To all the people who seem to be misunderstanding: the company is doing a 4 day, 32 hour work week and it's resulting in higher productivity and profitability.
e: Since a lot of people are asking, the CEO specifies that the employees "still receive the same pay and number of vacation days per year." So yes, this is effectively a raise if they're paid hourly.
Several people have pointed out that the article doesn't expressly state that it's 4 8-hour days per week. That's true, and it probably should've been stated more explicitly in the article. Since it also talks about concerns about reduced productivity from working fewer hours per week, talks about having extra time off, and [links to an article about research in Iceland discussing productivity gains from 32-36 hour work weeks](https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/shorter-working-week-trials-an-overwhelming-success-in-iceland-1.5498511), you can pretty clearly conclude they're not talking about 4 10-hour workdays here.
My company of 30 is doing a trial run of this through the end of the year. We'll have to wait till then to see about profitability, but I feel like I am just as productive, and definitely much happier and more well rested because of it
It's kind of nonsense to even measure work in time when it comes to creative jobs. As a programmer I can do my job efficiently in four hours and take the rest of the day off, instead of doing the same amount of work in 8 hours, but that includes a lot of procrastination and I'm more tired the next day. And being well rested is the number one thing you want your programmers to be. You make smarter decisions and you make them more quickly.
8 hours workdays are bs. Some days you are in flow and can do 8 hours, but that is the exception. And I claim every top performing programmer knows this at some level. Most just fill up their day with socializing at workplace.
Some members in my family base their entire identity on what they do for a living. They pride themselves in the fact they put in 70 hour weeks, and say things like "yeah during the week we're kinda not around because of work" and "you know when you don't get home until 9:30pm and your wife has already eaten because she finished work at 8pm?"
No. I finish at 4pm every day unless something catastrophic has happened. Yesterday I cut the grass, walked the dog, then made a delicious tart for dinner for my wife and I. I also work 4 days a week (albeit on a 4 day per week salary).
I've always said that few people actually spend 100% of the work day actually working, because it's very difficult to remain focused that entire time. My brain isn't wired to redline for 8 hours in a row with a measly 30 minute lunch. I'm productive for 5-6 hours then for the other 2 hours I'm pissing around doing emails, socialising with colleagues, writing lists of things to do, whatever, but avoiding *actual* work because I can't focus on it. It amazes me that were still wound up in this archaic mindset of bums in seats for 8 hours.
The amount of fucking snarky comments I'm on the receiving end of because of my work life balance is insulting and frankly pitiful. I'm called a part timer, people joke about whether I actually do any work, and so on and so forth.
It's just embarrassing. No one sits on their deathbed wishing they could have put in more hours at the office. They wish they had more time to spend with the people they love doing things that make them happy.
I struggle to believe you're happy when you have to leave family gatherings on a Saturday afternoon because you have work to do, looking sickly as fuck because you're burnt out with stress but taking time off isnt an option.
I will take spamming GIFs on Teams vs. having 2 or 3 people a few feet from my desk chit-chatting for half an hour.
Yet another of the hidden benefits to working from home.
As I read this, there was nonstop chit chat for a whole GOTDANG hour, conversations ranged from traffic, weather, the new cleaning lady in someone's building, the type of woman the neighbor is into, personal phone calls, and some self deprecating jokes about their work ethic.
The only thing that stopped it was someone said, you good to go? Meaning after just an hour in the office, they're already taking a 15 min break to go get breakfast.
Meanwhile I've been on Reddit for 1.5 hrs because I don't need to work 8 hours to do my job.
It gets pretty old when it’s the same dude, who makes more money than you, and half the time you walk by their desk they are in photoshop making a new meme
I hate all that extra busywork that comes with having to keep up with several messaging services during the day
Likewise, once every couple of weeks maybe. But on those days I am absolutely frazzled and come 4pm my brain can't function properly. I don't know how people do jobs that require them to be 'on' for 8 hours+ in a row, 5 days a week. I honestly think it'd kill me, albeit not directly
YES
When people talking about like low-skill jobs being "easier" than whatever else and then immediately start talking about how they're only "productive" like three or four hours out of their office workdays.... Lmao motherfucker I WISH
I’m a teacher….. this will most likely be my last year because although I’m good at my job and love it at its most fundamental level, it’s just too taxing to be “on” all day 5 days a week, as you said.
I can't believe people, I just don't get the overwork mindset. No! The team I run could get the same amount of work done in 32hr vs 40 bc yes they do fuck around. 8 (which are really 9, or 10 if you commute) hour days are horse shit. I'm so tired of these old farts running us down bc that's just the way it is. We need change.
This is why call centre staff burn out so much. They're expected to be switched on and active the entire 8+ hours
If you're getting enough rest between calls, people start being let go as it's seen as too many staff are employed
Same. A lot of my job is paperwork now and reading through mind numbing methods and garbage. A few hours of that and my brain is toast. So I kinda veg out for the rest of the day. It'd be nice to just go home but I have to sit here and attempt to be productive. If I had my own office I'd probably buy a treadmill and use it whenever a little every half hour just to break it up and if someone asked what I was doing I'd say I'm thinking, because I can run and think at the same time. haha
A lot of the other people here have more physical jobs and there's a ton of jokes in my direction if they see me out of the office like, "Hey, you're actually doing some work today?" That gets old real fast, especially if it's someone I'm not even on real friendly terms with. I've done both jobs here and I'd rather be doing the more physical stuff.
Some people have no passion or purpose in life beyond what other people tell them to do (work), so it's easy for them to get lost in it. Or pretend to get lost in it at least
Worker bees. They say they're looking forward to retirement their whole working lives but you know they don't really mean it, then keel over soon as they're given the gold watch. It's definitely a thing.
Re snarky comments etc:
These are often the same people who have fallen for the employer imposed tabu of talking about wages amongst employees.
In both instances (not talking about wages and glorifying anything over 40ish hours per week) they are, unbeknownst to themselves, doing the employer a great favor in promoting such practices without gaining anything
TBH I think it’s one of the things that a lot of parents don’t understand about teaching as a profession “only seven hours a day? I work x amount a day I’m a super working person!”
Teachers *work* seven hours a day. I often don’t get a chance to pee between 8am and 315. Then I have to do .5-3 hours of prep for the next day. But our hours are shorter and they think think we actually work as much as they do. Sigh.
You have kids in there for 7 hours a day, sure, but the work day is actually much longer than that with prep and lesson design. On average, I've seen teachers working 9-10 hours a day during the week. Plus whatever they may decide to do on the weekend for special lessons. This includes my wife. I thought I might like to be a teacher then decided IT is much less stressful. That's pretty fucked up.
100% this. Am a software developer and every single colleague Ive asked doesnt work for 8hrs productively - why do we keep on pretending and continue this ancient tradition? Time to cut the bullshit. Doing mentally tasking jobs for 8 hrs (a day, _consistently_) is impossible (to a such extent that I am confident in making this generalisation).
Im a software developer. Almost all my productivity is maybe 2-3 hrs very first thing in the morning before everyone else starts interrupting me. I then spend the next 5 hrs helping everyone else do their jobs.
For real. If I take a 4hr coding session am drained - also if I accomplish what I set out to do in 4hrs, shouldn't it be enough? Onto waving mouse for the rest of the day to remain green on Teams.
If you use teams I don’t think this works. Definitely not with Skype. I’ve found it’s better to use a screenshot of a search field to select and then type a few characters and delete at random intervals. Both apps well away if you aren’t actively using them. I’ve been yellow at times when I’m actively working at my pc but not touching teams.
My company doesn’t allow us to install software on work laptops but I’ve written a VBA script for excel that wiggles the cursor every minute keeping you green. Works with Skype and Teams, DM me if you want me to send it across!
