The Surprisingly Solid Case For A Three Day Work Week - How Money Works
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- Опубликовано: 20 июн 2024
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The fight for fewer working days is a battle as old as worker relations. Just 100 years ago the five-day workweek was unthinkable for American laborers but in 1932 the states officially adopted the five-day work week to combat the unemployment crisis caused by the stock crash and subsequent great depression of 1929.
We are currently amid another shakeup to our way of life, one that is on par with the severity of the great depression. So perhaps it’s time again to re-assess how we work, maybe it’s time again to look at the surprisingly solid case for cutting down the days that the average American worker devotes to labor.
There is a surprisingly solid case for a working week of just THREE days for most jobs.
#HowMoneyWorks #TheGreatResignation #LaborCrisis
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This raises an interesting idea for the future - If most office space eventually becomes obsolete, would we end up with lots of new city centre apartments at a relatively low cost? What would that do to society? Interesting thoughts.
I don't know why you're going about this as though the company wouldn't just have two shifts of people.
Group 1 works mon-wed
Group 2 works wed-friday
this way even if only one day a week, everyone is in the office.
or
Group 2 works Thurs-Sat.
one of those are far more likely than a company just closing shop for 4 days out of the week.
@vary helpful
I can only assume you're replying to me... And I don't understand why, seeing as my comment covers what you're critiquing already.
Nah need a pointless meeting
I will say, the best part of working from home has been that I never need to "look busy" anymore. If the work is done, and I ask around and no one has anything for me to help out with, there's no more awkwardly hiding that I'm on reddit. I can just read a book, go for a walk, do w/e until I'm ACTUALLY needed. The work week becomes exactly as long as it needs to be.
Exactly. The leader's role actually becomes real then. He has to set a goal for his team, and then all the team has to do is meet that goal and then dip. There's no need for "looking busy."
Nice that you actually get free time. Some get clustered with work. Even more so since work from home has been addopted.
Totally agree, and what surprises me the most, there are a lot of people that think this is a blasphemy and not how you should work! Everyone should be present in in person at company workplace, wasting countless hours getting to and from place every day etc etc, you know the drill. Chinese flu hit my country pretty damn hard and yet there's at least one senior manager that constantly tries to get people working together in a building like nothing goes on. And we all work in IT sphere so there's no point in working not from home 90% of the time anyway. I bet that manager would simply explode upon hearing the idea of a 3 day workweek.
So true
@@Kronos0999 And the leader is rewarded for getting more out of their employees, not for taking to more of their time
I've been working a 3.5-day week for 12 years with the same company and never feel like I need a holiday. I have so much annual leave accrued I could take 6 months off straight. Even had time to start a side business on my days off. It really is life-changing and I hope it becomes the norm one day.
Don't try starting a side business on your days off. The well-being you experience now would vanish almost instantly, because few things are as time consuming as a newly founded business.
@@lonestarr1490 I think Patangy will be the best judge of what opportunities s/he would like to follow through. Your points are valid but neither you nor I are versed in Patangy's circumstances or ways - and perhaps that which results would in truth be better than had the opportunity not been explored (perhaps even moving on from the company currently employed within, should things go well).
@@lonestarr1490 I've been running it for 6 years and I agree that it can be time-consuming at times.
However one of the benefits of having a stable income source from the day job is not having to stress about the side business making enough money to support my lifestyle. This is an immense relief and means I can take a break whenever I want.
I want to do the same. What kind of job are you having?
@@naniyotaka IT support
As a tech worker in a high profile FANG company, I would like to say that one point not taken into consideration for the tech worker example is that I spend a good chunk of my time concentrating, thinking and problem solving. There is only so much time in the day I can reasonably do that. Extending the day to 10 hours, though I would totally take it, would probably not make me more productive during those hours.
Exactly. Try interviewing writers. See how many tell you they write for 8 hours a day, let alone 10 hours. Many jobs that require high concentration simply cannot last that many hours everyday. You get burnt out.
Yes I studied engineering productivity and mistakes go up with time. If a program makes mostly buggy code the 10th hour then spends half the next day fixing them we would have been net better off quitting at 9 or sooner. Maybe this argues for 6 day weeks but 5 hours each
I work in engineering during mid-shift, afternoon until midnight, 4 days a week.
I've noticed that the bulk of the workload comes in bursts in early afternoon, and then again just before the prime shift people go home for the day. The rest of the day is coasting until logging off for the day, unless something extreme happens
I absolutely love it
I do financial planning. This is something that I always have on my mind and in my mornings before even working is when I'm doing a lot of market research.
I do data science and maths research and I find I CAN work 8-10 he but I cannot tell you when. Some days I totally fail at getting in the zone. Other days I find 5pm comes around way too quickly and I've got 8 other things I want to finish right then and there.
A 3 day week is a global application of what we'd consider flexi-time. If someone said "I don't care when you work but I expect a certain minimum each week" I'd be all over that job like a fat kid on a cupcake. Personally I work best 10pm to 4am but no one works those hours and customer facing people absolutely couldn't, it's just a perk only certain jobs would allow.
I think I'd still prefer 3 days of 10 over 5 of 7 though.
