A 4-Day Workweek? A Test Run Shows a Surprising Result

[demmiblue]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A New Zealand firm that let its employees work four days a week while being paid for five says the experiment was so successful that it hoped to make the change permanent.

The firm, Perpetual Guardian, which manages trusts, wills and estates, found the change actually boosted productivity among its 240 employees, who said they spent more time with their families, exercising, cooking, and working in their gardens.

The firm ran the experiment — which reduced the workweek to 32 hours from 40 — in March and April this year, and asked two researchers to study the effects on staff.

Jarrod Haar, a human resources professor at Auckland University of Technology, said employees reported a 24 percent improvement in work-life balance, and came back to work energized after their days off.

“Supervisors said staff were more creative, their attendance was better, they were on time, and they didn’t leave early or take long breaks,” Mr. Haar said. “Their actual job performance didn’t change when doing it over four days instead of five.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/asia/four-day-workweek-new-zealand.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

[rusty quoin]

1. I'm not surprised

[TexasTowelie]

2. I worked in an office where the employees were allowed to work either

40 hours over either 4 days or 5 days. The office was required to be open for all 5 days. The problem with the 4 day work weeks is that with someone wanting either Monday or Friday off it means that all group meetings had to be held on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. That sometimes threw delays into project as little progress is made on Friday and Monday with people missing work and then trying to meet again over the following three days.

In a sense it changed the office dynamics from one of everybody struggling through Monday and looking forward towards the end of the week to one where Monday would still be rough for the people working that day, things being frantic Tuesday through Thursday, and frustration by the people working on Friday since the people that worked earlier in the week were gone.

[SemiHalfling]

4. The requirement preventing the office from closing sounds like it could cause problems.

There are certainly going to be variations that work better or worse depending on the rule sets chosen and implemented by organizations, and the environment in which it is done.

[TexasTowelie]

5. It was a nightmare.

People could come in as early as 7 or as late as 9. Leave as early as 4 or as late as 6. Lunches could be either 30 or 60 minutes between 11:30 and 1:30. That meant that there was only 15 hours of overlap when all employees were expected to be at work without any consideration for when people requested time off. The lack of communication between employees lead to wasted work efforts. There was also subtle disrespect towards management because of the lax flexible atmosphere as people were tardy and took excessive breaks.

[SemiHalfling]

6. It certainly sounds like a conundrum.

I can’t comment with any authority on your workplace culture or structure because I’m not familiar with them. That said it sounds as if the rotating schedule variables were not accounted for in the experiment. There are likely better models to determine a more equitable distribution of responsibilities and time allotments.

The business itself may also want to reassess the way it does business and how it measures success to some degree; given the requirement that the office remain open all five days I can see how retaining certain norms would cause unhelpful disruption.

Not that I mean to be glib or imply that it’s a simple undertaking to remake an existing workplace to be more people-friendly. The failure can still inform the debate though.

[Squinch]

9. Could it be that some of the problem was in the expectation that

everyone would adhere to unchanging schedules during the days they were present? Would it have made things easier if people were free to take their lunches as needed in a given day, moving it to accommodate meetings as necessary?

Though that doesn't change the Monday/Friday issue.

[TexasTowelie]

10. Even if that were the case it would only bump up the amount of time where everyone was available

from 15 hours to 21 hours a week.

In this case the employer was going to be strict because it was a state agency. The expectation was that the office be open from 8-5 and that someone be present in the reception area.

The work around as long as only routine occasional meetings were necessary would be to have lunch catered into the office. However, it didn't work well in crisis periods when more frequent discussions were necessary and people needed to be focused on the details of the projects rather than eating.

[SemiHalfling]

14. Ah a state agency... that makes more sense

My personal opinion is that a government agency should have the power to do better. That said, I live in a deep red state, so I’m aware that sometimes other priorities can take hold. On top of all the ordinary complications.

I’m a little harder on public servants who don’t understand that they are supposed to be there to serve the public first and foremost. The disrespect issue you brought up makes a little more sense in that context, I have a friend who sometimes has to put his foot down in struggles to keep his office drama free and professional. I like to look at the issue from a sociology standpoint; when people are behaving a certain way it’s for a reason, some kind of needs aren’t being met... not that it excuses bad behavior.

When it comes to government entities it certainly does get more complex, and the impetus might remain with leaders.

I’m sorry you had/have to deal with that.

[meadowlander]

15. It will be different for every "business"

and depends on how interactive the work is. For my job (which is also in public service), we have flex time (can work any hours between 7 and 6), can take lunch whenever we want to, and have the option to work 40 hours in four days or have a day off every other week subject to manager's approval. It's absolutely brilliant to be treated like professional grown-ups who can manage our own time and responsibilities.

We don't have to cover a public facing desk, but that seems like the kind of thing a good manager could roster and sort out. It's not rocket science. We do somehow manage to cover an advice phone line despite working a range of hours.

If you know in advance that you need input from Persons X, Y and Z and that they work such and such hours, you just schedule your work around when people are available and do your own work in the meantime.

How many offices actually deal with such dire crises on a regular basis that lack of input from one person for 24 hours makes a crucial difference in outcomes?

And if work is falling through the cracks, that's more likely a sign that your team needs to hire more people to cover all the bases than that there is something inherently unworkable about flex time.

