work unhealthily. I ultimately went back to 5 days in a more senior role to try to help right the ship but couldn't take the stress then either so ended up leaving.
I'm now at 5 days again. If I stick my new job out I plan to request 4 days after my probation period ends.
The decision for an employer comes down to retention - do they want to keep you enough to accept 4 days instead of the risk of you leaving? So if you have a manager who can understand your value and represent that to internal decision makers then that's the main key.
Similarly in a 5 day week arrangement, I've never felt compelled to actually work the full week especially when I'm ahead.
Ignoring any formality, I think most folk work a 2-3 week if they were honest about it.
I wouldn't sweat having a 3/4 day arrangement as a reason to pick one company over another, especially if the offer is implicitly part of attempting to screw you on salary
While I agree with you, ya gotta admit that most don’t have the luxury to just say “I got my work done already im just gonna take Friday off.”
Most of us are expected to be available at the least from M-F, 9-5.
“Most folk work a 2-3 day week” - while this maybe true, don’t let it discount a bonafide 4 day work week. On the extra day off I’m presumed uncontactable and not at my desk. There’s a big difference between that and being at work but not really working.
The real difference maker is if you need to show up to the office or be reachable. I am sure there were weeks where I did 16 hours of work(i.e 2 days) at BigCo but I still showed up to the office 5 days as week. It didn't really matter to me if I was working at the office or just goofing off in the coffee room, I still couldn't go surfing or do something I enjoy.
> if you're working 4 day weeks and you're feeling behind, you may well end up working that 5th day without anyone asking.
If you're behind on a 5 day work week, do you work the weekend? I don't see how this is any different.
I knew the first was a better cultural fit, so went back and asked them to work with me. No room to negotiate on salary, so they offered 32hr weeks and I jumped at it.
Not too worried about them turning around and screwing me over, because we both know I'm the one holding all the cards. I trust them to look after me and treat me right, which is why I turned down the higher offer. If they betray that trust, there's nothing stopping me leaving. Didn't burn any bridges with the 2nd company, they're happy to have me back if it doesn't work out.
"Good for you! Coordinate with your team and make sure you fill HR in on your absences."
This was after working the full 40 weeks for four years* with an employer that knows how important work--life balance is.
----
* Well, I did take one afternoon/week off for medical reasons for half a year. And arranged 60 % work to have time for university in parallel another year. And was away on parental leave for most of yet another year. I guess a good employer does not make it hard to stay with them.
Its mostly normal to work 32 hours in my country. I feel 32 should be the norm actually. In my line of work - software development, 32, 36 and 40 hours are all very common. Less than 32 is really uncommon though, as a salaried employee.
I consider 32 hours to be a full-time job these days and noticed a lot of people around me are starting to do the same.
> mostly normal to work 32 hour
It is absolutely not if you work in the tech sector. The expectation is full-time and this is 40 hours at most companies.
I Live in Vienna now, most of my colleagues do 32 hrs. Boss doesn't love it, but it's better than losing people.
I work for a large financial co in NL (~50k employees) and 36-hour contracts are the standard for all full-time employees. 32 is considered part-time for us.
Regardless, most people certainly work 4 days a week here. Of all my friends and contacts, I think I know of only a handful working 5 days a week.
Maybe its different for people in leadership positions, or embedded development or some other domain I am not so familiar with?
Yes, making the same salary as someone in the same position working 40 hours.
> Where/How did you find your job?
Knowing the right people who value my skills to trust me and understand that work isn't my life.
> If you started at 40 hours per week, how did you negotiate it to 32?
I used to work 40 hours but, since the pandemic started, realized I could do the same job with the same efficiency at 32. Best decision of my life.
I really loved the feeling of a 3 day weekend every week- it felt as if you were off work half of the time.
Eventually, somebody in the organisation decided that everbody had to work 100%, so I was given a 25% pay rise and told to turn up on Fridays.
In terms of work capacity, I feel like I delivered pretty much the same to the organisation at 80% as I did at 100%
They made this change with a 6-month trial period where we would determine if we would keep it at a later time based on some sort of productivity measurements. Everyone, including the CEO, seemed to agree that trying to measure productivity would yield few meaningful metrics. The consensus at the end was that productivity was either the same or a little less, but we ended up keeping it anyway.