I know it's difficult and logistically impossible given how businesses are interconnected with each other, but as some others have said already, the whole problem with a 40 hour work week is that you're only really getting stuff done for half of that time. The other half is spent waiting around for when it's time to be needed. When working from home you don't have to waste time waiting for the fish to bite. While you do that you can go ahead and do other stuff like do chores, or relax and watch youtube or play games, then when you get a ping from your boss you just have to move your ass to the computer and boom ready to go.
Most people don't dislike working for 40 hours if for the entire 8 hours per day they were kept busy. Most people I know say they'd be lucky to be busy for like 5 hours out of that 8.
As a Software Engineer, I don’t really have that problem. We are often loaded up on plenty of tasks throughout the day. Also, research has shown that a 6-hour work day is better for productivity, employee retention, etc. There is also research that shows many of the same benefits with 4 day work weeks.
Personally, I think the ideal would be to combine the two (4-day work week and 6-hour work day).
Oh shit, vars from league of legends / genshin impact
@@wintermint7 Came here to post something remarkably similar, I easily have a full 40's worth of dev work to do each week between feature implementation, builds, testing, etc. While software would be the easiest to move to a reduced work cadence due to it's nature, there's not really much sitting around and waiting for tasks to appear, they're all there ordered by priority, with the nice to have's ready to fill the gaps in the schedule.
@@reahreic7698 Exactly. And let’s not forget the myth of the “rockstar”/“ninja” programmer that spends every waking moment coding which puts an expectation in employer’s minds that all programmers are like that. Some of us just want a 9-5. Some of us don’t want to be forced to spend our weekends “upskilling”. If training/upskilling is required, allocate it during work hours. Also, some of us don’t want to be woken up at 4 am because something broke while we’re on-call.
Side rant: on-call is bullshit anyway. You’re literally working overtime and not getting paid for it. It’s literally free labor. During an on-call shift, you should either receive overtime pay and/or more PTO.
Try construction. You an work non stop for the entire eight hours.
A 3-day work week would be absolutely ideal. For a short while last year, I was able to adjust my schedule so that I was working 3 day weeks. It was glorious. I was super productive, and super at ease, because my life wasn't centered around making a company a bunch of money. I could actually have a life.
What did you do?
@@ajl2232 do you mean how did I manage to work 3 days a week? Or what was my job?
I work in tech, and I still work for the same company I did then, but I was able to arrange all my work and meetings to be done within 3 days every week.
I have a lot of control over how I work, and how my workload is structured; it's just gotten more busy since then.
I know I'm super fortunate to be able to construct my work life the way I want around my personal life.
3 12's have been a thing in machining for a while. The reason being: it makes alot more sense to have a worker spend more of their time all at once on a machine rather than abandon a setup and handoff even more frequently. Additionally, in higher end aspects of the job, there are machinists who will not work for places that don't offer 3 12's, and you want to keep those guys happy, because they're more valuable to a company than anyone else.
I work in healthcare and the schedule at our facility is 3 12s each week. I love it. Even when I pick up an extra shift, I still feel like I have a lot more free time than when I was working 5 8s.
@@piscesgrl0 what do you do?
@@theentrepreneur607 I don't know what Emily does but I know that there are a number of nurses who work 3 12's every week instead of smaller shifts. My mom did it for a lot of her career.
Longer hours for tech workers (programmers, engineers, etc) does not lead to more productivity -- so 3 day work weeks with longer stretches at a time decreases productivity generally. What would be better is just giving programmers the latitude to work 3-4 hours during prime day and then let them work whenever as needed. Very rarely are you getting more than 2-3 hours of actual work out of problem solving professions (unless in meetings, pullups, etc)
I don't know man me personally I work best after I'm done beating my head in for about 4-5 hours, I generally end up working 10-12 hours anyways and the most productive of it is near the end. But different people are different but that's true of me and the 5 programmers I know.
I've worked 10 or even 12 hour days when I was focused, and that's the days when I'm most productive. It's definitely not sustainable at all in a 5 day work week, but it might well be doable working 3 day weeks.
@@dhirajmeenavilli5508 I am the same way. Other programmers I know are the same way too. It seems like a trend.
I find that I get the most work done on a coding project in certain amount of hours when they are consecutive, one 10 hour session had me get more work done than 6 2-hour sessions but it's hard to quantify just how much 'work' was completed.
Exactly. I was just about to say this - as a software developer, I probably do 90% of my work in the first 3 hours of the day. After that I have a hard time staying focused. I would love to work 10/3, but I would be woefully unproductive.
"need to live near metropolitan centres"
this, basically, is one of the single biggest problems in modern times. A few crammed metros filled with depressed, uprooted people, where the cost of living is simply too high due to demand and therefore a lot of poverty, along with the lack of development in rural areas since all the people go to the metros for jobs.
I have been working from home since way before the pandemic. My commute is 340mi and I rent a tiny apartment close to the place of work for whenever I need to be there.
I never saw the point being stuck in morning traffic 🙄
We live in 'small town USA' now, moved just before the pandemic as there's an opportunity that allows us to be within driving distance of the beach. I can tell you one thing for sure, the caliber of workers out here is painful. Sure I'm not expecting the amenities of even a modest 200K city, but the general lack of work-ethic, by many of the local service providers and their employees has me doing business with the larger towns up to an hour away. It was/is a greater culture shock than the shift from a liberal-ish to conservative-ish location. ('blue-ish to purple' county)
That said, cost of living is freaking cheap! we own a house with large front and back yard, and wooded land for less than a small property in the city. If you can swing WFH, it's worth it moving a little ways from the city and into a purple county.
