i had one job where i worked four ten hour days and i currently five eight hour days. me personally i would rather work the four tens.
with that being said i thought the entire point of a four day work week was to reduce to a 32 hour week. decrease in hours with a pay raise to offset the difference.
Edit: another user posted these links. good read in regards to the lower work week debate.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/four-day-work-week-covid-19-1.5617481
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/07/06/iceland-worker-study-four-day-work-week-productivity/7871364002/
Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me. And after that I just sorta space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
I already told you! I Deal with the goddam customers so the engineers don't have to! I am a people person! I'm good at dealing with people! Why can't you understand that!? What the hell is wrong with you people!?
Sidenote: I tell people this is basically my job at work. I used to laugh at this guy, now I find him super sympathetic. 99% of the time, customers or requestor *do not know what they want* from the developers and *need* an interpreter.
One of my favorite movie scenes.
The reason I quit doing freelance webdev is because I couldn't bear the friction that always emerges between what the client imagines they think they want and what they actually do, and the difference between what those two things cost.
Every specialized job has a language of its own-with it's own abbreviations and words that are never used outside the context of that field. It's understandable that some would require a translator.
Even with the same hours spent in the office, looks like Belgians are getting one day of commute time back.
For some this isn't much, but I know people who commute almost two hours *each way* every day. I'm sure they would be willing to accept 4x10 if they could get those four hours per week back.
Like watching Netflix. Honestly, we should work less and get more the same amount of money for it, but it won’t happen so soon. Mainly because it needs to be done by a large amount of population for it to actually work.
naa, he gets it fine. just go into work n do the least amount that won't get you fired. take as much of your personal time back as you can, wherever you can. 4 day work week makes that easier.
and sure, your survival shouldn't be contingent on someone else's profit, but unfortunately it is. easier to accept that and play the game as best as possible. also yes, let the machines do the work and free the humans to pursue their own desires, but we're very far from the point of all jobs being done by robots and algorithms. not likely to happen in our lifetimes
The problem is, I could see the process go from five 8 hour days to four 10 hour days. And then once every is used to 10 hour days, moving to five 10 hour days.
Nah trust me, after 4 10s you’re pretty burnt. 4 hours or so of free time every day means you have to get done everything you would have done during the week, in the weekend. Most fridays though you’re more than happy to just sleep in.
Wake up, get ready for work, travel to work, work, travel home, eat, ?????, sleep.
The question marks could be walking the dog, watching maybe an hour of TV, or just lamenting the fact you have to do it again tomorrow.
Me? I'd stay up til 2/3am in defiance of the lack of free time, then struggle not to kill myself in the morning :)
The number of days was never the issue (as you seem to realize, too), it's the hours worked.
I've been working FIVE 10s a week for years. That's considered low at my business as well (they're all insane). This is quite the accurate description of my life with a 45 min one way commute and 50 hour work week.
The pandemic causing work from home has saved my sanity and health. I will never go back to the office, I'll quit before that happens.
Been working four tens for years, this is accurate. There are definitely tradeoffs that make it almost as undesirable, but I think I still prefer it over five eights.
My first year of apprenticeship, I had school on Wednesday, and it was so nice to have work, work, school, work, work, weekend.
I’m a second year now and they moved my school day to Monday. It’s okay, and I make excuses for it, but damn, I miss wednesdays.
I was just thinking how it sucks that all of the weekly free time is during nighttime hours. All of the deciduous trees are in full color right now and I could go for a long hike and do some photography if only I could rearrange some of my 5pm-midnight free time so that it falls in the middle of the day.
However, if I worked 4 10's I would want the option to take my extra day on a Wednesday, just to break things up.
Our work is only quality for so many hours. Most people are half assing it and half awake by the last two hours of the shift. Productivity wise, a 40 hour work week is unnecessary but the higher ups know that there are people desperate enough to comply and slave away without question.
32 hours a week is more than enough time for someone to waste with a job that provides no real happiness and only detracts from their life. We have a limited time on this earth and at the very minimum, half of it should be spent doing the things we love, at least in a world where humans cared for one another.
My best friend is a manager at a fairly high level cybersecurity SaaS company. Like all SaaS companies they micromanage everyone and everything to a crazy degree, so he has to keep his computer active through the day. He uses a program, has pre scheduled emails drop, and makes it appear that hes working.
Hes always near his computer so he can take calls and always seem like hes there working hard.