I did this after working hard for ~1 year at the company. Once you prove your worth, it's in your employers interests to keep you i.e. it would cost them way more if you left for another job with shorter working hours so don't be afraid to ask
If it was doing it again though, I'd request this during my yearly review, and I'd ask for a 4 day week with no drop in salary
There are already companies offering a 32 hours work week though:
Disclaimer: I'm the founder
I have an employee who needed a 33% increase due to market pressures. While we were going to already meet 15% of that at his next annual, budgets didn’t easily allow for the other 18.
Instead, he got a significant raise and a 4-day week to boot. He’s happy. I’m happy. And, frankly, we don’t see any productivity loss.
It is absolutely possible.
Output hasn't changed
And if this ever becomes a company wide policy (e.g. 4 days for 100% or 80% salary), please let me know :)
One listing (company name omitted to protect the witness):
Requirements BS/MS in Computer Science Strong in Data Structure/Algorithms, can solve intermediate-level Leetcode questions with ease Experience in conducting technical interviews and well-trained on how to grade candidate performance Passion for mentorship!
Nice To Have Have the flexibility to work 10-20+ hours per week when business needs warrant Have prior start-up experience Compete in Leetcode contests weekly and rank top 2000. Previous experience competing in ACM contests.
What's In it for you 100% remote work (1099 basis) Flexible work hours Opportunity to network and build connections with aspiring and established designers Compensation: $15/hr
So typically the salaries are "market rate". Difficult to say for sure though as most companies still don't disclose this
As for the job you mentioned, I know which company this is and its for a part-time job (i.e. not a 4 day week for 100% salary)
Speaking honestly, I added the part time jobs are added to "bolster" content (given there are so few 4 day week jobs atm). I'd recommend focusing on the jobs marked as "4 day week", they are typically "higher quality"
The KFC across the street from the Walmart was recently advertising $17/hr.
$15/hr for that kind of tech experience would never fly here!
It's pretty common in Europe I would say. In Germany you even have a right to reduce your hours after half a year of working somewhere, and your employee has to accept it unless they have a very good reason to reject it (e.g. it would be devastating for the company).
Good software developers are still scarse and lots of companies are competing for them, so generally companies are very accomodating for these wishes.
I said working 4 days does not necessarily make me less productive. And on top I use the extra time I have to become better at my work and contribute to open source (which is true).
I've found the majority of the companies I've spoken to over the last few years (in the UK) have been open to me working 4 days a week but I've also had the frustrating experiencing of being told this isn't an option after interviewing successfully.
At the moment people with my experience are in huge demand so having this leverage must be a big help and I'm happy to take advantage of it while it lasts.
But given I work in tech and basically get a very comfortable lifestyle either way, I don't think I'll go back to 5 days if possible. I know the current company won't push me to do it, and I interviewed with another which was fine with 4 days.
My wife also does 4 days (different), so my son gets an extra weekday with each of us independently which is also a great thing.
Important to mention that no other benefit was removed or any salary reduced.
As someone who has historically worked long hours, I wasn't expecting to enjoy the change so much. It will be very hard to move back if/when I move companies in the future.
I treat him with respect and he treats me with respect. If it ends up turning into a really difficult situation for the team, we might have a discussion about how to improve. But honestly knowing he's out every Friday will probably be a good forcing function for us to have a day with few meetings etc.
As for how I negotiated it, I just told my manager I wanted to do it. He was like "well, if it's that or lose you, sure." Part time is not very common where I work, so approval had to go up to VP level but was not a problem. I'm paid 50% of what I was paid before, I didn't feel the need to negotiate this. Full benefits.
My nominal work week is 8h+8h+4h, but when we've had deadlines I've also done 4 full weeks and them 4 weeks off. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Wasn't very hard to convince them. Made sure I was available for whatever coordination is required. Made sure I still meet expectations. Argued that my productivity wouldn't fall proportionally to the drop in time. No one has complained. Was a few months of adaption to make people realize I'm normally not available one of the days a week, but everyone has taken it in stride. Most are a little jealous.
I work 7 hours per day Monday to Thursday, and Fridays I alternate between 8 hours and having the day off. Over two weeks, this equals 80%. If needed I do some work on my "free" Fridays as well, but it's usually not needed.
If you ask me, I'd say I'm as productive on this schedule as I would have been on 8 hours per day - if not more. So it's win-win: my employer gets the output of 100% but only pays 80%, and I get time off to do other things.