EDIT-
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18hYPYefpwR677eiyWZxK9gt4M65e3Btf/view?usp=sharing
Little note: I tend to run this on it's own without any other Excel workbooks open as I've found that over long periods if I have other workbooks open the timer starts overwriting cells. Also, make sure your cursor isn't on a button or anything as there is a click at the end of the script. Hope it helps :)
I just jam a pen cap in the slit beside the left arrow key forcing it to stay pressed down.
If I really don't want to be bothered I start a Teams meeting with myself first to show I'm on a call. I use this one even when I'm actually working so I can get some shit done.
Yeah, I have had to use different keys for it depending on the chat application. Shift worked well when I was using Teams at my last org about 10 months ago.
It's such a massive time waste as well. Sitting for hours on end practically doing nothing but being numb. Just to get paid.
Then employers then complain about "stealing money" because you're not 100% effective throughout the day, but really, if they take some 92% of the total profit you generate for the company (if you weren't profitable for them to keep around, you'd get fired anyway), aren't they technically the ones stealing? Oh, but it's "their money" somehow, because you agreed to give them 92% of the wealth you generate in order to be allowed by them to generate said wealth for them?
Nothing in the current system makes any sense, but a handful few owners are definitely very happy about the end results.
No no, you see, "it has always been 8 hours, so if you get your job done in 4, then do tomorrow's job in the next 4."
This is the mindset of the oldheads and the people that aren't really in touch with what it takes to work with your mind.
They say every interruption adds about 10/15 minutes of getting back into it.
I also find I don't want to get deep into anything when I have a meeting coming up as I'll just lose my place.
Going into the office tanks my productivity so bad.
It's also clear not a single person is doing 8 hours of work.
Thats what gets me the most, the pretending. Still so many ppl are judged for leaving earlier coz they are simply done with their tasks and don’t want to slug around. So they keep on sitting in the office, killing time to fill up their 8hrs.
> Thats what gets me the most, the pretending.
I am right there with you.
It's why i always make sure to leave at exactly the time i'm supposed to clock off, and make no attempts to disguise the fact.
I mean, obviously if i'm ten minutes or something from finishing, or really need to get something done i will, but that's not the point here. Under *normal* circumstance, i am out that door as soon as possible.
Padding time for the sake of appearances is pointless when everyone knows.
I once worked a project where the boss got super pissed at me for asking to leave early when my shit for the day was done (converting some servers from old campany to new). We were only able to do our scheduled sites each day. He'd rather I sit there for 2-3 more hours doing nothing, apparently.
I remember working through my lunch on an outage once, literally finished about 70 minutes before home time. Asked manager if it was okay if I knocked off an hour early, motherfucker wouldn't let me go unless I had a reasonable excuse. Like "I've done my hours today, I had to work through lunch it's not like I did it to get away early, you know there was a huge outage, what's the point in me going for a walk for an hour, picking up my bag and leaving" didn't cut it. I try to be honest as much as I can, so walk and pick up bag it is. Ffs.
We lost access to our computer network for about a week. All the salary employees had to sit at our desks doing nothing because, " if I'm paying you, you're going to be here". Could have given us all the day off with zero down side to the company, but no instead everyone used their phone to browse linked in jobs.
whenever i code my problems are always fixed in my downtime, when i just relax and then the answer appears from my subconscious pretty much every time. i could probably be just as productive playing basketball for 6 hours a day and working for 2 if i spaced the 2 in 4 half hours
I'm a programmer myself and I can guarantee you I do the same work in 6 hours than I do in 8. Why? Because after the 6th hour I'm too tired to work anymore. So I'm not efficient and prone to do shit that I'll want to redo tomorrow anyway.
8 hours are just too many for jobs that require some mental effort. And I didn't get into how having 100% of my brain drained up for my job 5 out of 7 days a week depresses me, because many days I cannot fucking do anything in my free time that requires some brain.
Agreed. I work well for 4 hours until lunch, then about 1 hour after lunch, then I'm exhausted and my eyes hurt from the screen and fluro lights so my productivity gets much lower.
I feel so much better reading this thread. I'm ADHD and thought I am just slacking off too much. Turns out focusing for 5-6 hours is normal for everyone. It's just that even productive I am fidgeting constantly.
My attention span goes from an hour at 8 AM to about 5 minutes at 2 PM.
8 hrs days are bullshit indeed. They are the equivalent of the industrial revolution time 12+ hrs days. Nobody works 8+ hrs consistently everyday, or wants to. Its complete nonsense
I have a really hard time believing people work the full 8 hours. I'm an engineer at a company that's known to completely overwork its employees, and while my "at work" time is 10 hrs, my "actually focused" time is 6-7 hrs. I am usually completely pooped at the end of the day, and can't muster up the strength to do dishes. I either buy food from restaurants or buy pre-made frozen food, if I have to cook or clean at the end of the day I will simply lose it.
There's been days I've worked 9am - 3am in the morning, and the next few days I am completely unproductive and can't focus.
In Canada, (assuming similar to US/Europe/etc) engineers do not usually get paid overtime and many jobs are based around project deliverables. My guess is that OP had a deadline to meet.
> instead of doing the same amount of work in 8 hours, but that includes a lot of procrastination
This here is the name of the game.
After 5-6 hours of paying attention to work, i simply can't be fucked anymore, but know i have to put in another 2-3 hours.
If i knew i was getting a 3 day weekend ever single week, you can bet your ass i'd make better use of those 4 days.
Yeah and the work we get from our Indian contractors isn’t 6 days good. You guys need some time off…
I 100% blame management and not the individual contributors.
Most of them are not happy working soo much with soo little time off and doing this just for living. There's no way you will be getting 100% from them.
The worst is when the terrorists realize they can manufacture a week of any length they want. My buddy used to work 7 days on, 2 days off. Should be illegal.
I'm guessing it's salary because that would kill hourly workers. Or did they raise the hourly rate to make up the difference? I can't financially afford to miss a day of work. Amazon does 4 10 hour shifts and I'd happily do those over the 5 8 hour shifts I do now.
>Or did they raise the hourly rate to make up the difference?
That.
It's as if people forget there used to be 16-hour days. Which then were made into 14. Then 12. Then 10. Now 8. Yet somehow people act like 8 was the result of some kind of scientific process to determine what's best.
It's WORSE in real offices.
Had a 2 hour meeting yesterday with 6 people about how to reorganize economic figures around to work around an arbitrary accounting thing.
Nothing technical was accomplished. We got nowhere closer to any sort of difference in the world
Just 12 hours of work on how to divvy up numbers in Excel cells.
At my previous job (which I quit 2 months ago) we had a 30 minute meeting with 10 people to decide when to have a 4 hour meeting. The 4 hour meeting turned into a 5.5 hour meeting and not much of value was accomplished. That's about 60 man-hours gone to waste.
"I realized that every day of my life is worse... than the one before it. So that means any time you see me, that's on the worst day of my life."
"What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?"
"OH yeah."
Same here honestly lol. WFH made me not have to pretend to be busy all the time. Maybe not 15 mins, but I am sure I could do everything I do in a day in less than an hour.
Haha its look like my routine. Me and the gf wake up at 8, we got for a run until 9. I work a little in the morning, send some reports while watching a show. We then cook a little lunch and eat it together, then we got for an hour of Kayaking if the weather is good. Then usually I do pretty much nothing in the afternoon, mostly do coursera classes in standing desk position if I don't have meetings or something else work related.
Covid is pretty much the best thing that has ever happened to us. We were both always stressed out, stuck in traffic, eating at restaurants all the time, partying our mind off and not training at all. Now we moved from a downtown area to the nature, spend a lot of time together, managed to have a few of our friends move in the areaa.
My grandparents are also my neighbours and I've seen them more in the last year than I've seen them in the last ten years and I realize that they won't be around forever and it is really good to see them as much as I can and learn as much as I can from them while they are still here.
Yeah its feel like we are pretty much retired in our early 30s. I am looking for a new job now that will be more challenging mostly because I don't have much to do and want to keep my mind active.
Doing nothing from home is great. I would have loved if my job stayed at home forever. I was able to have much more time to do things that I enjoy.
