> In contrast, Jack Ma, co-founder of Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba, has championed 12-hour working days. In April 2019, he described the "996" pattern, in which workers do 09:00-21:00 shifts, six days a week, as "a blessing".
Yikes, that sounds depressing.
> A report commissioned by the Labour Party in the UK suggested a four-day working week would be "unrealistic".
The report seems to be missing the point of most 4 day work week initiatives which is that we spend a ton of time not actually working because people feel like they are expected to always be in the office between arbitrary hours. Just because people "work" less doesn't mean their output is changing. Unless your definition of work is warming a chair.
I hate to burst the bubble here, but everyone I know at Microsoft Japan is still working at least a 5-day week.
It's just that they don't come into the office on the 5th day.
This is actually probably the key result from this experiment. Working at home that 5th day, allows workers, especially in Japan, where people feel a huge obligation to just hold down a chair even if there isn't work to be done, to work flexibly in a manner that works for them.
I'm a big fan of non-traditional work schedules but I think it takes strong leadership to implement well.
At one company, I noticed Fridays were probably the least productive day as people would take breakfast breaks immediately upon showing up, extra long lunch breaks etc. Everybody was itching for the weekend. When they moved to 4 day work weeks, that same mentality just shifted to Thursday. Leadership wasn't good about holding people accountable and then suffered enormous backlash at the mere idea of moving back to a 5 day workweek to help meet the mission goals.
I guess the moral is to ensure there are at least good management practices in place. Shorter workweeks aren't necessarily a productivity panacea.
They only tested a 4-day workweek for 4 weeks.
I was part of a similar test at a previous employer. We switched to a 4-day workweek for a few months. We were warned that management would be watching our productivity closely during the trial period.
You bet we worked incredibly hard during that trial period. Everyone was working long hours to get everything done early. Ironically, some people even worked Saturdays during the trial period. No one wanted to be the person who fell behind and ruined the four day workweek trial period for everyone else.
Employees are smart. If their management says they can have an extra 52 days off each year if they nail productivity during a 4-week trial period, of course they're going to be ultra productive for those 4 weeks.
I'm not surprised. The only empirical evidence we have for a practice that increases productivity and reduces errors, across all forms of knowledge-based work, is sleep and low stress.
As I understand it the only reason we have a 5-day, 8-hour work week is because North American rail workers' labor unions struck for it. Because workers, over tired, were losing limbs and dying on the job. It's not because it's the optimal work week for managing teams of knowledge workers.
What I am surprised by is how long it has taken the MBAs and suits to realize this.
Something I've noticed about the culture of "work through midnight if that's what it takes" is how much work gets thrown away. I worked at a few places with this culture (startup and established), and it seemed entirely normal for something to be the most urgent thing ever at 9pm and then, "actually, we've decided to approach it differently" the next morning.
I think this is because the impact of an error of commission is low. The worst that happens is people work a bit later, and since they're always working later... well, it's fine to build things that don't need building and have meetings about things that aren't happening. Nobody worries about wasting time because it's just pushing work into a buffer that is treated as infinite. But with limited incentive to select high-value work, it's easy to fall into a trap of working 12+ hour days entirely on low-value stuff.
"Go home on time" cultures are forced to prioritise to be effective. If you know you're going to shut down the laptop with tasks unfinished, you have to make a choice on which tasks you're willing to accept not getting done today. In this situation there is a significant impact of an error of commission, because it means something more important not getting done. IME this results in higher-value work overall, because the organisational instinct tends toward scrutinising everything to see if it's worth doing, not just the things which will take you past 5pm.
I've not been fortunate enough to work somewhere with a 4 day week, only places with generous working hours, but my feeling is it would be a further improvement on this. (Especially since with more free time, people are not going to assign such a high importance to doing their finances, keeping track of Reddit, daydreaming about DIY or any of the other thousands of things people in long-hours cultures do on company time).
