/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>53538313
> There’s reason to believe that a seven-day week with a two-day weekend is an inefficient technology: A growing body of research and corporate case studies suggests that a transition to a shorter workweek would lead to increased productivity, improved health, and higher employee-retention rates.

> The five-day workweek might be limiting productivity. A study in the American Journal of Epidemiology found that those who worked 55 hours per week performed more poorly on some mental tasks than those who worked 40 hours per week. And Tony Schwartz, the author of Be Excellent at Anything, told Harvard Business Review that people work best in intense 90-minute bursts followed by periods of recovery. Taken together, these findings suggest that with the right scheduling of bursts and rests, workers could get a similar amount of work done over a shorter period of time.

>Moreover, there’s some anecdotal evidence that a four-day workweek might increase productivity. Google’s Larry Page has praised the idea, even if he hasn’t implemented it. And Jason Fried, the CEO of Basecamp, has his employees work four-day, 32-hour weeks for half of the year. “When you have a compressed workweek, you tend to focus on what’s important. Constraining time encourages quality time, ” he wrote an op-ed in The New York Times. “Better work gets done in four days than in five,” he concluded.

40hours? I already work 40hours in 5 days... Would be 32hours for 4 days

>>53538313
honestly with the technology and level of advancement (decrease in price/increase in availability) we could go down to 2-3 days a week.

>>53538322
>Beyond working more efficiently, a 4 day workweek appears to improve morale and well-being. The president of the U.K. Faculty of Public Health told the Daily Mail that a 4day workweek could help lower blood pressure and increase mental health among employees. Jay Love of Slingshot SEO saw his employee-retention rate shoot up when he phased in three-day weekends. Following this line of thought, TreeHouse, an online education platform implemented a four-day week to attract workers, which has contributed to the company's growth.

>The five-day workweek might already have so much cultural intertia that it can’t be changed. Most companies can’t just tell employees not to come in on Fridays, because they'd be at a disadvantage in a world that favors the five-day workweek.

>there’s a creative solution to this problem. David Stephens, a consultant based in Houston, detailed in a post on LinkedIn the clever system devised at a company he used to work for. The company was divided into two teams. One would work from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. from Monday to Thursday, and the other would work those hours from Tuesday to Friday. The teams would switch schedules every week, so every two-day weekend would be followed by a four-day weekend. The results, Stephens reports, were positive. The company was open five days a week, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. instead of 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. He claims that morale skyrocketed. Employees took fewer sick days, visiting the doctor in off hours rather than during the workday.

>this scenario, employees still work 40-hour weeks, but they do so over the course of four days rather than five. This arrangement still sounds sub-optimal, though, as working at full capacity for 10 hours is more demanding than doing so for eight. Despite that, the employees at Stephens’s company still preferred 40 hours in four days to 40 hours in five days. They might be even happier—and work even better—if they worked fewer hours in addition to fewer days.

>>53538324
I’d rather do 32 hours too but I’d still prefer 40 in 4 days than 5 days
>>53538329
I agree

>>53538313
I can’t believe I’m saying this but we should do what Keynes said
15 hour work weeks

I dont wanna work 40 hours no matter how u slice it. I hope i can move to 24 hours a week in a few years.

>>53539371
I don’t want to work 24 hours no matter how you slice it

>>53538374
I've worked 4 day 10 hours and 4 day 12 hours and rest assured they both suck just as bad especially when they make your work week 6 days

>>53539412
4 10 hour days is better than 4 12 hours days or 6 10 hour days
Are you guys literal retards or just bad at math?

>>53539412
>48 hour work week is just as bad as 40 hour work week
no it’s worse

>>53538374
im the complete opposite. id rather work 6 days a week to make the individual work day shorter. but id also want to work 30-35 hours spread over 6 days instead of 40 hours.
really, its just the 40 hours that people have an issue with and rightly so