Before that, I just asked for 4 days and made it clear I provide the value of those who work 5 days a week. No pay cut required.
Still, I can’t picture myself doing it all year around… maybe because I don’t have kids… I would prefer a shorter workday
Also, Friday off, but that it taken out of your own paid leave days!!
I guess this was a big deal 30-40-50 years ago when it was setup, especially for factory workers, but it’s 2022, come on!
In NZ, loads of professional firms shut down over Xmas as it’s summer. They basically make their staff take at least two weeks leave over this time because there’s no provision in employment law to force them to find work for people who don’t want to holiday then. My wife was a lawyer so she got caught up in this, used to annoy the shit out of me being forced to use so much leave at a time we did’t want to.
Italy, as a whole is basically completely shut off during the central weeks in august, with hotel prices easily doubling July prices… go figure out why hahaah
By law, there’s generally 4 weeks go paid leave, and the unwritten agreement is that the employer peeks 2 of them for you…
Tech companies generally dont do this, maybe to feel more international and modern
The cut in salary is 100% worth it to spend a day with my daughter. I feel happier.
I told my boss I would be putting in my resignation. He asked if there was anything he could to do keep me on. I asked to move back to a development role with 24 hour weeks of three contiguous days. My boss agreed.
The schedule was great, but I eventually quit because I started a new business and wanted to focus all my time on that.
It was fantastic to have a long weekend every week. I also miraculously became more disciplined, because I promised and delivered by Thu evening. For some reason Friday evening used to always spill into Saturday, then Sunday, into the interstitial spaces between home and social life.
The downside was that people would more often than not hold meetings without me, and get to work on more juicy projects, and I would feel hurt at the beginning. I had to continually remind myself of the increased free time. At the peak frenetic pace of the early 2000's and the dot com boom, this was seen as career suicide. I knew that it wasn't any such thing, that you can always get work when you show quality, but the social pressure still made me doubt myself sometimes.
As edith piaf sang, je ne regrette rien. I regret nothing.
I think the company got a good deal out of it too, as they paid 20% less for almost no productivity loss at all.
I have medical reasons. I have autism, and experience has taught me that working 40 hours simply burns me out within 3 months. I usually ask for the 4-days without mentioning the autism. But if they ask why, I won't hide it either.
"sure, email HR to adjust your contract and tell your teamlead"
I work 4 x 7.5 hour days, I just took a paycut in theory. So I negotiated a full time wage and then calculated what I get paid at 4/5ths of that number.
I was freelancing for about 4 years prior, and I am currently preferring this arrangement as I truly get to focus and commit both to work and hobbies rather than splitting focus. I am getting more fulfillment by performing highly at work now too, which was an unexpected benefit. I also enjoy the camaraderie I get from work over freelancing, which can be a very lonely affair.
Of all the arrangements I have had, including a "sabatical" of 6 months, I prefer this. Retirement I hope to work 0 days of course, buy while earning, 4 days has proven a good balance.
You just negotiate how many days you want to work on that client.
Plenty of coworkers from Italy do it to avoid paying higher taxes: they increase their hourly rate until they hit the 65k pa limit and then they just start dropping days. If they were to earn even 66k, they would start paying way more taxes and they would need to earn ~30k more to get the same salary after taxes.
Somewhat similarly, in the USA there is a "welfare trap"[2] where earning more income would reduce other benefits (eg housing, food) enough to result in an effective >100% tax on income.
[1] https://publicnewstime.com/travel/explained-the-pros-and-con...
For the past 10 years I've been freelancing, and still 4 days a week. It's a good standard, and it has never been a problem for any client.
It probably helps that I live in Netherland, though. Part-time work is completely accepted here. Lots of parents work 3 or 4 days to have more time with their children. Before Covid, lots of people had one WFH day. Nowadays, many teams have one office day.
Work-life balance is important. Don't sacrifice it.
So, I guess what I have to say is: - have a good reason (and your own mental health/WLB is a good enough reason, but you need to have one for people to take you seriously) - show you're capable of getting the work done - accept that not everyone will be accommodating, and figure out how valuable this accommodation is for you.