While I really appreciate the conclusion and goals of the study, I wonder how accurate this test really is. Imagine your boss told you, "we are going to test out 4 hour work weeks". You are naturally going to be productive during the entire experiment because you want to keep the 4 day week. If left as a permanent perk for longer than a year, does productivity slink back down below the 5 day?
I've been working 4d/week for the past 2 years as a software engineer, and it would be very hard for me to go back to a full time position.
I'm pretty sure I'm making more right now compared to how much I was when working full time.
I explain this by having had more time to become a better engineer, as I've been able to spend time on side projects (learning new things), distancing myself from my professional duties (thus avoiding unnecessary/inefficient work), and recovering better during the weekends. Exercising more probably helped a lot too.
Overall, I deeply think that more small tech companies should start offering 4d/week positions, as it will make them able to compete against bigger companies that can offer bigger compensations. Most of the best programmers I know would happily trade a 15% net income reduction for an additional day off. This is also reflected by how popular such articles get on Hacker News or Reddit.
As a side note, part time work for white-collar positions is already very common in the Netherlands[1], and the country if one of the richest in the world.
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[1] https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2015/05/11/...
This is a partial copy of my previous post re reduced work hours: A German startup that develops websites, apps and e-commerce platforms (Rheingans Digital Enabler), has a five-hour day work policy. Employees come to work at 8am (apparently 8am is not even strictly enforced) and leave at 1pm. Apparently productivity is kept up by cutting out the fat - cell phones are turned off, company emails are checked only twice a day and meetings are kept to 15 mins. The company was profitable in 2018, its first full year in business. A San Diego startup (Tower Paddle Boards) experimented with five-hour workdays and after two years limited it to the summer months only. This is all reported in the WSJ.
I think an important point to consider in this discussion for the US is that when you look at GDP / productivity growth since the 70s alongside median wages, there's been a large steady growth in our output despite mostly stagnant wages. At this point a 4 day week rightly should be the norm, because if we're not going to be compensated for the growth we create we should be getting our time back.
Anyone working at MSFT know if the work hours vary according to your country? e.g. If you are in the US, do you punch in at 9 and go home at 5? how about Europe? If you transfer offices from Seattle USA, to say, London UK, do you suddenly get more vacation days due to EU standards?
I hear Japan has cultural practices where workers are supposed to remain in the office until the boss goes home. Was it like this at MSFT before they tried the 4-day a week experiment? Or were they doing a Westernized 9-5 gig? Which in that case, would probably already be viewed as a 'dream' lifestyle to normal overworked Japanese citizens.
It’s somewhat common in oil companies to offer salaried employees a 9/80 schedule. The employee works 80 hours in 9 days and gets every other Friday off. Typically people are split into A and B crews so half the office is in on any given Friday. I enjoyed this scheme for two reasons: 1) every other weekend being three days long is magical and 2) even on your Fridays on, you can usually work meeting-free since half the office is out.
> The technology giant said it was planning to implement a second Work Life Choice Challenge this winter but would not be offering the same "special leave".
Given the benefits to the organization, wonder why the repeat experiment will not have the "special leave" benefit.
I'm interested in hearing from business owners.
For those of you who own businesses with employees -- how do you feel about 4-day work weeks? Would it be practical for your own companies?
I think it is good for Microsoft and others to begin experimenting with changing the default work arrangement. This may give them a significant advantage moving forward.
By 2030 all "baby boomers" will be older than 65. These people will need to be cared for on a scale that we have never encountered before.
Companies will need to find a way to continue to conduct business while the workforce contends with caring for the aging population. Work-at-Home, Flex Schedule, and 4 Day Weeks and other things that are currently seen as perks can all become part of a core solution to that problem. Companies can essentially beta the potential solutions as a perk today.
I wouldn't be surprised to see elder care benefits start to appear in company benefit packages as well. Currently parental/birth benefits are a distinguishing factor in HR circles and gaining traction. I expect elder care benefits to take a similar course as caring for the aging population increases in burden.