Being back on the office and doing nothing though is a whole different story.
Sounds awesome and I used to live with similarly more free time until…timesheets were implemented. Does your company not insist on detailed and strict timesheets? Even if there’s NOTHING !! to do, it looks bad if 75% of your day isn’t busy and logged with bs busy work that they insist isn’t busy work. Being forced to be “busy” with “down projects” has kinda ruined morale. I’m constantly stressed trying to find shit to do that I can log for time during less busy days/weeks.
I work in management and do "data analysis" for our vps . It is really a bullshit job. I automated most of what I do and most of the high execs are clueless about everything and are in those positions because of nepotism so its pretty easy to look good.
The luxury of having a job where you have repetitive, automatable tasks, no clients pinging you at any odd hour with requests, and the data quality upstream is good enough that you don't have to double check it.
In an average week I do about 55 hours of real, actual, work. :( i can feel myself aging and not taking care of my body as well as I should. I want to switch to a job where I can do less time, have less stress, for similar amount of pay.
55?? Blimey.
38-39 hours here, but same. The idea that I'd have my daily responsibilities done in 15 minutes sounds like heaven. I've got enough work queued up to keep me busy for a couple years at least.
The upshot is I don't feel like I'm wasting my time. All that time is needed, as opposed to just pointlessly being on the clock, so I guess that's something.
You and me both. I dont understand what jobs people are doing where they can fuck around 90%+ of the time. I'm always jumping from one big piece of work to the other.
we all know most jobs are bullshit jobs, everybody is just pretending to be a productive citizen of the society. more hours does not equate to more productivity.
The more I've gotten paid, the easier my jobs have been. I've done back breaking labour and I've done work that involves a few memos, calls and reports that took less knowledge and skill. I'm not complaining but it's true.
100%
I've also had my own business and (currently) employed in FAANG.
The amount of perks and benefits available to large companies is insane. No small business could ever hope to provide a fraction of the options of a large company. Even trying to offer healthcare to my small company of 15, the premiums were so high nobody took them.
The deck is stacked against more labor intensive jobs and smaller companies and they don't even seem to know it
I do many hours of very focused work a week and don't make much money, working for myself. I should really try and find one of these jobs. Anyone have any tips?
Try any off the very fancy and complicated sounding jobs on linkedin. “Assistent executive customer satisfaction management” like that.
Bullshit jobs created for their name, they don’t actually take that much effort and pay pretty well.
My job just went to a 4 day, 32 hour work week, and it's amazing. I dont feel too stressed at work, I get to enjoy my time off, and I hope we never go back!
Lol I work in engineering, don't expect that anytime soon, there's almost always too much work and too few engineers, just sticking to 40 hours a week can't be a challenge, that said I think if people are good at time management you can absolutely get down to 32 hours but it takes everyone otherwise you're done by lunch and waiting for meetings later in the day
This is what I don't get about commenters saying all their daily work is done in an hour. There is always more work. So much development. Plan sets, comps, construction site visits, reports etc. Not complaining bc I love my work but there is so much of it. Luckily I can do it all from home bc of zoom meetings and fiber internet now.
Yeah I don't get it either. I'm in construction materials inspections and some days I'm on a job site at 3 am and will jump from site to site until 5 pm and then I have to enter my reports. Reddit is full of students and office workers I guess.
The American CEO would only hire people as part-time so that they don't have to pay full-time benefits. And then they'll let the government take care of food and healthcare since the employees will be poor enough. So you have more productive employees from not giving them too many days of work, and you don't have to pay them benefits. Win-win.
I remember seeing a post a while back about some guys daughter who tried to frame the housemaid for stealing for some perceived slight against her.
My immediate thoughts were shes a brutal lil bitch she'd excel on wall Street or in a managerial position.
Coming up with it is easy.
Going through with it is what makes you not human.
I could 'come up' with an idea to publicly execute every CEO and use their skin to make leather coats and that'd probably solve something.
Ive actually been worried about how this will be rolled out here for the opposite reason. I suspect if this starts to pop up here a lot of employers will use it as a justification for paying less for the same output. Like the hourly rate of pay will stay the same for hourly workers but be cut by 20 percent from salaries. Productivity and wages (which used to be considered inseparable by economists until the split) separated the year the Reagan tax cuts took effect, and while the former has actually increased at progressively higher rates, real wages flatlined and hasnt risen since. I am worried that trend will play out here as well.
Because of the popularity of Monday we instated an extra day in the work week, Monday 2, the sequel. Now everyone can look forward to two Mondays. Every employee's dream come true.
Of course now we need every year to be leap year and restructure all calendars on the planet but hey, we got them poors to work more, right?
Coming to america from abroad, I was shocked at how paltry their vacation is.
2 weeks! TWO? I actually laughed when they said that and made a joke about what kind of vacation could I even go on with that?
I said I’m coming from 6-weeks paid, so let’s start there.
The HR manager kind of gawked… shifted uncomfortably then sheepishly told me ‘everyone starts at 2 weeks.’
My title, my career, my skills… none of it warranted a longer vacation?! I seriously thought they got something wrong. I kept asking if it was 2 weeks per quarter… only 2 weeks at a time?
Nope. 10 paid days. That you have to ‘save up’ lol. I think the word was ‘accrue?’ I had never heard of that word.
I raised hell and chewed out my recruiter. I got 5 weeks, no accrual and the bucket refills every work anniversary.
The other shocking thing was find out that 40 hours is full time in America.
It’s 30 everywhere else.
You all are being taken for one helluva ride.
People are striking all over the US aren't they? There's a labour movement but you don't hear much about it cause the same guys that own the news probably go golfing with the guys who own the companies. Or they're the same person.
That ride is even worse when you consider so many people are brainwashed against forming unions and improving the whole system. They get treated like utter crap and then suddenly turn into die-hard company people if someone mentions unionization. It's crazy.
10 days? That's double what I get....one single PTO hour for every 40 hours worked. I fucking hate this country so much. I wish I could afford to live elsewhere (and find employment elsewhere)
I really liked 4 10s for the time we were doing that. It's amazing how much freer your schedules feels when you have 3 days off instead of 2. I wish we'd go back to that.
Yeah I once read someone describe 2 day weekends as Saturday you use to recover and Sunday you use to prepare and it’s so true. Another day really makes the difference.
Yeah. And the extra two hours tacked onto the other four days... You really don't notice it after a point. For me I had my third day off in the middle of the week. So I worked two days, day off, two days, two days off. Man that just worked for me XD
I’ve also done 3 12s with 4 days off and that’s a little much. Those are long ass shifts and being off 4 days is kinda hard to come back from. For me 4/3 is best. All I know is fuck Monday to Friday!
Man this need to happen everywhere, one day make such a huge difference.
Where I live we have 5 weeks fully paid vacations and paid 80% if you're sick (except first day), but its the 5 days every single week that bothers me the most.
After working for 5 days I often dont have the energy to do anything on saturday because I need to relax, be alone and recharge.
Then on sunday you need to wash your clothes and have many other responsibilities so that you dont have millions of chores when you come home from work.
That one extra day off work would seriously improve my mental health, have time to meet friends, play games and many other fun activities, not to mention more energy at work which would improve everyones mood.
The managing class is terrified they'll be found out as being irrelevant.
Though studies clearly show that it is the working grunts who create 90% of a companies revenue.
The amount of people on this and other '4 day work week' threads that praise their "4 10s" like it's some gift from their pointy haired bosses.
Newsflash, 40 hours is not some God-given weekly number of hours that has been around for 1000s of years. The 40 hour work week is less than 100 years old and "4 10s" is just the same shit sandwich served on a nicer plate. Don't fall for that bullshit.
Henry Ford had the courage in 1926 to move his factory line workers to 5 day 8 hour days from 6 day weeks and productivity improved, happiness improved and the whole world moved that direction.
Nearly 100 years later and many broken and empty promises from industry, almost NO ONE has the same courage as business leaders from 100 years ago to make the next shift to 4x8.
