A series of trials have come to an end that have found that a four-day workweek would be a net positive to both workers and their productivity. The trial specifically moved workers from a 40-hour workweek to either a 35 or 36-hour workweek at the same pay grade. The way that this has been covered suggests that the study actually removed people from an entire day of the working week, which is not what it did, and indeed the narrative has quickly become around “
We moved to a 4 day per week in our office, but the hours vary by how much work load they have. It varies week to week, but our office help likes working 4 days a week even if it means working a 10 or 11 hour day. Their thought is "hey, I am here anyway, so I would rather work a longer day, but have 3 days off."
I had a similar thought last week about the articles where “employees are stressed and burnt out and companies are giving them resources and extra days off”.
These “extra days off” and “mental health resources” do not solve the problem. If you’re slammed with work, you can’t take the days off because you need to get the work done. No amount of talking to a tele-therapist will finish those iMeet logs, Excel files and PowerPoint decks all on the same damn projects that you’re stressed out of your mind trying to get done by deadline.
I do applaud the folks in the articles saying as much “you can’t take the days because you’ll look weak” and “if we take the days, I just have to work harder to get deliverables complete.”
If you want to really make your employees want to stay and do great work, hire more workers so people can really work just 32 hours a week. Massive numbers of employees said they’d take significant pay cuts to work remote! They might do the same for 32 hours work!
Taken more broadly, “results should count more than hours or days”. Never confuse results with time spent!
We moved to a 4 day per week in our office, but the hours vary by how much work load they have. It varies week to week, but our office help likes working 4 days a week even if it means working a 10 or 11 hour day. Their thought is "hey, I am here anyway, so I would rather work a longer day, but have 3 days off."
I had a similar thought last week about the articles where “employees are stressed and burnt out and companies are giving them resources and extra days off”.
These “extra days off” and “mental health resources” do not solve the problem. If you’re slammed with work, you can’t take the days off because you need to get the work done. No amount of talking to a tele-therapist will finish those iMeet logs, Excel files and PowerPoint decks all on the same damn projects that you’re stressed out of your mind trying to get done by deadline.
I do applaud the folks in the articles saying as much “you can’t take the days because you’ll look weak” and “if we take the days, I just have to work harder to get deliverables complete.”
If you want to really make your employees want to stay and do great work, hire more workers so people can really work just 32 hours a week. Massive numbers of employees said they’d take significant pay cuts to work remote! They might do the same for 32 hours work!