The other thing that worked really well was the option to take one day off a month with no questions asked. We went through a major natural disaster and everyone needed to spend time dealing with insurance companies and banks and contractors which were only available during normal business hours. So our managers said "just take one day a month to deal with whatever personal stuff you need to deal with". Sick leave dropped significantly, people were a lot less stressed out, you had less people taking long lunches and sneaking out to make personal phone calls.

These are the kinds of things we need to be doing to address income inequality and the fact that productivity has risen so significantly because of technology while wages have stagnated. We need to start transitioning into shorter working hours spread across more people.

[TexasTowelie]

16. The group ranged from 8-10 people.

Two people were on four day work weeks (I was one of them since I was second highest in seniority). It didn't help that one of the women in the group went on 12 weeks of maternity leave after each of her three kids--all within a 2.5 year period. There was another issue with the women that had the most seniority who did not report to work for about 8 months due to clinical depression. Three other members of the group had school-age children and would have to miss work for conferences and doctor visits.

I don't know whether having one day a month set aside for handling personal business would have worked the best or not. Between sick leave time and vacation leave time people were accruing 2.5 to 3 days off per month combined. Nearly all of the group were scraping by with less than 5 days of time available and there were some times when some of the employees had deductions made from their paychecks which is extremely unusual for salaried employees. BTW, when I left the agency I was paid for over 7 weeks of leave time that I had saved--it was a nice parting gift!

[meadowlander]

19. But that's life.

People have babies. They get sick. Their babies get sick. They have lives and things to do that are more important than their work like taking care of aging parents or taking classes after work to improve their skills or unplugging and going for a hike when they feel stressed out.

That should be factored into how many people the company hires in the first place. For decades it was, until CEOs in the 80s and 90s decided to "improve efficiency" by working their employees to death instead of sharing the wealth that came from improved efficiency through technology.

We're at a point where actually we don't need most people to work 40 hours a week to cover what our society needs. So instead of expecting 30% of the population to work 60 hours a week at the expense of their families and health while lots of people are unemployed or underemployed, why not have 60% of the population working 30 hours a week? Other than the latter scenario requires slightly more effort from managers to make sure all the hours are covered and it cuts into obscene corporate profits and salaries for the 1%, I don't see what the down side is.

[TexasTowelie]

20. However in the case that I provided

you aren't talking about spending obscene corporate profits--instead you are talking about jobs provided with taxpayer revenue. Management does not hire employees when the need arises or just because of a crisis--those FTE positions have to be justified in the state budget and submitted well in advance. When the provisions for flex time were passed it was done in an effort to alleviate rush-hour traffic in Austin and it was supposed to be cost neutral. However, increasing the employee count is not cost neutral, particularly when looking at the long term prospect of paying pension benefits. It is also nearly impossible to terminate a state employee after the six month probationary period except for personal conduct issues so the state simply does not have the flexibility to alter the size of its workforce like a private employer can.

As for working extending hours, I've been there and done that both when I worked for the state (and when I worked in the private sector). However, my jobs required a somewhat specialized group of skills. Even if they had cut my salary by 30% it still would have been difficult to justify hiring a second person at lower pay because that person would have been searching for assignments because of the work flow throughout the year. While it would have been nice to have that much excess capacity within the office, I don't think that the taxpayers would approve of keeping someone on the payroll in that situation though.

[msongs]

3. 20% less work for the same pay, not too difficult to expect a happy outcome eh? nt

[woodsprite]

7. Not "less work", "less hours"

I thought it said production remained steady.

[Sherman A1]

8. Precisely

Production increased so it is a win-win.

[Johnny2X2X]

11. We have a permissive time off system where I am

Last edited Sat Jul 21, 2018, 10:20 AM - Edit history (1)

I’m an engineer, our entire fortune 50 company has permissive time off for all salaried employees. It means we get as much vacation time as we need. It works out pretty well. Time off still has to be approved by your manager, but it’s never denied unless there is some big project due. And it’s pretty much understood you should be taking off between 4-6 weeks of permissive time off a year. We also get 11-13 days a year for Holidays. I probably get a total of 7 weeks a year off paid. I also can arrive when ever I like and leave whenever I like. I usually work 8:30 to 4:30.

We have some people that work 4 days a week.

People don’t see it, but that’s the trend for professionals in the US. It’s long been known that employees work more efficiently on 32 hour weeks. Companies are finally paying attention. This isn’t nonsense, it’s long been known in the long term that teams working less hours with ample vacation get more work done than teams working 50 hours with little vacation.

Teams with a work life balance are more productive, creative, and make less mistakes. This isn't some worker's fantasy, there is hard science backing it up, people work best in 6-8 hour shifts with ample time off. The companies who recognize this will have a competitive advantage.

[WhiteTara]

12. That is my mantra

More weekend Less week.

[appalachiablue]

13. K & R. The system could be beneficial if managed fairly & responsibly.

[Wounded Bear]

17. Did that for years at an old job...

Loved it. Still 40 hours, so it was 4 tens, but it was still great having a 3 day weekend every week.

Actually helped in a lot of subtle ways. People could get their personal stuff done on Fridays during business hours, as well as Dr and Dental appts, etc. Holidays often worked out to 4 day weekends.