I'm all for less work mostly but where is the medium. If they had done 3 days a week would their productivity jump another 25%? Two days a week? One? I'll bet at zero they have infinite productivity?
For me often my day is just busy. Update that library, write test, ask for review, start updating deps for if/when review passes. review passed. put in CI queue. Made through que. Submit deps version bump for review. Review approved, add to CI. Oh oh something broke. repeat. Entire days are just busy work. Working less hours would not remove the busy work or make it more productive. Maybe it's a bad workflow.
In any case yes , would love to work less hours but still questioning where the optimum is. Why 4 days? Why 8hrs? Why not 2 days for 2hrs etc... Is 4 only special in relation to 5? Is it 4 on 3 off or would 2 on 1 of 2 on 2 off be better? Or On Off On Off On Off Off. Is 6hrs better? 4? 10?
I'd love to see them do an experiment that compressed hours per day instead of days per week. I used to do consulting around the world for an American software company and Japan is the only place where I saw people straight up fall asleep in meetings. When I asked my hosts about this phenomenon they thought for awhile and then attributed it to a culture of "presence", which was basically a layered phenomenon of trying to be in the office before (and/or stay later than) other workers in your hierarchy. Seems this was a more obvious thing to measure than productivity since your boss notices precisely when you come in or leave. Tack on long commute times and pretty soon the workday has expanded to the point where getting enough sleep is physically impossible.
Very skeptical about these kinds of studies that claim great productivity gains by cutting work hours by significant amounts. What is the cut-off point here? Why not make it a 3-day week and get even more productivity gains? Obviously, there are diminishing returns, what are they?
And how do they differ per industry? I can tell you right now, the vast majority of jobs do require the current hourly investment (and then some). Are there industries that would see productivity gains from a 6-day or 7-day workweek (not that we want to change to that schedule - but it's worth a contrast)? Many businesses will pay out over time even though it means paying out 1.5x or 2x or even 2.5x base pay - they aren't stupid. Clearly, there is SOME benefit.
Reminds me of another post (3 hours but everyday) by indie app developer with a good discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11277033
I would please a 4days/8hrs instead of 5 days, but keeping the same pay.
The situation is still a win/win for the employer, since my increased productivity makes more profits and therefore salaries can be kept equal (or increased, if sales go up)
I'd rather have a concept where some hours of the day or some day(s) of the week are considered "no meeting hours/day." I feel we waste a huge of amount of time meeting with "stakeholders" trying to get consensus and establish "sync" and deliver "status." I purposefully blow some meetings off and ask for meeting notes instead of sitting 30mins/hour long meetings. May be its just me but I strongly feel there needs to be less meetings. I have started to block my calendar two-three hours everyday that I use to auto reject meetings, turn of slack and focus on deep work.
Extrapolating from my laziness, people will get used to 4 days and productivity will drop eventually. People presumably only work harder to achieve the change they want to see, namely fewer workdays.
Somewhat tangential, but I've been waiting for one of the Democratic candidates for President to bring up the 4-day work week as an campaign issue and extol the benefits of such a proposal. Labor unions and Democrats have achieved rights for workers in the past similar to the '4-day work week', so why not push for it? I legitimately don't know - is it because corporate lobbyists would frown upon it? Assuredly though, such a proposal would have bipartisan support among voters.
"During the month-long trial, electricity consumption had been reduced by 23% and paper printing by 59% compared with August 2018, Microsoft said."
Oh I think MS didn't say that. [1]
Paper and electricity was compared to August 2016, as far as I can see from the image.
Actually they look like on the trend line.
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1189857355908833280/Pz8s9574?...
Upstart companies can compete with such employers by offering workplace flexibility. They can score deals on highly qualified personnel for whom 40 hour workweeks are not feasible.
I'm helping out aging parents. I can do that, and keep my skills up, and have a life, if I work 4 days a week or less. That's what I negotiated at my last gig — but it was with a great small company and not one of the typical major employers where 40 hour workweeks are a baseline requirement.