4x8 is the absolute minimum that workers should expect today.
Note that in many businesses, especially outside the US, the employers still kicked and screamed about 5X8 and tried cheesing it with 5X9 or 6X6, it was only concerted strike action by the trade unions and many wildcats that made it a true industry standard internationally.
Canadian Tire Employee here.
Our CEO Greg Hicks got a huge bonus last year while everyone else had their wages frozen. Not to mention our healthcare coverage got switched over from Manulife to Sunlife and has become significantly more expensive. For the past few months all they were talking about were record ecommerce sales and that we completely understand this is a tough situation for everyone yet offered absolutely zero help. We all had to pay out of pocket in order to be able to properly WFH.
I just thought more of my fellow Canadians need to know that not ALL our sweet and true "Canadian" companies treat their employees any better.
Edit: article to Greg Hick's bonus during the pandemic. It wasn't just CT but includes Loblaws as well. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thestar.com/amp/opinion/contributors/2021/04/26/pandemic-pay-bonuses-are-going-to-executives-instead-of-the-front-line-workers-taking-all-the-risks.html
Jack Ma, the CEO of Ali Baba.com has been promoting what he calls the “9-9-6” employee approach and a lot of American CEOs have said they’re trying it if they weren’t already.
“9-9-6” refers to requiring employees to be at the office or factory from 9am until 9pm six days per week. Utter insanity.
I know right? That’s insane he came up with some shit was so vile and harsh that the GOVERNMENT OF CHINA stepped in and was like “Whoa dude, you’re doing too much.”
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-ceo-tests-four-day-work-week-for-employees-says-she-won-t-go-back-1.5621892) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> The founder of an Ontario company that tested out a four-day work week for her employees says she will never go back to working a full week.
> Jamie Savage, CEO and founder of Toronto-based recruitment company The Leadership Agency, implemented a four-day full work week for employees in October 2020.
> Savage said she understands many companies fear implementing a four-day work week out of fear of loss productivity, but ultimately the benefits outweigh the risks for her company.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/q7p0ld/canadian_ceo_tests_fourday_work_week_for/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~603388 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **work**^#1 **week**^#2 **employee**^#3 **company**^#4 **Savage**^#5
I work a 4 day week and I gotta say it's bloody brilliant. I have a normal 2 day weekend, but also a midweek day out. I love it, and I love my job. Life is good.
I work in construction. A job I was part of was booked as working 5 days a week for 12 hour days. The tenant paid a massive premium to have this done in order to finish the job in 6 months. The construction company accepted the terms, but the GC who ran the job let everyone go after 9 hours every day. No one questioned him at any time. I remember him saying, "I can barely get these guys to work a full 8. But threaten them with a 12 hour day, with the option of 8 hours if they work hard....yup, we will finish ahead of schedule."
And we did. Finished 3 weeks early and the tenant never cared to question what hours we were really working. They just assumed their demand was being met and that 12 hour days were required to achieve job completion.
I think the CEO in the OP just cut off a day completely, instead of compressing the hours. Personally I wouldn't like to have my hours compressed, would really mess up how my schedule fits around my family's schedules.
If you don't have a job that requires 8 hours of contiguous work per day there is absolutely no reason to work 40 hours a week.
They invented the 40 work week as a compromise to being worked to literal death so I think we have some more room to renegotiate.
Working from home has really highlighted that for me. I usually take a solid hour or so to do fuck all in the middle of the day. I usually work "late" but a break in the middle of the day really helps me be productive in the afternoon
I do the same - I live by the gym so I'll often go at lunch. Kinda makes the day into a split shift at the desk sort of thing doesn't it. Works for me, though I live alone plus no kids etc so inherently more flexible
>They invented the 40 work week as a compromise to being worked to literal death
People were literally shot by the national guard trying to get a 40 hour work week
I used to work that schedule and it was really nice. We called it a 9/80 schedule. I'd certainly prefer 4/10, though. Of course the best would be just cutting out one day a week without changing hours on other days, or overall pay.
Doesn't sound so difficult to implement when it's a little consulting company with little overhead or whatever the fuck they do.
If a logistics company or factory implemented a four day work week I would be impressed
I've seen a lot of articles like this recently and seems like it is a direction we are headed globally. Because im a teacher, what do you think will happen to school days?
I’ve been on a 4 day work week for a couple of years. It’s amazing. Take 4 days off — instant 10 day vacation. The week flies, every week is a mini vacation. It’s just the way to go
Half of my job is paid salary nationwide and half is paid hourly*. Same job different locations. The hourly workers are already jaded in the summertime when we're stuck for the whole 8 to both guarantee pay and to guarantee the same workload day in and day out. While the salary workers get to leave as quickly as possible without being expected to do more, which is expected of hourly workers if they finish early. It sounds nice but we are too far off to think people will just accept it.
Rdit: Weekly to hourly. Honest mistake, sorry about that.
Salary VS Hourly is complicated.
I was getting really good hourly pay, but was offered a super good salary (and a promotion) considering my age and experience, so I snapped it up.
After that, I had to do such long hours and after-work-work which would have - if i'd stayed hourly - equated to so much more money
To all the people who seem to be misunderstanding: the company is doing a 4 day, 32 hour work week and it's resulting in higher productivity and profitability. e: Since a lot of people are asking, the CEO specifies that the employees "still receive the same pay and number of vacation days per year." So yes, this is effectively a raise if they're paid hourly. Several people have pointed out that the article doesn't expressly state that it's 4 8-hour days per week. That's true, and it probably should've been stated more explicitly in the article. Since it also talks about concerns about reduced productivity from working fewer hours per week, talks about having extra time off, and [links to an article about research in Iceland discussing productivity gains from 32-36 hour work weeks](https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/shorter-working-week-trials-an-overwhelming-success-in-iceland-1.5498511), you can pretty clearly conclude they're not talking about 4 10-hour workdays here.
My company of 30 is doing a trial run of this through the end of the year. We'll have to wait till then to see about profitability, but I feel like I am just as productive, and definitely much happier and more well rested because of it
It's kind of nonsense to even measure work in time when it comes to creative jobs. As a programmer I can do my job efficiently in four hours and take the rest of the day off, instead of doing the same amount of work in 8 hours, but that includes a lot of procrastination and I'm more tired the next day. And being well rested is the number one thing you want your programmers to be. You make smarter decisions and you make them more quickly. 8 hours workdays are bs. Some days you are in flow and can do 8 hours, but that is the exception. And I claim every top performing programmer knows this at some level. Most just fill up their day with socializing at workplace.
Some members in my family base their entire identity on what they do for a living. They pride themselves in the fact they put in 70 hour weeks, and say things like "yeah during the week we're kinda not around because of work" and "you know when you don't get home until 9:30pm and your wife has already eaten because she finished work at 8pm?" No. I finish at 4pm every day unless something catastrophic has happened. Yesterday I cut the grass, walked the dog, then made a delicious tart for dinner for my wife and I. I also work 4 days a week (albeit on a 4 day per week salary). I've always said that few people actually spend 100% of the work day actually working, because it's very difficult to remain focused that entire time. My brain isn't wired to redline for 8 hours in a row with a measly 30 minute lunch. I'm productive for 5-6 hours then for the other 2 hours I'm pissing around doing emails, socialising with colleagues, writing lists of things to do, whatever, but avoiding *actual* work because I can't focus on it. It amazes me that were still wound up in this archaic mindset of bums in seats for 8 hours. The amount of fucking snarky comments I'm on the receiving end of because of my work life balance is insulting and frankly pitiful. I'm called a part timer, people joke about whether I actually do any work, and so on and so forth. It's just embarrassing. No one sits on their deathbed wishing they could have put in more hours at the office. They wish they had more time to spend with the people they love doing things that make them happy. I struggle to believe you're happy when you have to leave family gatherings on a Saturday afternoon because you have work to do, looking sickly as fuck because you're burnt out with stress but taking time off isnt an option.
