Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
It sounds too good to be true, but companies around the world that have cut their work week have found that it leads to higher productivity, more motivated staff and less burnout.
"It is much healthier and we do a better job if we're not working crazy hours," said Jan Schulz-Hofen, founder of Berlin-based project management software company Planio, who introduced a four-day week to the company's 10-member staff earlier this year.
In New Zealand, trust company Perpetual Guardian reported a fall in stress and a jump in staff engagement after it tested a 32-hour week earlier this year.
Even in Japan, the government is encouraging companies to allow Monday mornings off, although other schemes in the workaholic country to persuade employees to take it easy have had little effect.
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Many Soylentils may think that futurology in video format is pointless. However, a small cadre of futurologists have enthusiastically assembled predictions as clips and/or slideshows; often with futuristic music. My introduction to this minor artform was HayenMill's predictions about the 2010s, 2020s and 2030s. deanmullen10 has been making predictions in this format for seven years. The early ones are low-resolution crud but the 7th iteration has a particularly funky music mix and covers decades from the 2010s to the 2090s then more sparsely to the 24th century, and one further set of distant predictions.
The 8th iteration of predictions is due to be uploaded on Fri 11 Jan 2019. I'm looking forward to this because I find the format inspiring and uplifting. The demoscene, house style music is also quite good when programming. The 6th edition's predictions for the 2050s has a representative selection of the music although many find that to be sonic noise.
Other scenarios from deanmullen10 include the sudden collapse of a large Silicon Valley company due to loss of goodwill, alien invasion, and some amusingly inaccurate predictions in the same format (with some suitably retro-futuristic music), extrapolated from the 1980s. In the 1980s, the BBC was a comedy goldmine for inaccurate predictions; mostly through broadcasts about technology. This included waiters using touch screens. Further back, car navigation using a tachometer and an audio cassette, the bedside teletype, and the cashless society. Although, a particular favorite is cutting trees with lasers. It also featured 3D audio. (Whatever happened to that?)
In the season of New Year's Resolutions, it is the season to look back at looking forward. The four day working week has been predicted since at least the 1930s and legal cannabis cultivation throughout the US has been predicted since at least the 1960s. However, self-driving cars, flying cars, home robots, and fusion power remain Real Soon Now.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 21 2018, @04:27PM
Meanwhile in America they make you work 36 hours in two days...and then another 24 hours across the rest of the week.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @05:02PM (7 children)
Most of my technology industry colleagues work 50+ hours weeks, with spikes much higher. Looking at everything we need to get done, meetings with teams on the other side of the world at odd hours, "on call" and then adding in keeping up with the constant and seemingly accelerating changes in the technologies we use (and new technologies we need to determine if we need to use...), I don't see the hour requirement going down any time soon. It's a treadmill that seems to go faster every year.
Perhaps the tech industry is different from other industries.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @05:31PM (5 children)
If companies want to maintain the pace then they should hire a few more people. The break neck speed of development is rarely that necessary.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday December 21 2018, @07:06PM (4 children)
In my personal experience a significant percentage of the people who are always complaining about have too much to do and needing to stay late to get it finished just kind of suck at getting stuff accomplished.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 21 2018, @07:55PM
...or they're installed against their will as the head of a team of people who they don't have the power to hire or fire who are all freakin' incompetent so the team lead ends up doing all of the work.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @08:16PM
Existence is a spectrum.
If they are really that incompetent then they should be fired. I would say it is more likely that modern corporate management is so detached from their production realities that bad deadlines are created and must be adhered to OR ELSE!
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday December 21 2018, @08:45PM (1 child)
Don't see why people modded this flamebait unless they themselves got triggered for staying late because they don't work fast enough. Working in government I don't often see people who are good at their jobs staying late unless there is a specific reason for it. Examples would be something like year end where you need to turn around the CAFR within a couple of weeks of closing the prior fiscal year, improvements in process and automation can cut the workload but not much else, and bringing in seasonal work for just a few weeks is pointless when you would need to train them. The people I most often see staying late are those that somehow convince their managers that they need overtime because they can't finish their job in the allotted time. My favorite example of seeing this was a woman who was constantly complaining that she had to work overtime to get her work done, she was only able to manage paying 10 contract invoices a day when the average of the other workers in the unit was 40. Her individual contracts were no more difficult, just slow and inefficient.