@@reahreic7698 yup. That pretty much sums up my experience.
We still have a colleague coming to the office regularly on a daily basis, but we hired someone local to where the office is and who did not want to work from home, so that this aspect would not be a problem.
cities can be better if they are planned and run better .i think this is a lack of initiative from the mayor/elected representative of the city that you speak about and less about cities in general
@@Deena_555 the problem is, cities attract people, who'd rather not live under conditions that one would generally call "well run".
Sign me up! I think a 4-day week is already within reach. I'm inspired by a 3-day work week!
You apparently don't work manual labor...
I used to work 4, 10 hour days at an urgent care. We did stagger the billing department between M-Th and Tu-Fri, worked out fine. Plus having one day to recover, do chores/errands allowed two solid days to enjoy. It's so much better once you adjust.
Yes I can imagine automation, remote work, and augmented reality/spatial computing increasingly picking-up and optimizing redundant tasks and workflows.
This could lead to more flexible and modular schedule of roles and tasks a given business needs employees to fulfill and we as workers could change up our work schedules seasonally, monthly, or even weekly (as long as the most important work is covered for) to better tailor it to other realms of life.
I had a 10hr/4 day set up as a cook once and it was honestly great. The busy days were actually the better days because time seems to move faster when there is not enough time for everything. I imagine you never had many slow days but those were pretty tough for me because there was only so much you could prep ahead of time if nothing was being consumed; it became deep cleaning day. (I did M/W/F/S) Tuesday and thursday were typically chore/errand mornings with lazy afternoons and sunday could be stay in bed day.
4/10's were a good deal. I also didn't mind Panama schedule on days as well so long as i could use my lunch break for gym.
His point about having time to spend money hits home.
My fist job was a warehouse job that had me working 6 10-14 hour days IN A ROW, week after week.
Sure, I made plenty of money, but I was exhausted all the time, had no energy on my day off, and had no time to spend (or enjoy) the money I was making.
I like where I am now: even working 5 days a week now, I’ll take having weekends off over making more money.
Geez... you guys really need a national union and better labour laws...
We work too many hours to begin with. 40hours per week is already too much
What do you do now?
Yep I work in a factory as a welder. 50 hours min most weeks for me.
Fed Ex offers a 4 day work week and it does attract employees. My employer moved to a 3.5 day workweeks from 5 day workweeks, and it substantially improved their staffing.
It’s also interesting that Ford also gave his employees high salaries so that “each worker could afford a car.”
Ford is on his sigma grindset.
Now most people can't afford rent
Now they want workers that can't afford the products they make and try to profit from others who have trouble affording them.
I think 4 days on 4 days off might be an interesting option. Scrap Saturday, Sunday, make all jobs 4 on 4 off and have two teams working 4 on 4 off and your projects have no downtime while people have 4 days in a row to recharge.
There are some companies where working as an HGV driver, you have this option, so it is a practice and it's been a practice in that field for some time, not everywhere but it does exist and it's working fine because essentially, the lorry is working 24/7 making money while the drivers just change every 4 days. Downside is your shifts would periodically end up on the weekend. Another downside is you're not making a 5 days pay, you're making about 4.5 since the weekend wages are higher. Upside is obvious - you get more free time to either waste or to pursue other interests. I'd say 4 on, 4 off is the move since it's perfectly balanced... as all things should be.
2 turns, one of 4 days (m, t, x, f); the other 3 (w, s, ss). One more day of production, more productivity, double the jobs.
The whole time spent commuting to work and back really hits hard for me. As someone who lives in the US, a place which is known for its horrible city planning and mass transit, I lament all the time wasted getting ready and getting to work. Not used for helping the company, and not used for enjoying myself either. Reclaiming alot of that time would be awesome. Unfortunately won't likely happen for something like a retail job, but am hoping to get into software so maybe we'll see some changes then.
That's what I was saying. Commute time is a big problem. I'd personally never want to commute more than 20 minutes there and back in my life but with the way rent is priced and cities are built especially in the us there's not too much one can currently do.
I also feel like service workers are often very much not valued enough (especially where I am from/ Germany). Hotel, restaurant, supermarket, nursing homes etc. they all work lots of hours with exhausting customers, often hard labor at early or late times and in the night (even on weekends).
Should a three day work week ever come we probably won't be the ones getting it. I am currently working a 7 day 10h night shift btw . though that was of my own choice somehow I guess. On a cruise ship. For too little pay considering it's 70 hours and bound to a metal float.
I work healthcare.
The pandemic/shared custody of my kid/lack of affordable childcare actually made me fall into a 3 day work week.
I was lucky since my job is HIGHLY needed and companies will take what they can get and its 24/7 open. Also, they offer float pool (working at any facility under the corporate umbrella) pay which for me was $30/hour
So you don't do physical labor like a lumberjack or a plumber or a mechanic... tell those guys to only work 3 days and see how quickly shit hits the fan..
@@orunenf5533 did u just tell me I don't do physical labor? Ever lifted a 300 lb man off the floor?
Ever spent 12 hours running from one task to another with no time for a lunch but still docked for it?