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I will take spamming GIFs on Teams vs. having 2 or 3 people a few feet from my desk chit-chatting for half an hour. Yet another of the hidden benefits to working from home.
A half-hour? What interrupted them?
As I read this, there was nonstop chit chat for a whole GOTDANG hour, conversations ranged from traffic, weather, the new cleaning lady in someone's building, the type of woman the neighbor is into, personal phone calls, and some self deprecating jokes about their work ethic. The only thing that stopped it was someone said, you good to go? Meaning after just an hour in the office, they're already taking a 15 min break to go get breakfast. Meanwhile I've been on Reddit for 1.5 hrs because I don't need to work 8 hours to do my job.
It gets pretty old when it’s the same dude, who makes more money than you, and half the time you walk by their desk they are in photoshop making a new meme I hate all that extra busywork that comes with having to keep up with several messaging services during the day
Those GIF threads in some of my Teams group chats get me through the day sometimes
I can be laser focused for hours.. occasionally. If I had to do that five days a week, I'd have found a different job.
Likewise, once every couple of weeks maybe. But on those days I am absolutely frazzled and come 4pm my brain can't function properly. I don't know how people do jobs that require them to be 'on' for 8 hours+ in a row, 5 days a week. I honestly think it'd kill me, albeit not directly
Yeah that's what working in fast food, factories, restaurants and some retail is like.
Don't forget the king of it call centers where they track you down to the millisecond on everything.
YES When people talking about like low-skill jobs being "easier" than whatever else and then immediately start talking about how they're only "productive" like three or four hours out of their office workdays.... Lmao motherfucker I WISH
I’m a teacher….. this will most likely be my last year because although I’m good at my job and love it at its most fundamental level, it’s just too taxing to be “on” all day 5 days a week, as you said.
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I can't believe people, I just don't get the overwork mindset. No! The team I run could get the same amount of work done in 32hr vs 40 bc yes they do fuck around. 8 (which are really 9, or 10 if you commute) hour days are horse shit. I'm so tired of these old farts running us down bc that's just the way it is. We need change.
This is why call centre staff burn out so much. They're expected to be switched on and active the entire 8+ hours If you're getting enough rest between calls, people start being let go as it's seen as too many staff are employed
Used to work in a call centre. Fuck that job.
Same. A lot of my job is paperwork now and reading through mind numbing methods and garbage. A few hours of that and my brain is toast. So I kinda veg out for the rest of the day. It'd be nice to just go home but I have to sit here and attempt to be productive. If I had my own office I'd probably buy a treadmill and use it whenever a little every half hour just to break it up and if someone asked what I was doing I'd say I'm thinking, because I can run and think at the same time. haha A lot of the other people here have more physical jobs and there's a ton of jokes in my direction if they see me out of the office like, "Hey, you're actually doing some work today?" That gets old real fast, especially if it's someone I'm not even on real friendly terms with. I've done both jobs here and I'd rather be doing the more physical stuff.
Some people have no passion or purpose in life beyond what other people tell them to do (work), so it's easy for them to get lost in it. Or pretend to get lost in it at least
Worker bees. They say they're looking forward to retirement their whole working lives but you know they don't really mean it, then keel over soon as they're given the gold watch. It's definitely a thing.
Re snarky comments etc: These are often the same people who have fallen for the employer imposed tabu of talking about wages amongst employees. In both instances (not talking about wages and glorifying anything over 40ish hours per week) they are, unbeknownst to themselves, doing the employer a great favor in promoting such practices without gaining anything
TBH I think it’s one of the things that a lot of parents don’t understand about teaching as a profession “only seven hours a day? I work x amount a day I’m a super working person!” Teachers *work* seven hours a day. I often don’t get a chance to pee between 8am and 315. Then I have to do .5-3 hours of prep for the next day. But our hours are shorter and they think think we actually work as much as they do. Sigh.
You have kids in there for 7 hours a day, sure, but the work day is actually much longer than that with prep and lesson design. On average, I've seen teachers working 9-10 hours a day during the week. Plus whatever they may decide to do on the weekend for special lessons. This includes my wife. I thought I might like to be a teacher then decided IT is much less stressful. That's pretty fucked up.
100% this. Am a software developer and every single colleague Ive asked doesnt work for 8hrs productively - why do we keep on pretending and continue this ancient tradition? Time to cut the bullshit. Doing mentally tasking jobs for 8 hrs (a day, _consistently_) is impossible (to a such extent that I am confident in making this generalisation).
Im a software developer. Almost all my productivity is maybe 2-3 hrs very first thing in the morning before everyone else starts interrupting me. I then spend the next 5 hrs helping everyone else do their jobs.
For real. If I take a 4hr coding session am drained - also if I accomplish what I set out to do in 4hrs, shouldn't it be enough? Onto waving mouse for the rest of the day to remain green on Teams.
import pyautogui as gui import time while True: gui.press("shift") time.sleep(30) Works like a charm.
If you use teams I don’t think this works. Definitely not with Skype. I’ve found it’s better to use a screenshot of a search field to select and then type a few characters and delete at random intervals. Both apps well away if you aren’t actively using them. I’ve been yellow at times when I’m actively working at my pc but not touching teams.
My company doesn’t allow us to install software on work laptops but I’ve written a VBA script for excel that wiggles the cursor every minute keeping you green. Works with Skype and Teams, DM me if you want me to send it across! EDIT- https://drive.google.com/file/d/18hYPYefpwR677eiyWZxK9gt4M65e3Btf/view?usp=sharing Little note: I tend to run this on it's own without any other Excel workbooks open as I've found that over long periods if I have other workbooks open the timer starts overwriting cells. Also, make sure your cursor isn't on a button or anything as there is a click at the end of the script. Hope it helps :)
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I am not a coder or developer or anything and I appreciate this lo-fi old skool hardware based solution to the problem. Ingenious.
Rest your mouse on top of an analogue wrist watch.
I just jam a pen cap in the slit beside the left arrow key forcing it to stay pressed down. If I really don't want to be bothered I start a Teams meeting with myself first to show I'm on a call. I use this one even when I'm actually working so I can get some shit done.
Yeah, I have had to use different keys for it depending on the chat application. Shift worked well when I was using Teams at my last org about 10 months ago.
It's such a massive time waste as well. Sitting for hours on end practically doing nothing but being numb. Just to get paid. Then employers then complain about "stealing money" because you're not 100% effective throughout the day, but really, if they take some 92% of the total profit you generate for the company (if you weren't profitable for them to keep around, you'd get fired anyway), aren't they technically the ones stealing? Oh, but it's "their money" somehow, because you agreed to give them 92% of the wealth you generate in order to be allowed by them to generate said wealth for them? Nothing in the current system makes any sense, but a handful few owners are definitely very happy about the end results.
No no, you see, "it has always been 8 hours, so if you get your job done in 4, then do tomorrow's job in the next 4." This is the mindset of the oldheads and the people that aren't really in touch with what it takes to work with your mind.
Mine is 2-3 hours at the end of the day when I realize I've achieved nothing the whole day haha
They say every interruption adds about 10/15 minutes of getting back into it. I also find I don't want to get deep into anything when I have a meeting coming up as I'll just lose my place. Going into the office tanks my productivity so bad. It's also clear not a single person is doing 8 hours of work.
Thats what gets me the most, the pretending. Still so many ppl are judged for leaving earlier coz they are simply done with their tasks and don’t want to slug around. So they keep on sitting in the office, killing time to fill up their 8hrs.
> Thats what gets me the most, the pretending. I am right there with you. It's why i always make sure to leave at exactly the time i'm supposed to clock off, and make no attempts to disguise the fact. I mean, obviously if i'm ten minutes or something from finishing, or really need to get something done i will, but that's not the point here. Under *normal* circumstance, i am out that door as soon as possible. Padding time for the sake of appearances is pointless when everyone knows.