When I asked to make 4-day week a thing, at least for me, the request was rejected. The reasoning had to do with "synergy" in a team and lack of much overlap in a remote team. Example I was given: if everyone started taking 4-day weeks it might be that Bob has Mondays off, Kate is off on Wednesday, and I would be out on Friday. Fair enough.
We are trialing a longer (2-3 moths at a time)time offs. Hopefully the experiment sticks. Having loads of free time is the best!
Alternative framing: encourages good communication and high bus factor.
I'm about 15 years into my career, with about 5 years as senior tech guy at my current company. I have a great relationship with leadership. Another tech guy was already working 4 days (I think it was part of his initial negotiation), so I asked if I could too. I got the OK and took the pay cut.
At 5 days a week, I felt close to burnout for years (the work is interesting and challenging, and therefore tiring). Now work feels sustainable, life is so much better, and I have energy for personal projects. It also helps that the company is already fully remote so I can work from anywhere.
I wouldn't want to do 3 days a week -- projects would drag on 30% longer and I think I'd really feel that hit to my velocity. 4 is the sweet spot for me.
Tired of being the most knowledgeable person in the room though, so accepted a full-time position in the US I will change to soon.
In those cases, you either negotiate upfront before you start that you are only available for 3, 4 or five days a week or whatever number you want. Or you state at some point that you want to reduce your hours to whatever figure suits you, in which case there is an opening for another person to fill those now-unstaffed hours.
If the employer is only open for business 40 hours (5 x 8 hours) a week, then there is a situation which is more difficult to vary. But it's still doable to have two or more people sharing that single position: that's called "job-sharing".
But in reality, most employers in tech that have allowed some or all employees to reduce their hours have found no productivity loss, or in some cases productivity gains. That's why often employers are OK with leaving the salary the same when moving to 4-day weeks.
Grated, we're not a "product company" and instead work essentially as hired IT mercenaries, i.e. contract work, but it's a pretty sweet gig.
The job kind of found me. I posted my CV to some online forums (include here) and mailing lists, and a few random small companies contacted me over the course of about a year.
We actually keep our ears to the ground for interesting individuals, so if you're interested, feel free to shoot me an email: local-part: wilson, domain: rainlab.co.jp. We're fully remote, so timezone concerns aside, physical location is mostly irrelevant.
How to do it? I think it’s one of those things you can target on purpose.
Regarding my case, I have a good relationship with my superiors, I fulfill the goals which are put in front of me, team is happy etc, etc.
Think carefully about WHO you ask. Some people just like to say no. You might want to think about whether it is HR, your immediate boss or another boss to ask first. I have worked at places where the "NO" person can be bypassed and might give you the wrong impression that something is impossible. As kids know "NO" can often be a short-circuit response to avoid a commitment, and avoid time thinking about the thing.
Also, the best commute time (pre-Rona) put me in my seat 0700-0800. And the best return train had me leave at 1750. This basically gave me four tens.
And pre-Rona my firm had a culture of work from home when you need to, wish, catch up.
Put all this together and people accepted my four day schedule, and work got done.
Plus, we’re a small company with a working owner. There is no BS attendance requirement—just productivity.
In my company, it's something that every "creative" employee has the option to do. It's based on the idea that we're billed out to clients hourly and all of our work should be scheduled a bit in advance. Fridays are staggered though, so there should always be some availability.
Based on the law here, the employer could have denied the 80% but I could have asked 6m totally off and they couldn't have said no. Anyway, they accepted the 80%. This lasted for 20months. I then asked to have another one for my second kid, as no issue arose during the first one and I was productive, it was granted.
Finally, I negotiated to remain at 80% permanently.
At first I went down to 32 hours at my old job, but then got an oppurtunity at another company and this was my demand. Sure, I make less money but I definitely got enough to get by and then some.
It fits well with my current project since we have a few other people working as consultants for a few days each week (They have other projects as well).
A lot of people at my employer do work different schedules though. Either 4 day weeks or compressed hours (9 longer days & one day off).
I think it's a cultural thing where the organisation recognises work is work and you also deserve a life on your terms.
All of us seem pretty happy with our setups...
I understand the appeal (particularly for people with kids) but nowadays I'm pretty anxious about the future and I'm not sure I'll be able to earn the same salary in 2 years, let alone 10 years when ageism will hit. I'd rather save when I can.
