4 Day Work Week - Seeking Feedback

Posted At : July 8, 2008 5:03 PM
Related Categories: Web Dev

The 4 day work week seems to be gaining popularity. We have discussed it in the office, though nothing definitive as of yet.

The idea we are mulling is that everyone works 10 HR days for 4 days. Monday - Thursday.

The Pros:

Saves commuter time / money
Saves company energy costs
Our free time is in larger blocks and a consistent 'work day' to do errands and appointments.

The Cons:

Longer days - though 8am - 6pm isn't bad really.
Some organizations can't have one day completely shut down

At Savvy, we have to offer at least some support on Friday's. So we could do a rotating schedule. However that offsets the environmental benefits for the office (less energy used).

There are lots of other options to help solve the support dilemma. One is that one of the staff members has Monday off instead of Friday, and that person offers support on Fridays, but works from home. That way the office is still shut down, but support is still available.

Any of you have direct experience with this?

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The engineering firm I worked at once did this. I loved it.

I'd think if you support working from home - than that would be the ideal solution.

# Posted By Jim Priest | 7/8/08 3:38 PM

I've never done the 4 day work week myself, but I worked at a company where part of the staff did it. In their case it worked well because it was construction, and only working 4 days a week was less disruptive to our clients, and helped them get more done once they were on the job since so much of the day was in setup and cleanup.
I think in a lot of cases you still have to have people in the office on the fifth day, even if its not a full staff. Telecommuting can probably help there with the environmental concerns.

We do have a lot of telecommuters in my office (regrettably I'm not one of them, the people who do it live much farther away than I do), working 1-3 days in the office and the rest from home. It works well as long as you have seamless communications systems (phone, vpn, etc). At my company everyone has a Blackberry, and our phone system is good - it can forward calls to a home or cell number. We have a couple conference lines always available. The key is to keep it as "normal" as possible whether they are in our out of the office.

Good luck, I look forward to hearing how it goes!

# Posted By Rachel Lehman | 7/8/08 4:02 PM

I would be in favor of this tomorrow even if I rotated and had Mondays off 1 month and Fridays off the next. I really hope more businesses that can do this look towards it because it seems to be the future.

# Posted By Dan Vega | 7/8/08 4:04 PM

One of the companies I used to work for did this for some folks and you are right, support sucked on Friday's. They eventually split it evenly between Mon-Thur and Tue-Fri. That same place, since they were on a bi-weekly pay schedule instituted a 80 workweek over 9 days and again rotated the Friday off between people (i.e., 9 hour days on Mon-Thur, one Fri @8 hour and one Fri off). Reasoning was 10 hour days was a bit much and 9 hour days might be more manageable.

# Posted By Phil Duba | 7/8/08 4:05 PM

I suspect a lot of people will look at this and say "wow, I'd only have to work 40 hours a week?" :)

# Posted By Sean Corfield | 7/8/08 4:07 PM

I done that every summer for the last 10 years. It makes the weekend great - 3 days off. Days are long but after you get used to it they aren't bad. I actually think I'm more productive on 10 hour days versus a 5 day - 8 hour work schedule. We do 7am - 5:30pm (30 minutes unpaid lunch).

# Posted By Scott P | 7/8/08 4:08 PM

I'm with Sean in thinking that a lot of folks would drool at the prospect of only working 40 hours a week, let alone getting 3 day weekends. In my office (Nylon Technology) we're actually really good about that... encouraging developers to work their 40 and go enjoy their life... but I've spent so many years in the trenches where 60+ hour weeks were the norm.

I've worked in environments that were similar to the 4 day week - more like a 50 hour week followed by a 30 hour week followed by a 4 day weekend (then cycle back to the 50 hour week again)... and yes, it did work really well. The real issue for most companies is that, if they're customer service oriented, as we are at Nylon, it's difficult to let people not come in on one of the 5 work days without it affecting business.

# Posted By Simon Horwith | 7/8/08 4:29 PM

Utah is going to a 4-day workweek http://tinyurl.com/5cuwjw

# Posted By Pragnesh Vaghela | 7/8/08 5:07 PM

At my real job, we have been trying to encourage this for a long time.

I personally would be a big advocate of 4 10 hour nights for developers. We don't sleep anyway and many of us are more productive outside the 8-5 schedule. Save on A.C. and an easier commute.

I think many companies are going to have to look more seriously at telecommuting now.

# Posted By Michael Brennan-White | 7/8/08 7:23 PM

Former Mass. Senate President Billy Bulger had a bon mot on this topic.
Regarding State employees, Billy said "we offered them a four day week,
but they said there was no way they'd work the two extra days."

# Posted By George | 7/9/08 8:54 AM

My previous employer had a few employees that did this. However, HR insisted that there was a 1-hour lunch break (claimed federal regs), so that translated into an 11 hour day (7-6 or 8-7). That becomes less worth it in my mind, but could still be worth it.

# Posted By Matt Williams | 7/9/08 10:58 AM

I am 100 % for the 4 day work week; especially since I already give the company I work for 5 to 8 hour of my time without getting paid for it. It would benefit me because i would not have to commute 50 miles that 5th day which would save me fuel and 20 % more of my paycheck.
As a person that works in the service industry, servicing marine safety equipment and boatsI feel that this could be viewed as something quite beneficial to the industry.
I think it is about time for the United States Government Officials to step-up to the plate and figure something out and make it a labor law, rather than depending on the public to try and figure it out, because some companies would comply, while there are those (like the one I work for) that would say, " there is no way I am going to let some politician determine how I work my employees."
I would love to see the vacation law passed and i would love to see the gov't. officials step -up and say you work in this industry, you make this much per hour, in every career or job, instead of a person in Ohio getting paid $13.00 an hour to pack life rafts and service boats and marine safety equipment while the guy in Texas is doing the same making $ 15.00 per hour or the person in Virginia making $20.00 per hour,or the person from California doing the same job making $36.00 per hour. It is not fair labor practices.

# Posted By Alex J. Kasubienski III | 7/9/08 12:09 PM

www.4days.us
This is a site promoting the 4 day work week with armbands and stickers. I thought it was worth a shot to help build support.

# Posted By tennille | 7/13/08 1:11 AM

I would actually prefer a 7-4 week. Work seven days, take four off. Or at least 6-3, to maintain the seventh day sabbath, if we truly must.

In my opinions 2 days off isn't an optimal life schedule to fully center oneself and recoup expired energy, deeply pursue personal interests, manage home-life, family-time, errands, as well as indulge in at least abit of tequila inspired debauchery.

I've worked 7 days many times, and taken 4 days off afterward, and it was AMAZING. I accomplished much more than usual, and didn't have to spend a Monday morning winding the project back up to where we left it on Friday. A 7 day workweek s is a great stretch of time to focus intently on projects, that otherwise are abruptly interrupted by half-assed 2 day weekends.

# Posted By lee | 7/14/08 12:11 PM

The shorter workweek is long overdue. However, question the built--in assumption here that the total hours worked remain the same. Why not a total reduction in work hours? This should at least be an option for workers who value their time over the extra potential money earned.

Let's begin by offering a 4 8-hour day workweek as an option. Wouldn't this also potentially offset unemployment, via distributing labor over more employees?

Many would gladly work half as much for half the pay.

# Posted By MKII | 8/3/08 8:20 PM

Hello guys,

I am doing some research about this topic and I created a website which collects signatures for this idea.
So if you agree to have 4 working days per week please come and sign it at www.4workingdays.com

Thanks a lot,

Thomas

# Posted By Thomas | 8/4/09 8:52 AM

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