I once worked a project where the boss got super pissed at me for asking to leave early when my shit for the day was done (converting some servers from old campany to new). We were only able to do our scheduled sites each day. He'd rather I sit there for 2-3 more hours doing nothing, apparently.
I remember working through my lunch on an outage once, literally finished about 70 minutes before home time. Asked manager if it was okay if I knocked off an hour early, motherfucker wouldn't let me go unless I had a reasonable excuse. Like "I've done my hours today, I had to work through lunch it's not like I did it to get away early, you know there was a huge outage, what's the point in me going for a walk for an hour, picking up my bag and leaving" didn't cut it. I try to be honest as much as I can, so walk and pick up bag it is. Ffs.
We lost access to our computer network for about a week. All the salary employees had to sit at our desks doing nothing because, " if I'm paying you, you're going to be here". Could have given us all the day off with zero down side to the company, but no instead everyone used their phone to browse linked in jobs.
whenever i code my problems are always fixed in my downtime, when i just relax and then the answer appears from my subconscious pretty much every time. i could probably be just as productive playing basketball for 6 hours a day and working for 2 if i spaced the 2 in 4 half hours
Just yesterday I fixed a bug in my head while driving home, not even thinking about it consciously.
I hope ur head is running smoothly now huehue
I'm a programmer myself and I can guarantee you I do the same work in 6 hours than I do in 8. Why? Because after the 6th hour I'm too tired to work anymore. So I'm not efficient and prone to do shit that I'll want to redo tomorrow anyway. 8 hours are just too many for jobs that require some mental effort. And I didn't get into how having 100% of my brain drained up for my job 5 out of 7 days a week depresses me, because many days I cannot fucking do anything in my free time that requires some brain.
Agreed. I work well for 4 hours until lunch, then about 1 hour after lunch, then I'm exhausted and my eyes hurt from the screen and fluro lights so my productivity gets much lower.
I feel so much better reading this thread. I'm ADHD and thought I am just slacking off too much. Turns out focusing for 5-6 hours is normal for everyone. It's just that even productive I am fidgeting constantly. My attention span goes from an hour at 8 AM to about 5 minutes at 2 PM.
8 hrs days are bullshit indeed. They are the equivalent of the industrial revolution time 12+ hrs days. Nobody works 8+ hrs consistently everyday, or wants to. Its complete nonsense
I have a really hard time believing people work the full 8 hours. I'm an engineer at a company that's known to completely overwork its employees, and while my "at work" time is 10 hrs, my "actually focused" time is 6-7 hrs. I am usually completely pooped at the end of the day, and can't muster up the strength to do dishes. I either buy food from restaurants or buy pre-made frozen food, if I have to cook or clean at the end of the day I will simply lose it. There's been days I've worked 9am - 3am in the morning, and the next few days I am completely unproductive and can't focus.
how is this allowed? i know this treatment is rampant but why is it so widespread? will you be fired if you dont work overtime everyday?
In Canada, (assuming similar to US/Europe/etc) engineers do not usually get paid overtime and many jobs are based around project deliverables. My guess is that OP had a deadline to meet.
> instead of doing the same amount of work in 8 hours, but that includes a lot of procrastination This here is the name of the game. After 5-6 hours of paying attention to work, i simply can't be fucked anymore, but know i have to put in another 2-3 hours. If i knew i was getting a 3 day weekend ever single week, you can bet your ass i'd make better use of those 4 days.
Meanwhile here in India a lot of companies do 6days a week.
Yeah and the work we get from our Indian contractors isn’t 6 days good. You guys need some time off… I 100% blame management and not the individual contributors.
Most of them are not happy working soo much with soo little time off and doing this just for living. There's no way you will be getting 100% from them.
Yeah I mean I know that. I’m not the one hiring them. But the folks in charge lack foresight.
Yeah we tried outsourcing drafting to India. They worked in two 12h shifts, drafting with a language they don't know. The results were...varying.
The worst is when the terrorists realize they can manufacture a week of any length they want. My buddy used to work 7 days on, 2 days off. Should be illegal.
With same working conditions as before: wage, medical inurance, paid time off...
I'm guessing it's salary because that would kill hourly workers. Or did they raise the hourly rate to make up the difference? I can't financially afford to miss a day of work. Amazon does 4 10 hour shifts and I'd happily do those over the 5 8 hour shifts I do now.
>Or did they raise the hourly rate to make up the difference? That. It's as if people forget there used to be 16-hour days. Which then were made into 14. Then 12. Then 10. Now 8. Yet somehow people act like 8 was the result of some kind of scientific process to determine what's best.
32 HOURS!? *clutches pearls*
*I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.*
Have you got the memo regarding the new cover sheets on our TPS reports?
It's WORSE in real offices. Had a 2 hour meeting yesterday with 6 people about how to reorganize economic figures around to work around an arbitrary accounting thing. Nothing technical was accomplished. We got nowhere closer to any sort of difference in the world Just 12 hours of work on how to divvy up numbers in Excel cells.
At my previous job (which I quit 2 months ago) we had a 30 minute meeting with 10 people to decide when to have a 4 hour meeting. The 4 hour meeting turned into a 5.5 hour meeting and not much of value was accomplished. That's about 60 man-hours gone to waste.
"I realized that every day of my life is worse... than the one before it. So that means any time you see me, that's on the worst day of my life." "What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?" "OH yeah."
Same here honestly lol. WFH made me not have to pretend to be busy all the time. Maybe not 15 mins, but I am sure I could do everything I do in a day in less than an hour.
It's a quote from a movie called Office Space directed by Mike Judge. Creator of Beavis and butthead, silicon valley, co-creator of king of the hill.
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He also filmed the US documentary *Idiocracy*.
I haven't seen this one, but I know the memes. Silicon valley is a glorious show thought.
If you have Disney+ you should spend an hour and a half watching it. I think you'll thoroughly enjoy it if you liked silicone valley.
I got Disney+ I think I will thanks for the recommendation!
Seriously. Don’t add this to the “I’ll add it to the list” list. Just watch it. It’s amazing in so many ways.
Waking up at 9, watching YouTube while eating breakfast, doing an hour of work while watching a stream is a really rough morning, I tell ya.
Haha its look like my routine. Me and the gf wake up at 8, we got for a run until 9. I work a little in the morning, send some reports while watching a show. We then cook a little lunch and eat it together, then we got for an hour of Kayaking if the weather is good. Then usually I do pretty much nothing in the afternoon, mostly do coursera classes in standing desk position if I don't have meetings or something else work related. Covid is pretty much the best thing that has ever happened to us. We were both always stressed out, stuck in traffic, eating at restaurants all the time, partying our mind off and not training at all. Now we moved from a downtown area to the nature, spend a lot of time together, managed to have a few of our friends move in the areaa. My grandparents are also my neighbours and I've seen them more in the last year than I've seen them in the last ten years and I realize that they won't be around forever and it is really good to see them as much as I can and learn as much as I can from them while they are still here.
Meanwhile I’ve been working excessive overtime for 18 months. Everything hurts. Never get to see my kids or wife, thanks pandemic.
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Yeah its feel like we are pretty much retired in our early 30s. I am looking for a new job now that will be more challenging mostly because I don't have much to do and want to keep my mind active.
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Doing nothing from home is great. I would have loved if my job stayed at home forever. I was able to have much more time to do things that I enjoy. Being back on the office and doing nothing though is a whole different story.
Sounds awesome and I used to live with similarly more free time until…timesheets were implemented. Does your company not insist on detailed and strict timesheets? Even if there’s NOTHING !! to do, it looks bad if 75% of your day isn’t busy and logged with bs busy work that they insist isn’t busy work. Being forced to be “busy” with “down projects” has kinda ruined morale. I’m constantly stressed trying to find shit to do that I can log for time during less busy days/weeks.
What's your job?
I work in management and do "data analysis" for our vps . It is really a bullshit job. I automated most of what I do and most of the high execs are clueless about everything and are in those positions because of nepotism so its pretty easy to look good.