Ever handled Hoyer lifts? Sit to stands? Been in charge of 30+ ppl who's actual life and well being is in your hands? Ever been punched in the face by a psyche patient? Ever moved a dead body?
Lumberjack is a physically hard job. Healthcare is physically hard, mentally hard, emotionally hard, and spiritually draining.... Don't downplay what healthcare workers go through
@@roscojenkins7451 so you work at a psyche ward? What's the turnaround rate and why didn't you learn a valuable skill?
@@orunenf5533 What happened to you to make you hate healthcare workers so much?
@@orunenf5533 There's rotating shifts for a reason, you half wit.
Moral of the story: worldwide crisises solve economic problems
I have to disagree as a programmer. If I had to work 10 hours, youre not getting 10 solid hours of programming. I wouldnt mind 3 day work weeks, but wouldnt claim it was for productivity. However I think there is a strong case for 4 day work weeks
Yeah, I think this works much better at places like Amazon (which is actually rolling this out). Since I have to make my hourly quota regardless of how many hours I'm working, they don't lose productivity and they (hopefully) improve employee retention. The big fly in the ointment is everyone wanting to work MTW. They're currently offering an extra $7/hour to work Friday or Saturday, and still winding up shorthanded.
Agreed. In my company, we found that we could only squeeze out 6.5h of solid programming work before productivity drops and mistakes increase. Add lunchtime and break time and meetings (think Scrum) and you get about an 8.5h day. Certainly we could push it for a deadline, but it comes crashing back later on as people start to burn out.
It doesn't change much. Just give workers more flexibility to control their hours, but have a core period of 3 days to cover all essential work. Engaged employees will be able to work as long as they want because they know they can put work down completely afterwards.
There is no clock watching or stressing out over how many hours of free time you'll have left.
I agree. Thinking jobs should be less hours over more days, not fewer days with more hours.
Fellow programmer here. I think I could do 3 days of 10 hours, provided they don't expect 10 continuous hours. 5 hours on, 4 hours off, then 5 on again. Those 4 hours would be enough for a decent nap, or a grocery run, or whatever. When paired with the fact that's only for 3 days in the week and my job can be done remotely so I'm not losing any of that time to a commute, that would work pretty well for me I think.
I worked a 5 (and, with an abusive boss, 7) day workweek most of my working life. Then I became a nurse in middle age and now only have to work 3 days a week and it is life-changing! This is the way work should be
It’s annoying to me that Google reduced salaries for remote workers when in actuality, they’re transferring expenses. Google can downsize their space and save a bunch of money that way. With no more internet contracts, no more tech expenses (how many jobs requiring computer and internet access supply them???) but expectations of even greater time and day availability because the assumption is that you are essentially in the office 24/7.
Like the ROWE, we have to be very careful not to give away the farm for the golden egg.
But seriously: In a few decades, we will look back and laugh at how much we used to work.
I hope you are right
hope you are right brother
This is true. Automation will eventually mean that most of humanity won't have to work at all. The question is: what then?
Fingers crossed we don’t get rocked back to subsistence farming
@@AHumbleReviewer depends who owns the automation..
I switched to a 4 day work week a year ago & it helped me with my existential dread, now I have time to do more in my week & I dont feel like its all as "pointless" as it use to feel.
It's depressing when we think about all the advancements humanity has made since the 1930s (when the 5 day work week was adopted) yet we still essentially live the same lives as the people back then.
Worse lives in some cases.
GREED....
Not by accident, the powers that be want us to be working all the time so we don't have much time to reflect on how much they explore us like you are doing
I loved working 3 day work weeks. 51 Vacations that year! The bonus was commuting on the ferry across Sf bay on the days I actually worked! Ps. I was making $15 per an hour, and it was the 80s. So spoiled!
Back in the 90's my dad ran his division on a 4 day work week. You either had monday, wednesday or friday off if you were in the office. The field personnel worked either 3 on 4 off with rotating days on call and field services (contracted to other companies) 2 weeks on 2 weeks off. Hard to believe this was the 90's in oil and gas and it isn't standard now
It's still about the same for oil
@@agentwade most of my clients run very lean schedules and being in consultants (me) to run their after hours and weekend stuff. I just can't believe with phones and the internet there isn't more on call work and way less time in the office.
I worked at a place that had 4 - 9 hour days (36 hours). They made sure people took different days off so there was always someone around to do the job. It wasn't perfect since sometimes there was only one person who could do something that needed to be done but it did work and it was a huge benefit that many people liked. Of course, I was a contractor paid hourly and I had to be there 5 days a week, 8 hours a day - kind of annoyed me. But some companies are ratcheting back weekly hours for full time employees and it does work and does attract and keep talent.
Thanks~~~~
I went from slaving 6 days a week, to demolishing every site I do four time a week, though some of that motivation may stem from it being my business, less work days is underrated as shit
Ha, Optimism. Also as someone who is unemployed I can confirm that more time does not mean more results and does end up leading to more distraction searching and "weekend suicides" the mindset that we achieve nothing and have no purpose.
free time of an employed person is radically different from free time of an unemployed person. It's not just "more time", it's more time for a person with a better mindset and better means.
You can read books, learn new skills, create art, write a book, workout, do chores, plant trees, help the community, etc. Yes, some days we feel like sh*t and life becomes meaningless and suicide comes to mid but it's up to you if you succumb to despair. I suggest you read Camus, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Alan Watts, Alain de Boton, Schopenhauer.