M: 8hr T: 6hr W: 12hr Th: 12hr F: 2hr
Here in Europe (Austria) - it is very common to simply state during employment interviews that you wish to work 30-hour weeks. Its just a part of the negotiation stage and the company can take it or leave it - no questions asked.
If you're already signed up for a 40-hour week, well then this is a renegotiation - and you also have to be prepared to take it, or leave it.
I believe one of the reasons they did this was to prevent people from leaving the company and it's certainly worked for me. I don't see myself wanting to change companies as long as I stay in my current country (Canada). Even for double my salary I think I wouldn't move.
We first started a few years ago with a "no meetings" friday rule, which was very successful. We expanded to the 9:80 program two years ago and it has also been successful.
I have previously worked 3 days a week in Berlin as it's the law to allow you to do so for 3 years after your child is born.
I think 3 days a week is definitely the most optimal as it's 4 days off 3 days on per week. Meaning the balance is in favour for your personal time.
I was lucky and I started on a 37.5 5 7.5 hours a day in the office.
I found the job on Twitter, almost by mistake. The 4-day workweek was a non-negotiable for me because the indie hacking part is so much fun, and it’s making me around $60-70k/year, and I’d very much like to keep on developing the business.
Asked my manager to go down to 4 days. They said yes.
Now down to a 3 day week (spread over 5 days) as it fits my situation better.
Here in Switzerland there are many job opportunities in different positions, from junior to very high positions, including engineering management.
Nowadays it is not uncommon for other colleagues to work 80% as well, especially if they have become parents.
I am now working 7 days a week (freelancing), but then I try to stick to roughly 4 hours a day.
Except for when I want to take vacation with friends or family, I realized that I did not really need 2-3 days off every week.
Waking up around 8am and working until 1pm gives me a lot more joy.
But seriously: Most tech companies only care if you're doing a fair amount of work for what they're paying you. If you have the skills to do more work than others on the team in 4 hours per day instead of 8 hours a day, no healthy company is going to complain.
When there’s a deadline or shits broken Ill put in the effort but for the most part its a 4 day workweek and its great.
I started out at 5. Left the company and stayed in touch with the CEO. The CEO asked me if I was interested in returning and I agreed with the stipulation I could work 4 days a week, so I could work 1 day a week on my side project.
In Germany, you're allowed to reduce your time as you like.
7 person company doing CMS customization and operations for large gov, edu, and ngo clients.
I started as a contractor at that schedule, and when my boss wanted to "put a ring on it" they didn't want to up my pay by 30%. If you account for that time, I am in the top 10% of earners for my stack according to stack overflow.
That process took a long time and a willingness to work for "less", as well as a lot of uncertainty and a willingness to do a lot of shit work that should be "not my problem".
Also, after having worked with the same business for the last 7 years, there are some things that I feel I could improve:
- I'm the old guy who is supposed to know fix the hard issues and if I can't figure it out then it probably isn't getting fixed - I haven't gotten reasonable raises but I don't want to start my own business or take a full-time position (though I have gotten some okay bonuses) - I'm working mostly with WordPress, which has a number of infuriating flaws and while I've gotten better at identifying, preventing, and remediating them it's still a crappy stack - I've had to learn a lot of infrastructure stuff I don't particularly care about
But I do have health insurance, and have been working a relaxed schedule remotely the entire time. I've spent a lot of time practicing various musical instruments while ruminating on my work. And we're usually pretty easy-going about moving hours around if (for instance) the snow is really good and I want to get out and ski.
Also, I get the idea that everyone in my business has gone through some serious depressive or other personal issues (based on their periodic lack of availability) over the time we've been working together... I know that when my second marriage was breaking up there were multi-day periods where I was literally phoning it in for several months. I consider the fact that we're all still working and getting a lot of useful, remunerative things done to be one fact that keeps me working this business instead of, like, taking up electrical contracting (that is, finding another trade) where I think I could have more control over my working conditions.
I also have enough extra time that I can work side gigs, mostly involved with performing music in a variety of capacities. I happily engineered a concert last night and played a trio gig at a beautiful winery today.
I feel incredibly fortunate, even though I could probably triple my annual income if I were motivated.
> Where/How did you find your job?
Referral from an old colleague.
> If you started at 40 hours per week, how did you negotiate it to 32?
Asked. Took 80% full time equivalent pay. Had just received a pay rise, so there wasn't much actual reduction.