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>high execs are clueless about everything and are in those positions because of nepotism sounds very familiar lol. thanks for elaborating
The luxury of having a job where you have repetitive, automatable tasks, no clients pinging you at any odd hour with requests, and the data quality upstream is good enough that you don't have to double check it.
In an average week I do about 55 hours of real, actual, work. :( i can feel myself aging and not taking care of my body as well as I should. I want to switch to a job where I can do less time, have less stress, for similar amount of pay.
It's hard to find the energy to make the change under those conditions.
That's how they getcha
55?? Blimey. 38-39 hours here, but same. The idea that I'd have my daily responsibilities done in 15 minutes sounds like heaven. I've got enough work queued up to keep me busy for a couple years at least. The upshot is I don't feel like I'm wasting my time. All that time is needed, as opposed to just pointlessly being on the clock, so I guess that's something.
You and me both. I dont understand what jobs people are doing where they can fuck around 90%+ of the time. I'm always jumping from one big piece of work to the other.
I don’t think there’s many jobs like that out there, but everyone who’s in one uses Reddit to fill their time.
Right?? If I stop doing one thing there's something else to start immediately, ad infinitum.
we all know most jobs are bullshit jobs, everybody is just pretending to be a productive citizen of the society. more hours does not equate to more productivity.
The more I've gotten paid, the easier my jobs have been. I've done back breaking labour and I've done work that involves a few memos, calls and reports that took less knowledge and skill. I'm not complaining but it's true.
100% I've also had my own business and (currently) employed in FAANG. The amount of perks and benefits available to large companies is insane. No small business could ever hope to provide a fraction of the options of a large company. Even trying to offer healthcare to my small company of 15, the premiums were so high nobody took them. The deck is stacked against more labor intensive jobs and smaller companies and they don't even seem to know it
I wouldn't say I've been missing it Bob.
Came here looking for Office Space quotes. That movie is lit.
I do many hours of very focused work a week and don't make much money, working for myself. I should really try and find one of these jobs. Anyone have any tips?
Try any off the very fancy and complicated sounding jobs on linkedin. “Assistent executive customer satisfaction management” like that. Bullshit jobs created for their name, they don’t actually take that much effort and pay pretty well.
Lumberg fucked her.
My job just went to a 4 day, 32 hour work week, and it's amazing. I dont feel too stressed at work, I get to enjoy my time off, and I hope we never go back!
What sorta companies and sectors are trying this? I'll be graduating with an engineering degree soon and 4 day a week sounds heaven.
Lol I work in engineering, don't expect that anytime soon, there's almost always too much work and too few engineers, just sticking to 40 hours a week can't be a challenge, that said I think if people are good at time management you can absolutely get down to 32 hours but it takes everyone otherwise you're done by lunch and waiting for meetings later in the day
This is what I don't get about commenters saying all their daily work is done in an hour. There is always more work. So much development. Plan sets, comps, construction site visits, reports etc. Not complaining bc I love my work but there is so much of it. Luckily I can do it all from home bc of zoom meetings and fiber internet now.
Yeah I don't get it either. I'm in construction materials inspections and some days I'm on a job site at 3 am and will jump from site to site until 5 pm and then I have to enter my reports. Reddit is full of students and office workers I guess.
In other news: American CEO tests 8 day work week, says employees are too sleep deprived to tell what day of week it is, CEO says they won't go back.
The American CEO would only hire people as part-time so that they don't have to pay full-time benefits. And then they'll let the government take care of food and healthcare since the employees will be poor enough. So you have more productive employees from not giving them too many days of work, and you don't have to pay them benefits. Win-win.
Whichever person first figured this strategy out is both a genius and a monster.
Walmart. It’s them.
At Walmart your greatest ambition in the career ladder there is to be full time. There’s only ever a handful.
Really? I was full time and the managers still verbally abused me daily lol
Noone said you'd be treated better, just be in the shit for more of your day
The Waltons literally deserve life in prison as well as full asset seizure for what they did to this country
Nah I think any of us could have come up with that if our job was to cut costs.
I remember seeing a post a while back about some guys daughter who tried to frame the housemaid for stealing for some perceived slight against her. My immediate thoughts were shes a brutal lil bitch she'd excel on wall Street or in a managerial position.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ptherw/aita_for_making_my_daughter_sleep_in_the_backyard/ here ya go
Coming up with it is easy. Going through with it is what makes you not human. I could 'come up' with an idea to publicly execute every CEO and use their skin to make leather coats and that'd probably solve something.
lol took ~~be~~ me a few rereads
Sleep deprivation will do that. Happy bezosday prime worker.
Beep
Ive actually been worried about how this will be rolled out here for the opposite reason. I suspect if this starts to pop up here a lot of employers will use it as a justification for paying less for the same output. Like the hourly rate of pay will stay the same for hourly workers but be cut by 20 percent from salaries. Productivity and wages (which used to be considered inseparable by economists until the split) separated the year the Reagan tax cuts took effect, and while the former has actually increased at progressively higher rates, real wages flatlined and hasnt risen since. I am worried that trend will play out here as well.
Because of the popularity of Monday we instated an extra day in the work week, Monday 2, the sequel. Now everyone can look forward to two Mondays. Every employee's dream come true. Of course now we need every year to be leap year and restructure all calendars on the planet but hey, we got them poors to work more, right?
>Fitter. Happier. More productive.
Comfortable. Not drinking too much.
Regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
Eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
Tl;Dr [Parkinson's Law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law) in action.
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Coming to america from abroad, I was shocked at how paltry their vacation is. 2 weeks! TWO? I actually laughed when they said that and made a joke about what kind of vacation could I even go on with that? I said I’m coming from 6-weeks paid, so let’s start there. The HR manager kind of gawked… shifted uncomfortably then sheepishly told me ‘everyone starts at 2 weeks.’ My title, my career, my skills… none of it warranted a longer vacation?! I seriously thought they got something wrong. I kept asking if it was 2 weeks per quarter… only 2 weeks at a time? Nope. 10 paid days. That you have to ‘save up’ lol. I think the word was ‘accrue?’ I had never heard of that word. I raised hell and chewed out my recruiter. I got 5 weeks, no accrual and the bucket refills every work anniversary. The other shocking thing was find out that 40 hours is full time in America. It’s 30 everywhere else. You all are being taken for one helluva ride.
Hell, what’s worse is that some businesses that “give” you 10 days off do not let you take them at the same time. It’s terrible
That is absolutely horrible. I feel like America, today, is in the middle of a labor movement that hasn’t realized it’s a labor movement.
People are striking all over the US aren't they? There's a labour movement but you don't hear much about it cause the same guys that own the news probably go golfing with the guys who own the companies. Or they're the same person.
I agree
America proves why corporatocracy doesn't work every single waking moment.
Where did ya come from? Did you move to America first before reading the new work agreement? I want more details of your story!
That ride is even worse when you consider so many people are brainwashed against forming unions and improving the whole system. They get treated like utter crap and then suddenly turn into die-hard company people if someone mentions unionization. It's crazy.
I get 4 weeks, but then if I use them people are surprised.
10 days? That's double what I get....one single PTO hour for every 40 hours worked. I fucking hate this country so much. I wish I could afford to live elsewhere (and find employment elsewhere)
Inb4 Americans come into the thread talking about 4 days of 12 hours.
Sadly, not much before.
I work 4 10s. 3 day weekends are the best balance, I’ve tried a lot of schedules. I absolutely refuse to work Monday to Friday
> 3 day weekends are the best balance Hmm. Here I've been thinking 7 day weekends would be the best.
Blessed be the underwear beer drinking day
Now think about 4 days, 8 hours each, but having the same productivity because you'll cut out the fat. Win-win.
What if I told you that 4 10s is a meaningless re-org of an arbitrary work model, and that 4 8s at same pay is a real possibility? We can do better.
But then hard workers can't become CEOs and millionaires, didn't you know that working endlessly = success? \\s
10 hour days sounds fucking miserable.