Probably because I have no children and I am not weekend-traveler but I really don't get why some people are so excited about 4 days week. My utilization of hours during weekends is horrible. What I find attractive is idea of working less hours during normal week. Having one more hour at the end of the day sounds way better for me. Moreover from productivity perspective I believe it's better too because nobody is working 8 hours with maximum productivity.
Japan Microsoft * 2018/06 => 2019/06 Sales +32% * Operational profit & profit ratio is worse y by y. 2018/06 => 2019/06: -26%
Selling products by low price is meaningless. Productivity should be measured by profit per employee, not sales per employee.
I have found working from home just one day every two weeks or so relieves me of a ton of stress and greatly helps the rest of the working days in a week. It’s not about working one less day but giving me the freedom to relax and work in my own environment.
We tried a three day week in the UK, 1974, during the oil crisis.
I vaguely remember seeing articles, that I now cannot find, that claimed that the forty percent reduction in days worked resulted in much less than a forty percent reduction in production.
I think what if this kind of post will be get more upvotes? I believe companies will eventually move down the shorter work week path when they find its actually productive. I believe 4-day week companies will attract great talents.
This is partly a function of Japan. They have rock-bottom productivity, and very long working days. It is very difficult to actually stop employees working 12-hour days there so knocking off a day makes perfect sense.
8 days per week. 5 days of work. The calendar has been conspiring against us.
If offered 4 days a week (8 hours/4 days) it sounds like a lot of people would join a new company. I would jump in a heartbeat.
Why aren't smaller startups already using this tactic to lure away "talent"?
The part I don't get is they tried this experiment, claim phenomenal results and then just went back to doing the usual? If it worked so well wouldn't you keep doing it?
I would love a four day work week, but I don't think my child's daycare would be up for that. It's hard enough getting my child picked up by closing time as it is.
Maybe I'm wrong but I have the feeling that the increment in productivity is due more to the restrictions in meetings' length than the 4-days weeks per se.
Previous post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21440241
If this was viable for the bottom line, all businesses will be doing it. Idk what the point of these feel-good posts are every year.
It would be nice if HN could tag commenters with ceo, mgr, lead, worker titles to see the distribution of support.
Honestly I’d rather have this over unlimited vacation.
(This is a duplicate of a story posted this past weekend. I want to copy my comment from it for greater visibility.)
Fuck everything about 5 day work weeks.
I'll gladly switch to any job that offers a 4 day work week. It's one of the best perks.
As someone with ADHD, work days are entirely spent getting work done. There isn't any extra slack or allotment for personal tasks. They're 100% owned by the employer.
Weekends offer barely enough time to catch up with chores. There isn't enough time both to catch up and still have fun. I use vacation time to catch up on chores, so that's spent too.
I don't want to spend most of my life working. I feel like a slave, and now my youth is almost gone.
I don't care if it's a 10hr/4day schedule or a 9hr/4day 8hr/4day with less pay, I want an extra day for myself. I'm an excellent engineer aside from my ADHD quirks, and I'll go anywhere that offers this where I live.
My own startup (I almost have the capital for a long runway) will be 9hr/4day.
Fuck everything about 5 day work weeks.
We should switch everyone to rolling weekends.
It makes no sense that everyone gets the same two days off. It is such a hassle scheduling doctors appointments, receiving repairmen, going to the DMV, etc. on a weekday.
The only reason we have the same two days off is for historical religious reasons. And a rolling schedule could still accommodate that for those who care.
For everyone else, just put them on a rolling schedule of five (or four) days of work per week, any days, with some predictability.
Duplicate? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21433710
The aha comment that made me realise why this probably won't take off by @claudeganon [^1]:
> "The whole arrangement is about control, preventing workers from having the time or energy to build competing enterprises, develop skills beyond a certain level, or organize against their employers. It’s the same reason why most big corps oppose a national healthcare system in the US: it keeps people locked in to their current positions and has the knock-on effect of putting downward pressure on wages and turnover expenses."