Qwerty
Striker
Everyone won't benefit. Doctors and nurses can't do the same graft in 4 days as they do in 5.
4 day working week
- Thread starter dangermows
- Start date
AlpineExile
Striker
So get some more doctors and nurses. It's not like the ones we already have aren't suffering from burnout due to overwork anyway.
Not sure about nurses but I'm pretty sure that medical schools are way oversubscribed with qualified applicants.
DaveH
Striker
Competition I guess. Say you are in a design office and something makes you more efficient. It doesn’t have your time overnight, but you start to clear the backlog. All of a sudden you have the capacity to do more, more than a rival company. So rather than ease off, you take on more and fill the gap you created.
Traditionally society has prioritised money over time. Could things like this, WFH, condensed hours or people just deciding to work 4 days be a sign that is changing?
A lad I shared a flat with for a year as a student had a plan to learn about the highest paid areas for IT contractors, graduate, get the professional certifications, pick up very highly paid IT contracts for 6 months at a time, then have 6 months off to travel. He achieved it to. He would really work his arse off when he worked, but would then fancy living in Australia surfing for 3 months and just go and do it.
Qwerty
Striker
Can't see it working like that. I understand that those going on 4 days are still producing 5 days work. The vast majority of workers won't benefit.
DaveH
Striker
Teaching staff do what they like!
Most lecture on the side of doing research. Many might teach just one course for each of the 3 year groups, which equates to just a few hours of teaching per week. It is not like a school teacher where you are in the classroom all day.
Why you got priviges then? Mows means everyone would get same pay for 4 days...ie you wouldn't be special anymore
DaveH
Striker
That is needed and the hours we make doctors work is crazy, but that is another story. Paying doctors the same to work less, then brining more in to cover the slack defeats the point this study is making.
We should make them work less, stop them working 12 hour shifts and pay them more because of the valuable service they provide.
Daydream Believer
Striker
I did a lot of work on the IT side of mergers or migrations from 1 system to another for a while & wherever possible I negotiated the contract to be based on hitting milestones rather than hours on site. I'd get in, automate my tasks as much as possible, blast through it in as few days as I could & get out.
dangermows
Striker
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sonson
Striker
In this climate? No way. Not enough to matter.
Companies are looking at cuts everywhere, they're not going to start paying people more money for less hours
Shame like as I reckon it's the only way forward to manage productive labour between our need to work/rest and technology which can ease that rather than threatening it
Companies are looking at cuts everywhere, they're not going to start paying people more money for less hours
Shame like as I reckon it's the only way forward to manage productive labour between our need to work/rest and technology which can ease that rather than threatening it
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dangermows
Striker
They are though.
As it should be.
Plenty of good examples here of businesses saying it benefitted them.
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sonson
Striker
Here and there aye. The forward looking ones.
The places that need it most where it will make the biggest difference to the most people, where the biggest burn out and dysfunction and waste there is from outdated attitudes towards labour practices, ike NHS and Social Services, not in a month of Sundays sadly
I'm completely in favour of it like. I work 4 days on a 4 day wage but would have no issue if people started to get more than me doing 4 days. Better for everyone means better for me.
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mickb2112
Striker
So it`s lack of investment from the management that`s damaging our productivity and not, as the Tories would have you believe, lazy British workers.
DaveH
Striker
Bad management is huge on productivity. My last place was always keen to be ambitious. Ambitious to them meant having a busy development roadmap, and busy meant lots of things. One big thing looked bad, like we were not doing anything. So lets put on 3 big things and 4 mediums that we have no hope of achieving. And while we are busy lets dismiss any major upgrade (which might be weeks of work) from roadmaps because that is BAU and BAU is just free time that comes from nowhere. Basically no consideration of the size of projects or capacity, just how many nice coloured boxes and like cake, the more the better.
The result was many conflicting projects. Management said prioritise and every time we fed back how we prioritised, they said it was unacceptable and went through each of the low priority ones saying they needed to be high priority. The result was capacity to do 3 projects but 7 high priority ones on the list. All priorities were equal.
Along with some really stupid decisions, people needed time in the office just to bitch about it and let off some steam. The result was many times in the office, everyone stopped working and had a good moan for an hour. Do that a few times a week and that is a lot of work not being done. Add the context switching changing from one job to another rather than cracking on with just one. And to cap it off, no project was ever finished, so those manual tasks that could be automated were never automated or handed over to the service desk and sat with development level staff, adding further to the problems.
After fighting for a while, I eventually wrote it all up in a report, demonstrating with pie charts how much time was lost in each area and showed where if we slammed the breaks on some projects for 3 months, we could tidy up all the other things, reduce workload then by having a major push for a few weeks on just one project at a time, we would be ahead of where we are on the current path in 9 months. Senior management looked at it, thanked me for my time, said it was very sensible and hard to argue with, but it was a very negative thing to say we were stopping development on a major project. They decided to continue as is, despite agreeing it was probably heading for failure.
I left. I can look at that place and see how if you removed the stupid decisions from the top, and was honest about what was achievable, you could either do more or save a day a week just from bullshit.
There's no way I'm doubling my hours for anyone.
Some probably can....
Qwerty
Striker
Not in less hours though.
CatRyan
Striker
didn't them up there also successfully trial drug rehab that provided free accommodation and therapy rather than cups of methodone etc it saved money and lives all told but doesn't play well so was ditched
I guess the 4 day week would play better
Why not?
Qwerty
Striker
A doctor or nurse can't see as many patients in 32 hours as 40