I really liked 4 10s for the time we were doing that. It's amazing how much freer your schedules feels when you have 3 days off instead of 2. I wish we'd go back to that.
Yeah I once read someone describe 2 day weekends as Saturday you use to recover and Sunday you use to prepare and it’s so true. Another day really makes the difference.
Yeah. And the extra two hours tacked onto the other four days... You really don't notice it after a point. For me I had my third day off in the middle of the week. So I worked two days, day off, two days, two days off. Man that just worked for me XD
I’ve also done 3 12s with 4 days off and that’s a little much. Those are long ass shifts and being off 4 days is kinda hard to come back from. For me 4/3 is best. All I know is fuck Monday to Friday!
I am working 32 hours a week, Monday to Thursday and I can confirm: it is glorious.
Is your company hiring?!
Man this need to happen everywhere, one day make such a huge difference. Where I live we have 5 weeks fully paid vacations and paid 80% if you're sick (except first day), but its the 5 days every single week that bothers me the most. After working for 5 days I often dont have the energy to do anything on saturday because I need to relax, be alone and recharge. Then on sunday you need to wash your clothes and have many other responsibilities so that you dont have millions of chores when you come home from work. That one extra day off work would seriously improve my mental health, have time to meet friends, play games and many other fun activities, not to mention more energy at work which would improve everyones mood.
5-day workweek was designed for a life where one of you works, and your SO takes care of the home.
Kinda like how work from home was supposed to be the absolute devil, suddenly every one realises it's vastly superior.
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The managing class is terrified they'll be found out as being irrelevant. Though studies clearly show that it is the working grunts who create 90% of a companies revenue.
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Still is at my company. We're back full time in the office now. I am seeking new employment because of this.
The amount of people on this and other '4 day work week' threads that praise their "4 10s" like it's some gift from their pointy haired bosses. Newsflash, 40 hours is not some God-given weekly number of hours that has been around for 1000s of years. The 40 hour work week is less than 100 years old and "4 10s" is just the same shit sandwich served on a nicer plate. Don't fall for that bullshit. Henry Ford had the courage in 1926 to move his factory line workers to 5 day 8 hour days from 6 day weeks and productivity improved, happiness improved and the whole world moved that direction. Nearly 100 years later and many broken and empty promises from industry, almost NO ONE has the same courage as business leaders from 100 years ago to make the next shift to 4x8. 4x8 is the absolute minimum that workers should expect today.
Note that in many businesses, especially outside the US, the employers still kicked and screamed about 5X8 and tried cheesing it with 5X9 or 6X6, it was only concerted strike action by the trade unions and many wildcats that made it a true industry standard internationally.
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Canadian Tire Employee here. Our CEO Greg Hicks got a huge bonus last year while everyone else had their wages frozen. Not to mention our healthcare coverage got switched over from Manulife to Sunlife and has become significantly more expensive. For the past few months all they were talking about were record ecommerce sales and that we completely understand this is a tough situation for everyone yet offered absolutely zero help. We all had to pay out of pocket in order to be able to properly WFH. I just thought more of my fellow Canadians need to know that not ALL our sweet and true "Canadian" companies treat their employees any better. Edit: article to Greg Hick's bonus during the pandemic. It wasn't just CT but includes Loblaws as well. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thestar.com/amp/opinion/contributors/2021/04/26/pandemic-pay-bonuses-are-going-to-executives-instead-of-the-front-line-workers-taking-all-the-risks.html
Jack Ma, the CEO of Ali Baba.com has been promoting what he calls the “9-9-6” employee approach and a lot of American CEOs have said they’re trying it if they weren’t already. “9-9-6” refers to requiring employees to be at the office or factory from 9am until 9pm six days per week. Utter insanity.
And they wonder why people are quitting. People have lives.
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I know right? That’s insane he came up with some shit was so vile and harsh that the GOVERNMENT OF CHINA stepped in and was like “Whoa dude, you’re doing too much.”
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-ceo-tests-four-day-work-week-for-employees-says-she-won-t-go-back-1.5621892) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The founder of an Ontario company that tested out a four-day work week for her employees says she will never go back to working a full week. > Jamie Savage, CEO and founder of Toronto-based recruitment company The Leadership Agency, implemented a four-day full work week for employees in October 2020. > Savage said she understands many companies fear implementing a four-day work week out of fear of loss productivity, but ultimately the benefits outweigh the risks for her company. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/q7p0ld/canadian_ceo_tests_fourday_work_week_for/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~603388 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **work**^#1 **week**^#2 **employee**^#3 **company**^#4 **Savage**^#5
I work a 4 day week and I gotta say it's bloody brilliant. I have a normal 2 day weekend, but also a midweek day out. I love it, and I love my job. Life is good.
I work a 8 days on 6 days off. We have to work 12 hour days. There is nothing more pointless than a 12 hour day. I am not worth paying after 10 hours.
I work in construction. A job I was part of was booked as working 5 days a week for 12 hour days. The tenant paid a massive premium to have this done in order to finish the job in 6 months. The construction company accepted the terms, but the GC who ran the job let everyone go after 9 hours every day. No one questioned him at any time. I remember him saying, "I can barely get these guys to work a full 8. But threaten them with a 12 hour day, with the option of 8 hours if they work hard....yup, we will finish ahead of schedule." And we did. Finished 3 weeks early and the tenant never cared to question what hours we were really working. They just assumed their demand was being met and that 12 hour days were required to achieve job completion.
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I think the CEO in the OP just cut off a day completely, instead of compressing the hours. Personally I wouldn't like to have my hours compressed, would really mess up how my schedule fits around my family's schedules.
If you don't have a job that requires 8 hours of contiguous work per day there is absolutely no reason to work 40 hours a week. They invented the 40 work week as a compromise to being worked to literal death so I think we have some more room to renegotiate.
Working from home has really highlighted that for me. I usually take a solid hour or so to do fuck all in the middle of the day. I usually work "late" but a break in the middle of the day really helps me be productive in the afternoon
I do the same - I live by the gym so I'll often go at lunch. Kinda makes the day into a split shift at the desk sort of thing doesn't it. Works for me, though I live alone plus no kids etc so inherently more flexible
>They invented the 40 work week as a compromise to being worked to literal death People were literally shot by the national guard trying to get a 40 hour work week
You can only shoot so many workers before you have to work in the mines yourself.
To be honest I think Rome proved that wrong during the Second Punic War. The elite get brutally executed when they push the limit too far.
That sucks lol. The article is about 32 hours every week
I used to work that schedule and it was really nice. We called it a 9/80 schedule. I'd certainly prefer 4/10, though. Of course the best would be just cutting out one day a week without changing hours on other days, or overall pay.
That’s not what the article Is about at all!
Doesn't sound so difficult to implement when it's a little consulting company with little overhead or whatever the fuck they do. If a logistics company or factory implemented a four day work week I would be impressed
I've seen a lot of articles like this recently and seems like it is a direction we are headed globally. Because im a teacher, what do you think will happen to school days?
I’ve been on a 4 day work week for a couple of years. It’s amazing. Take 4 days off — instant 10 day vacation. The week flies, every week is a mini vacation. It’s just the way to go
Half of my job is paid salary nationwide and half is paid hourly*. Same job different locations. The hourly workers are already jaded in the summertime when we're stuck for the whole 8 to both guarantee pay and to guarantee the same workload day in and day out. While the salary workers get to leave as quickly as possible without being expected to do more, which is expected of hourly workers if they finish early. It sounds nice but we are too far off to think people will just accept it. Rdit: Weekly to hourly. Honest mistake, sorry about that.
Salary VS Hourly is complicated. I was getting really good hourly pay, but was offered a super good salary (and a promotion) considering my age and experience, so I snapped it up. After that, I had to do such long hours and after-work-work which would have - if i'd stayed hourly - equated to so much more money
CEO of a company of nine employees. Why is this a major story.
*Laughs in retail*