Try being more mindful of your breathing and walking, you're literally the universe experiencing itself so try to be more inlove with life.
@@matttejada7381 I do/try, I am not personally suicidal anymore I was referring to a study I had read about people who commit suicide during the weekend. I do appreciate the support and suggestions for continued reading.
Remote work allows you to hire employees from another country at low costs. 2 of my friends now work for americans companies from their homes.
The guys are very happy now receiving in dollars
This is too good to be true. I have to either work on Saturdays or work overtime after 40 hours ... Shorter working hours is such a privilege.
I mean it's great if everyone is as motivated at the same level and same holiday schedules. It's very chaotic for a global corporation, especially if many key personnel is in EU with EU holidays. There are certain months within the year that it's just impossible to get anything done with the current 5 day schedule.
I work in Europe and it's true, some months (like August) see basically empty offices. But it's also true that getting things done is not necessarily related with the amount of hours, and it could be harmed by stuff like endless meetings or bullshit bureaucracy. There is a lot of room for improvement.
Yeap exactly.
I live in France with a 35hr workweek and I have never seen people work so hard or productively as the French. This productivity is a vital job requirement due to the generous vacation time that is mandated by the French state.
The French workforce also suffers from stress, work dissatisfaction, and burnouts. Which are not things you would immediately assume if you looked at their state mandated employee benefits.
I loved my 3 day work week in the 80's. 4 days off felt like a vaca. Wonderful.
To me I think the biggest issue is this furthers they already problematic divide between blue collar and white collar work. At a time where we are on a collision course with a crisis of Craftsman shortages, as most younger folks don't want to work in the trades, and the folks currently working in the trades are retiring. That and we just have a plain old shortage of labor right now. Most businesses are reducing their hours because they can't find enough staff.. production is stagnating
Robots will take over those jobs... eventually.
I've had a job for 20 years now as a software developer for a company that does manufacturing and have written quite a bit of automation software for them. There's a slow and steady push forward for automation, but there's also a lot of 'dumb tasks' that still get pushed off on a person to do simply because the company doesn't want to expend capital to automate when it is entirely possible to do so. And, people don't like doing dumb tasks all the time so its no surprise when they don't stick around... at least not surprising to me.
A couple things that should happen, the dumb tasks need to get automated, that'll relieve the pressure off the trade worker pool quite a bit and leave the tasks that really take some skill to do left over, something people will probably be a bit more interested in. The next thing, actually pay shop floor workers what they're worth and people will think about trying those careers again.
The companies need to pick a path, either automate or pay the workers, and many are being stubborn and not choosing either.
@@matok2426 yeah it's funny, in the software development space as well, first role was building software robots probably similar to what you're doing. I initially thought that we were going to be screwed by automation, but thing is that's countered by the fact that we are getting ready to see a lot of retirements in the workforce. I think we're seeing it right now, and it's just being masked by covid.
I think we will figure it out, it's just a matter of how bumpy we let the road be on the way. It's not just the shop workers it's the plumbers, it's the truck mechanics, and a bazillion other skilled but otherwise invisible blue collar jobs.
I don't think we're in a position right now to move to a 3-day work week. Unless we are talking those days being 10-12 hours.
A promising and easier to adopt system is 9x9 per 2 weeks (most pay periods). This is 5x9 one week then a 4x9 the next. This gives every month 2 more days off and the commute is almost the same. One thing Ford understood was mistakes cost more and tired people make them more so any idea with more hours in less days might be net worse
It should also be pointed out that one of the motivators for working from home (where it ranks is completely subjective) is that in ages past, one could deduct a portion of their rent/mortgage from their taxes for the space in their home dedicated to working. One brutal surprise many W2 employees learned is that these deductions are no longer available to them. BOOOOO!
of course not. Government said.... "shit, we're losing money. Doesn't matter if the primary residence is a place of business. hammer em."
I work rotating 12’s one week is 3 12’s and the next week is 4 12’s and I can definitely confirm that having all those days off gives you more time to spend your money.
I think one problem with everything job-related is that people like to think there needs to one single work schedule for EVERYBODY & EVERY JOB. But every job is different, every business is different, every person is different. There are some people better suited for overnight shifts & some jobs where that's better/more viable/needed. Many businesses already hire overnight staff anyway, which is "more expensive" in the same way having overlapping/staggered days of the week would be. But some jobs may be better suited for that or benefit more from exactly that. Businesses are already open on the weekends as well. The work schedule (days of the week, hours of operation) should simply be whatever makes the most sense for each business, while attempting to keep individual employees' work schedules to only 3 days on. And even that can be subject to change (working from home, creative work, tech/dev/programming work, writing, etc). Honestly, if this were to be the change, the rest of the economy would also change to reflect it. So, while the number in your bank may decrease due to a loss of 10 hours/week, the overall value wouldn't, necessarily.
Always love your no BS approach to these videos. Another brilliant gem
This is so true. I'm always looking at camping gear and other things I could easily afford but don't have the time to use. So I don't buy them. I've worked 18 of the last 20 days.
Well, 18 out of 20 doesn’t sound like a standard 5 day work week to me so of course I understand you could really use some more free time. However going staight to 3/7 just doesn’t seem like a “smooth” change whitch doesn’t come with it’s own issues to me.