>>53538366
>The five-day workweek might already have so much cultural intertia that it can’t be changed. Most companies can’t just tell employees not to come in on Fridays, because they'd be at a disadvantage in a world that favors the five-day workweek.
Yeah, the cultural inertia of destroying unionism during the neoliberal era. The 8 hour work week was fought for, it wasn't some kind of cultural enlightenment on the part of business owners. Also, the most productive work is done in the manufacturing and resource extraction industries of the non-western world, so unproductive work dominates in the west. Finance, tech, and government jobs, retail and services, NGOs, venture capital, etc. etc. If you look at it that way, it's shocking that westerners have to work so hard. So why is that? Other than what's already been mentioned, greater leisure time would mean people have more time to think and organize about the things they care about. Including politics. So rather than just having boomer and silent gen retirees being more politically active, there'd be larger movements driven by younger generations. Younger generations that aren't getting much for all their hard work and are concerned by things like global warming. That's not good, not good at all. Markets like stability and the 8 hour work week provides that. Enough time to consoom while pummeling people with stress and debt so they're too exhausted to be what a democracy is supposed to have: an active and concerned citizenry.

>>53540054
fuck that only losers will no social life want to go to work 6 days a week

>>53538313
>WHAT IN THE HELL WOULD I EVEN DO WITH AN EXTRA DAY ON THE WEEKEND? I LIKE WORK. IT KEEPS ME BUSY.
you think this is an exaggeration but it's really not.

>>53540503
at 30 hours? thats practically nothing. i worked part time at my parents restaurant for a while and my work weeks was basically
Mo: off
Tue: 11 am - 2 pm
Wed: 11 am - 2 pm
Thu: 11 am - 2 pm
Fri: 11 am - 2 pm and 5 pm - 8 pm
Sat: 11 am - 2 pm and 5 pm - 8 pm
Sun:11 am - 2 pm and 5 pm - 8 pm (sometimes 10 pm

thats basically three hours a day for one half of the week, six for the other and a free day
it was bliss let me tell you, i had so much time in my day that i could do anyhing i wanted. nothing of this "ill have to do this on my weekend" bullshit
i wish i could do that for the rest of my life but it obviously doesnt pay well

>>53540750
Yeah because you’re a loser with no where to vacation and no one to hang out with
Anyone who wants to work 6 days a week can go work with Mexicans picking fruit

>Huh, yes we know. The goal is to make you suffer.

so it's down to the jews that i get my saturdays off? thanks shlomo!

>>53540750

this kind of schedule isnt great if you have a gf or friends

>>53538313
Due to the nature of my work, a 4-day 40h week would decrease productivity. However a 5-day 30h week would be just fine

>>53540369
Didn't Ford just do it and everyone followed?

>>53538313
AI will fix this problem, reducing most tech workers hours by 100%

>>53538313
30 hour 4 day work week is currently the most efficient we can manage with our resources.

You need to understand that the number fluctuates and literally the whole point of evolving technologies is that we reduce the number of required working hours and replace them with innovative working hours.

People have passions. We aren't all going to end up fat in wall-e chairs. Some might fall prey but would you? really? do you have any idea how boring it gets?

We don't need to live for the sake of profit. Progress is it's own reward.

>>53540503
You need to get more life experience in you boy.

Lots of people prefer different things. Some people are day people, some people are night. Some people like to push hard and rest harder. Others like a balance.

I like the concept of 4 weeks 7 days a week and then 4 weeks off. Rotating. I always imagined a cool 3-team system that accounts for eachother and picks up the slack. They would all have a 2 week overlap.

But with automation coming that cool idea that some people could do (not everyone you egotistical nimwit) is pretty useless.

But then working all afternoons sound ok. I would rather work all mornings, get it over with and enjoy a decent time frame in the afternoon.

Tbh I'd take a lot of options over what is already offered. Above all the system needs to give power and freedom to the employee while also providing a fair overlap of time insurance over the spread of employees.

It would probably be better if we all worked like 2 jobs over 3 days a week with a 4th slot open to cover sick calls and holidays.

>>53538313
"Technological advancement means less work for us!"
Eli whitney said the same thing about the cotton gin and slaves. It just allowed slave owners to produce more cotton. Technology that improves production in any capacity just means more work, and thats been made very clear in the present day. Why not make more if you have the capacity? Company owners would never settle for less when they could have more.

the only logical system that results in a proper work life balance, is self directed independent contractor work

of course a lot of businesses can't function properly within this method but for the wagie/owner it's ideal

any idea of a rigid work structure, coming into an office at an identical time every day is totally unnatural and has adverse health effects

humans aren't meant to be robots, we have great bursts of productivity followed by lulls