Yeah there are shitty managers that expect too much and I imagine this is the difference between working in the private sector and working in government. Private sector more likely to have demanding managers and government more likely to have shitty employees.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 21 2018, @09:25PM
I wasn't the modder and didn't really agree but I think I understand why. Most burnout issues are on the company for driving their teams too hard with unrealistic expectations, running people regularly over 40 hrs/week is shitty behavior and means they simply want to save on salary costs. So Deathmonkey kinda comes off as victim blaming, though I think he has a valid perspective and wasn't being shitty.
We need more worker solidarity, they busted the unions and have traded the well being of workers for more profit.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday December 21 2018, @07:13PM
Cut out a few of those meetings and replace them with smaller, more productive talks around the coffee pot. Choose stable platforms where the developers are active and understand the value of a stable API and change management and stick to them. No, you don't have to constantly grab at the new shiny, Here's the spoiler: It's about the same as the old shiny. Then cut the hours back.
You might think that cutting the hours back is crazy, but the remaining hours will be more productive, so, in fact, you'll be surprised how much happens in 32 hours.
Honestly, much of this is on management. Demote them. No, I don't mean strip them of their position, I mean make it clear that they work for the team as much or more than the team works for them. They are to be facilitators, not dictators. It is just as much their job to advocate for their team with upper management as it is to deliver edicts from on high to their team.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday December 21 2018, @07:14PM (2 children)
It's more than the long hours. Don't get me wrong-- a 32 hour work week would help immensely. But it's also an attitude. Lot of managers seem to think if you're not sweating bullets, stressing out over deadlines and problems, you don't have enough work to do. Closely related is overly optimistic planning that simply asks too much.
Worse if management does not understand what they're asking of people and thinks those genius engineers could do more if they wanted to. Fewer hours will not help a whole lot in the toxic sweatshop workplace where, despite all evidence to the contrary, management suspects the workers are a bunch of lazy bums who are purposely dragging the work out so they can collect more paychecks, keep their jobs more secure. No matter how hard the workers bust their own asses, management just will not believe in their work ethic.
But it's all of a piece. Any workplace that seriously considers a shorter work week can hardly have a sweatshop mentality.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday December 21 2018, @07:28PM
This very much. Different managers mean very different experiences at the organization. I recently took some paternity leave to help my wife out with the twins and the newborn. Told my boss I would be in late every day for a while and would call if I'm going to be out that day or give a few days heads up if I will miss a meeting. He asked as compensation I take my laptop and be willing to work from home if something important comes up. A coworker of mine with a different manager had to plan out six months of leave ahead of time down to the specific breakdown for each day in that period. Recently he had a week scheduled out that was half leave and half work, he ended up being asked to stay late one day for a meeting and was told he had to code it to leave without pay instead of offsetting his leave time because it was outside of the agreed upon schedule.
I imagine a lot of the places testing ideas like this have a less jackassy management team anyways so the change might not have been accompanied with excessive pressure.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday December 21 2018, @08:00PM
There's also the 24/7 work day attitude. A lot of my coworkers all live in the same apartment complex. If one doesn't pick up the phone, management will call their neighbor to go pound on their door until they log in and start working. Your scheduled shift doesn't measure when you are working, it only measures when you're in the office.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday December 21 2018, @07:20PM
Is it 32 hour weeks instead of 40 hour weeks with the same pay? TFA mentioned that this would help close the gender gap, the gender gap has a lot to do with men working longer hours, so is the gap being closed because some men will be working less?
When first implemented employees will feel more engaged and interested in getting their normal 40 hours of work done in 32 hours so they can prove that the 32 hour policy should stay around, but does productivity stay accelerated after a year?
I am definitely not opposed to this. When its not fiscal year end I am normally not busy anyways and can shift stuff around to get done in 32 hours, in peak times I can work 50 or 60 to make sure stuff gets done because I do that anyways. I would like to see how this works in the long run though.
If someone is normally working 40 hour weeks at 15/hour and they are still paid hourly with this policy they would either have to be okay with making 120/week less or need a raise to 18.75/hour. Much easier to try out if everyone is salary.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam