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Comment by from-nibly | Hacker News Reader

No, the market cant handle that right now. A 4 day work week happens because of market forces. Companies don't need to offer perks unless they cant attract enough applicants or retain their top talent. We just saw this last year that companies done need anymore applicants. We are also seeing now that companies don't even care which part of their talent they keep.

There might be a class divide coming that would include 4 day work weeks, but the vast majority of us scrubs are going to be 5 days a week for a while to come. At a minimum we are going to have to ride out this financial crisis for the next decade.

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The entire point of this is that productivity does not go down in a 4 day workweek and retention goes up. As an employer, you get the same amount of output, happier employees, and better retention. Everyone says they’re a data driven business until the data tells them something they don’t believe.

One thing I learned working at a desk next to some marketing agency people is, if neither you nor your customer understand statistics, the data will just tell the story that makes both of you happy, and that keeps the money flowing.

And it does those two things in exactly that order, too. The myth of the rational actor is exactly that.

> The entire point of this is that productivity does not go down in a 4 day workweek

Just an anecdote, but: my productivity definitely took a huge hit when I reduced my hours to 4days/week. All of the "working harder/more efficiently/more focused" doesn't help if you already worked hard/efficiently/focused. If you have a job with a lot of slack/downtime/waiting time... Sure. But sometimes, working 20% less means that 20% less work gets done.

It's the same as working from home. Some people are way more productive at home, away from all the distractions in the office. Others barely get any work done at all at home.

Most people are nowhere close to working fully focused 8 hours a day, and may also benefit from more time to recharge. Others benefit less. The average probably matters more for the company (also shorter work hours will improve retention, or allow you to pay lower wages to compete etc).

It's nowhere near the same. Changing locations is a minimal effect compared to working a full day more than another person. There are many jobs where hours worked are almost equivalent to work performed. Think of any manager spending their week interviewing candidates for hiring. One less day means less candidates interviewed.

This is why people also talk about retention.

Personally I'd think of the extra day as rent paid on not having to hire and onboard someone new.

Why would retention change if everyone works 4 days a week? At that point it is no longer a perk, you get it everywhere, so retention should be as before and the advantages of 4 day weeks is now gone.

I am a little baffled by the idea that job satisfaction is comparative. Three days a week to do what one wants and needs to do is life enhancing for me, even if everyone else has it and retention is a function of happiness.

Because people that are happy at their job tend to stay. Your point is "so what if they are miserable right now? They will be miserable elsewhere, too". That might be, but people will still try to get away from you, hoping it is better elsewhere.

With that argument retention would already be great with 5 day workweek since it is so much better than 6, but you don't see that, retention is really horrible today.

Companies generally follow decision-driven data principles.

After having worked at a few companies I can tell you that they generally do not.

I think the issue here is, retention goes up because not everyone is doing it. ( so people have motivation to stay )

Also productivity does not go down, because not everyone is doing it. ( so people have motivation to not get fired )

In normal conditions, expected would be some drop in productivity but bigger gain in retention.

Management seems determined to mandate RTO. I am not seeing a flood of alternative perks being offered with suddenly being forced to waste 5+ hours of my life each week commuting.

What is it about managing others that attracts ghoulish humans?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_superego

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-psychology-of...

Alternatively, what is it about managing others that causes one to make decisions that you wouldn't have previously made?

My answer: incentives. I suspect that if you started managing people, you'd start to see some of these issues differently too.

Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently. I don’t see why that’d be necessarily true. In that scenario, it’s kind of like a part time worker and I can see many businesses finding appeal in that.

> Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently.

It should be. Most people won't accept less pay even if it comes with reduced hours.

Isn't the idea behind the 4 day week that you'd work a bit harder/longer on the days you're in?

If I remember correctly, a few pilots in the past highlighted there wasn't a drop in output, but it remained the same or in some causes increased.

> highlighted there wasn't a drop in output

Most likely the bottleneck in those were elsewhere. It was mentioned that they reduced meetings and other time-wasting overheads.

Sometimes. And sometimes it means you get 80% pay. I’ve known a bunch of people who had 4 day schedules in 5 day offices and it varies

I know many people who do it in Germany, above a certain size companies can't really deny you if you ask for part time (unless you're critical to the system and have to be there every single day), of course you get the pay cut that goes with it

But they're doing it voluntarily.

optional 4-day week with lower pay for the employees that want it = ok

employer-enforced 4-day week with pay equivalent to current 5-day week = ok

employer-enforced 4-day week with lower pay = not ok

I bet many businesses would love that. More places of employment start acting like Walmart, where you have to be management to get a full time job with benefits. Everyone else has a shifting 30-35 hour schedule that makes it effectively impossible to have a predictable, normal life outside of work. And no benefits for part time workers either. And the pay is so crappy food stamps are practically mandatory.

Let me understand this: the state is actually indirectly subventioning Walmart with those food stamps right? It allows them to give crappy wages because the difference is supported with food stamps paid directly to the employees. And we still call this market economy and capitalism and and and.

And yet, I only ever hear rants about the unemployed being parasites, but never the same about corporations despite them getting way more tax dollars when you add up subventions, grants, tax cuts and indirect support like described above and letting others pay for the damage they do to the environment.

Sound like capitalism alright, what's the confusion?

> Seems you think that a 4 day work week is paid as 5 is currently.

Cost of living doesn't magically drop 20% just because you're not working that 5th day.

> Cost of living doesn't magically drop 20% just because you're not working that 5th day

Nobody living at their cost of living is in the ballpark for a 4-day workweek in the near future.

But the amount of work you're able to do is. And companies need to make money, they're not s charity. I took a 20% paycut to work only 4 days a week. And I think that is fair, because my output definitely did decrease by 20%. This might not be true for everyone, but all of the "working more efficiently" thing doesn't really help you if you were already working pretty efficiently 5 days a week.

I kinda doubt your output decreased by 20%. Probably fairly close to it, but I'm guessing you got slightly more done on the other days.

> but I'm guessing you got slightly more done on the other days.

Or slightly less due to having to spend more time on overhead and reading up on things. There is a minimum amount of time you have to spend just to be ready to do your job, many current jobs are so poorly managed that most of their time is spent that way.

I know there are multiple ways this could be implemented, but the thing I'm hearing most is you'd probably work longer hours during those 4 days, which is a tradeoff I might be cool with. Otherwise, just chopping a day off the work week and not reducing my pay sounds great, too. I'm less motivated and productive on a Friday as it is, because my cherished 48 hours is finally within reach.

Daycare closes at 5-6, and schools even earlier. That will greatly limit amount of people who can sustain longer hours.

Not only that but also the reason why eight is popular is because it evenly divides 24. Which ten hours you pick starts getting hard.

Kind of, I thought the reason was because productivity dropped after longer hours.

But mostly, the idea it gives you 8h work, 8h sleep, 8h for self seems like rationalizing and not even entirely true if you commute, unless you take half your commute out of work time...

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