I just want to say sincerely, thank you for these videos. I’ve learned so much in the past few weeks.
My experience:
I always preferred four ten hour days to five eights, but unfortunately every company I worked with that offered four tens soon made it mandatory to work five tens, and then six tens, and sometimes seven tens or even seven twelves. That wears people out quick.
With four tens you can relax and recuperate over the three day weekend - with five tens you can still recuperate enough to be mostly effective on the job for several months at a time, and with six tens it's just not happening for most people.
Working more than ten hours a day quickly becomes exhausting. It can be done occasionally when necessary, but it should never become standard.
It would also be possible to turn a three day week into a business open six days a week. Just have one crew work Monday through Wednesday, and another from Thursday through Saturday. If you need seven days' coverage you could alternate three and four day weeks.
Of course some management staff would have to work every day of the week, but it should be possible to reduce their daily hours, or just have them on call for most situations.
Lot of strikes happened over mandatory 7-12s the past year or two. Just can't do that for months on end.
This can't be in the US, the overtime would be crazy, right?
@@x--. Yes, in the U.S.
I think they justify it on the grounds that it is cheaper to pay overtime than to hire twice as many people and pay them benefits.
Plus, in some cases they are cost plus contracts, so no one cares about productivity so long as they can bill hours.
And if the company can claim minority status then they don't care about productivity hardly at all, because they can work the quota system to get jobs without regard to whether they accomplish anything.
Studies done a hundred years ago demonstrated that maximum production comes at about 55 hours per week, and that total production drops if work weeks are over 55 hours. That's _total production_ - not productivity per hour. But no one seems to care. The managers all seem to believe that they will be the exception.
Speaking from experience, I am at a fortune 100 company and we adopted 4/10s a few years ago as company policy after we did some time studies that verified a higher output due to less working days. I am now in one of our few remaining roles that are 5/8 and my goodness what a change my life has gone through. I hope to start my own firm one day and reduce days further. All it takes are business owners that care about their people like they claim they do, and talented workers that aren't out to take advantage of someone's good faith in them.
We need this in society . Keep spreading the good word
Love your content and your video format. Thank you for everything
One of the downsides that I’ve found from working 3 12hr days is that each day is far more critical to your performance so you have to be way more on top of things such as having all of your cooking done before the work week. Or if you are sick you either use more vacation to cover the time or your performance is significantly worse for the week because 1 bad day is 1/3rd of your work week
The problem, my friend, is that Graeber was right. These companies don't really give a shit about hourly productivity because this is no longer a production economy. We're here for rent extraction and loot distribution and thus, more bodies justifies more loot.
Registered Nurse here.. although our job can be extremely exhausting both physically and mentally one if the best benefits is schedule flexibility. I have worked “casual” at busy hospitals that will call you to work any hour of the day for up to 16 hour (including nights). I would work 3-4 shifts a week on weekdays and have a 3-4 day weekend on exactly the days I want off. On top of that I could take vacation at any time because I would just not pick up during that week. Another benefit is I would be only working when I actually felt like being there.. if I really was having a stressful set I would just take more time off until I’m ready. If other jobs could operate like this I think there would be benefits for employee and employer.
There are quite a few scientific studies mentioning that less working days per week actually lead to more productivity! Why didn't you mention that? It has been done in New Zealand, Iceland, and Sweden that I can remember at the moment
At my job they strated talking about a 3 day work week with 12h work days. given that we would also have 3 out of the 4 weekend off (I work in healthcare so my schedule is not conformative). I would honestly be very glad if this change happenned. I am already working double shifts most of the time anyway (16hrs)
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I have a creative, mentally heavy job, and at least for me it's hard to keep working at 100% for more than 3-4 hours straight. I would be miserable if I had to push 10 hours a day, for three consecutive days. I would prefer 4 hours a day 6 days a week, I think I would be more productive
Speak for yourself and let others make their own decisions.
At Lockheed Martin, and aerospace defenses in general, sub 5 day weeks are commonplace. Having worked a 4 X 10 schedule (4 days 10 hours ea) and 9 x 80 (80 hours over 9 days instead of 10 days) I will say it’s immaculate. You preserve your peace just better and when the whole company transitioned to 4 days instead of 5, I anecdotally did not see any productivity dropoff
I work in manufacturing and If we had todo a 3 day work week it would be impossible to get enough done, we would have to two fold our work force and customers would be limited on delivery dates and times.
Most people don’t realise this but only a few companies and work remotely and have fewer working days (techs an office workers) most companies can’t afford or risk having people working remotely or working less days.
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I am currently working 4:4 shifts, and it is brilliant.
Half the time in my job I'm not doing anything. But the time I am working is mostly random. The company needs someone in my position at a moment's notice so it's just more logical for them to keep me there the whole time.
They don't mind if I just screw around on my phone if there's nothing to do though which is pretty sweet.
The best schedule I had was a staggered schedule where I got 4 days off every other week. Felt like a mini vacation twice a month lol
I see 2 Issues, people need to pay bills, loosing hours wouldnt be possible for some people.
Also Companys would benefit from this a lot if they just make Mon-Tue-Wed & Thu-Fri-Sat Shifts getting the Saturday as extra work day. But doing that you would double the ammounts of people needet in the Working Class and there arent enough to do that on every Company.
Currently working on getting a 3 day-12 hr shift schedule. It'd make for pretty challenging days, but my commute is short and having the majority of my week to myself while still maintaining a similar lifestyle is well worth it.
Getting fewer than five days as a work week would be a miracle for many companies, who seem to be hellbent on removing as much fun as possible...
Whenever someone says, "we" need to do something, it means, "the government" needs to do something. How about each to their own, if I want to work more than 3 or 5 days, then I can. For some professions, a 3 day work week might be better, for others that's not the case. I work everyday to run my business, and I already hate how we only have 7 days and 24 hours per day, wish we had more. By the way, the current 5 day work week has its origins in Ford, but the reason why most jobs have it right now is because of the government, not business. Meaning not every business can be said to benefit from 5 days because they maybe wouldn't do it if it weren't for the government. Some jobs have a work week of less than 5 days, and there's no regulation for that. It's because for those professions, it made sense. Not every job is the same.
I have two jobs one that pays and a more self employed. I just adjusted my self employed business to be more automatedx a little less money but way way less work.
@@reheyesd8666 Congrats, yeah I'm also trying to automate a lot of my business at the moment.
The reason "we" expect government intervention with certain things is because companies are almost never incentivized to operate in our best interests.
wow, that endcard really brought the mood down by A LOT ^^
Late to this party - but as someone who is in the construction business.
If I work Monday - Wed, and my colleague works Wed-Fri. The only common time we have is on a Wed. If I need a solution to a problem I found out on Monday, and it's a 2 minute question, I would have to wait until its Wed to get a response.
A lot of white collar jobs arent paying you to do REAL work, they are paying you to be available.
I think there is one other variable not considered: The flow of a Free Market. Sure some might flock to a 3 day work week company, but then there might be bonus for working a 4th, or a 5th. People seek the path of lease resistance, and the biggest bang for their buck. So as long as there is a means for someone else to get ahead by giving more of their time, this will push most everyone else to do the same. I think there is a reason why the 'most successful' people generally put in a 40 to 60 hour week. To stand out, you have to stand hiring then anyone else.
8:53 isn't theoretical... and it doesn't always work out as planned. When furloughs forced the US DOD into cutting hours, ship support contractors tried the overlapping day trick on a 4-day schedule (M-Th, T-F). From the ship side, it was even worse than everyone just taking Friday off. Because many jobs required a chain of approval for new requests or changes, only simple jobs and maintenance could get done on the days that half the staff was gone (M/F), so we got 3 days of work out of a 3-day workweek. In your picture here, you run the risk of getting 1 days' work done out of a 3-day workweek (and the one overlap day would be packed with meetings). To make it work, the whole company needs to change its structure, expectations, and set costumer expectations.
I think that you are stating one issue preventing this: corporate bureucracy and lack of freedom for individual worker. When everything needs to run through some persons, they have created a system where others just are there to help that person instead of a group working individually as a team. Where more of the staff are thought the larger picture, bureucracy goes down and a team can function more fluidly instead of just a battery of cogs.
@@MikaTuukkanen As they say, good help is hard to find. The average low skill worker is not capable of adequately making those decisions.
@@GodwynDi I strongly disagree with that statement. Average employee is able to do much more than just follow orders. I am an engineer and what i have learned is that generally every job is much easier than people think. Issue is management thinking they can keep all the strings in their hands, while it is preventing the flow of thw work.
@@MikaTuukkanen I suspect your field may have a higher skill level than most basic entry level jobs. We have people that have trouble going numerically down a spreadsheet.
That just sounds like a failure of logistics.
Amazon had a 3 day work schedule and man I Fucking loved that schedule and still made a great paycheck
5:44 Re: Companies pay less for work at home.
One thing to be taken into consideration is that having an employee work from home is less expensive for a company that won’t have to pay for electricity, heating/AC, and space. These expenses are being passed to the employee WHILE being payed less.
Exactly! Don't lower my pay; I'm lowering your expenses by working from home!
I mean in northern europe they have been working only 4 days of the week for years now. Yet their productivity has increased!
Good point about being too tired to spend money. I used to have a very stressful and physically exhausting job in the trades. I made some of the best money in my life, but was too tired to go anywhere or do anything during my little time off. On the bright side, I paid off my house because all the money was just piling up in the bank.
Love it. I'm good for about 6 hours of focused work per day at most. Beyond that, I'm looking for ways to slack off.
3 days a week is fantastic. I am living it.
Somehow the video ended earlier than I expected, but I really like the video. It's nice to see that a 3 day work week is kinda feasible from a company's perspective.
The ending is brilliant
I've been thinking about this for a while, the economy stagnates when people is busy all the time, I've been with the idea of having a trip but is impossible due to scheduling, as a consequence I have a bunch of money in the bank that is only serving the bank a purpose, and banks are not efficient redistributors of income, their business is hoarding.
Gotta love that reality check right at the end 😂
5 -> 3 seems quite radical.
But a third of my colleagues opt for 80% contracts -- they work Monday through Thursday, and then have three days off. They even do it despite the 20% pay cut.
Personally, if I got paid the full 100% salary, and was able to just work 10 hours per day to make up the 40h work week, I would go for it. Some days I stay longer because there's just some deadline to be met, or I'm really close to cracking some problem and can't just stop and leave. It then makes me feel stupid when on a Friday afternoon I count down the hours because I finished all my issues, I'm too lazy to start new ones before the weekend, and at the same time, I don't want to leave early in case it sends the wrong message to management.
The savings on commute are definitely a blessing too.
My mom is a senior carer in a care home and works 12 hours a day, 3 days a week. she really enjoys it. with her back problems, it is much easier to manage everything in her day to day life.
I really like the perspective of maintenance. Everything has wear and tear, and cutting that in half will change national economics.
Wow, I'm into this. I think it would work really well with my manufacturing company...
7:50 - I had that exact bag to take to school when I was 18
Another bonus for end-customer companies that want to switch to a 3 day work week: you don't have to have Wednesday be the day _everyone_ comes into the office. Instead, have your second crew come in from Thursday to Saturday, that way you get to extend your open time a whole day without necessarily offering a weekend bonus. Not only that, but with 200% normal staff, I bet you could get people to work Sundays on a volunteer basis instead of having to offer weekend bonuses.
How does this apply to on site positions? Operational roles? Infrastructural jobs like utility workers? I world love to see someone tackle applying these ideas to blue collar labor and the side effects of doing so.
I don't want a 3 day work week. I want a zero day work week.
I recently finished working 91, 12 hour days with 8 days off. This is hands on physical work. All the young people in my work place think it is amazing, and all the old people just say welcome. This video only works for the privileged few. P.s. not disagreeing, just reminding you all that those not upskilling themselves will have to stuck it up and work more..... so be better than me and educate yourself!
Congratulations on being a slave.
Thx for this video , For those of us that saw the gains from remote work or shorter work week, should highlight the pros and provide ways to help companies adopt changes . Companies sure won’t go out of the way to help make remote/shorter work week happen if they still hv to mull over a plan to have it realised . Those who believe in it , hv to at least come up will a workable plan/schedule..or share some working examples
Sony had me working 12 hour shifts 4 days on 4 days off. Pretty agreeable got all my errands run no hassle and time to stretch day trips into long weekends pretty often.
Interesting point on the Ibanks. And judging off current bonuses and some of the interim perks the Bankers have gotten, the higher salary / total comp route seems to be what they're doing (unless they're Citi)
I used to work 38 hours across 4 days and it was great. I got way more free time and I could divide my week to accommodate my needs
7:15 I doubt those calculations to some degree. I agree that fewer long days is probably more efficient regarding productive hours per total hours spend on work.
Maybe it's a german thing, but we don't get paid for lunch or other breaks. While people might not take an actual break for a quick coffee run, an 8h work day means 8h work + 30min mandatory lunch break. Then, if I work 10h, I usually take more breaks, as I get exhausted towards the end.
Haven’t even watched the video yet but I’m sold
This made me want to work 7 days a week.
For some technical positions, 4 10-hour shifts can actually make more sense. It can help you get more coverage over something with fewer people. Unless they're sadist they'll still staff everything reasonable and it's not so bad. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I really like having three days off in a row and still making a 40hr a week wage.
Some aquarium life support technicians do work 3 12-hr days so it's not unheard of
12:35
Lol, listening to this as I work out in a gym.
4 or 3 day work weeks always sound great, but alot of people like to work more hours to make more money, or to even make overtime. With a 3 day work week, it would likely be more efficient to hire double the amount of staff and then not pay overtime, by having rotating work scheduals so everyone works only 3 days, in companies that need the productivity of a 5+ day work week. AKA less money for those who need or want it.
Those who want to make extra money could simply find another 3 day job on different days. Nothing requires you to only work one job.
That depends, having double the staff doesn't mean double the productivity
@@Oxios This is what the fast food industry is like after Obama Care. Instead of having to work full time at one job and get paid health care, now you have to work 2 different jobs so you don't get paid healthcare, and deal with the scheduling nightmare.
@@stapleman007 But the fast food industry is designed to underplay people. That's the point of it already. I don't agree with it, but it's there. But if you have blue collar and white collar professionals, you can reduce their hours but they aren't going to accept 20 hours of pay at 30 hours a week so that they then have to get two jobs just to compensate. Labor market will revolt. And anyway all it takes is one place to not do that and everyone else who can compete will have to compete. Otherwise the higher quality workers will never work for them and they have to close the business, since they would have to hire three or four times as many workers for half the shift time to make up for it and businesses couldn't handle that attrition rate. Literally there would not be enough workers available in the labor market to achieve that.
Work three days with one company, and get paid for three days -> work two days more with a second company because you got time and need the money
But they are paying you the same. The reduction to 3 days doesn't mean they will cut your salarie, they will benefit greatly by giving you the same amount of salary and the 3 days of work
"The last and final hours are not those of peak performance "
Supply chain and operations associates: That's a lie!
Dude I LOVE how you just don't waste words, the literal meaning of "I don't fuck around" but as a eloquent gentleman. Please reproduce.
“Business don’t care about changing the world if it pushes them into bankruptcy first”
Correction: … if it pushes them into *slightly lower short term profits*
There is also a huge benefit to international organizations, longer hours means more overlap with other time zones.
Companies don't allow a 3-day week to their employees to enjoy more their lives on RUclips, FB or Instagram because they think employees already do that during working hours...
Great video mate!
Thanks~~~~