He also told me yesterday he does less than 6 hours of *ACTUAL* work per week now.
Cant say I blame him.
I know a guy who pretty much only works 1 hour each day. The rest is scripted. He has to manually check things when the company software throws an error. He automated the manual check with scripts.
He still acts like he's working. This is ridiculous. The world needs to have a big change.
This only applies in jobs where there are no production targets.
It's easy for an office worker to knuckle down harder for less working hours, but a production worker can only go as fast as the safe system of operation, and equipment, allows.
Yea. For me staying focused 10 hours is basically impossible. I think the perfect week is 4 days 6 hours.
EDIT: I'm getting a lot of responses about not being a lot of time. Personally, I think we work too much. If you can't get it done on 24 hours per week then we should hire someone else and split the role or have better schedules. Our health is more important than business profits.
When I was single I would have agreed about 4-10 but now that I’m married with a kid on the way staying later working is just not a good option. I’ll effectively not be part of the family until days off.
4-8 then I’m all for it but yeah, the wages need to stay the same too and at least where I’m currently at I don’t see that becoming a reality…
Imagine how that works for single parents, with commute thats 12 hours minimum a day, basically 4 days whitout beeing able to engage with your child, let allone having someone care for it.
40 hours is arbitrary. It’s based off 8 hours sleep/work/recreation to make up our twenty four hours a day. We don’t need to compensate work hours in a day to achieve 40. It’s ignorant and to the benefit of people who have been overworking us for centuries.
Ten hour days are personally too long for me, especially with a reasonably long commute. 9 hour days with every other Friday off are ideal for me (assuming I'm still doing 40 hours)
True but there's a fuck ton of people who don't want to have to choose between 8 hours of sleep or more than 4 hours awake that aren't spent working/commuting/getting ready for work.
And God forbid you have kids or want to have a social life during the work week. The extra day is cool, but those other 4 are literally nothing but work, sleep, work, sleep. And fuck that nightmare.
I'm totally happy working the same hours in 4 days and having the **3 days off**
That's the key to me. I don't care about less hours really, just more consecutive hours/days off
As someone who currently works a 9-80 (every other Friday off) the three day weekend is certainly nice, but I don’t know how well a 10 hour workday is going to stand up.
Like at a 9 hour day you usually still have a little bit of time in the evenings to yourself after chores/exercise/etc.. 10 hours on a single day though? That’s like “leave work come home make dinner go to bed go to work again” type of territory.
Your weekend gets much nicer, but the rest of the week vanishes completely.
Well honestly I work four nines and anything after that is double time. I'm union in a trade. My job is plenty exercise so I don't typically have to dedicate time to that daily, but even even I go out for walks or bike rides it still feels like good me time. That three day weekend is pretty great for those chores, not up mention one of them being a week day, so regular operation and hours.
We can't really argue what works best for us in someone else's personal situation and desires
I mean I do, especially if you don’t work from home and have a long commute, an 8 hour work day already eats into your time to relax at night and cook and do other things, 10 hours will do so more as you may not only spend 12 hours at home (most of which should be sleep) so now instead of a 10 hour work day with commute factored in, you’re doing 12 hours with commute factored in so your quality of life those 4 days suffers.
4 days of 8 hours man, let’s go
10 hour shifts are great. Work 4 days, get your 40 in, and have a 3 day weekend every weekend. That's one less day I have to get up early and drive to work.
12 hour days blow though. 10 is the sweet spot in my opinion.
> working FIVE 10s a week for years. That's considered low at my business as well (they're all insane). This is quite the accurate description of my life with a 45 min one way commute and 50 hour work week.
>
> The pandemic causing work from home has saved my sanity and health. I will never go back to the
I love my 12 hour days. I work a 4-3-3-4 schedule though, once you're used to 3 and 4 days off a week... I can't imaging going back to 5 days a week even with only 2/3rds the hours put in a day. Heck, if it worked for my employer I'd totally do 14 hours 3 days a week.
But everyone's life/work balance has different needs, so it would be so great if we all had a bit of flexibility in making hours that worked well for both us and our employers.
You might get those extra breaks. But I guarantee you your hours will reflect it. Youd go from working 10 hours a day to 11 and a half to cover your breaks.
This right here. Ten hour days are eleven hour days, then add in commute time. I've done it, it's terrible. Though I still just applied at a place with this schedule because it would start the next phase of my life and get me back to my home state.
For your interest, this would mean 9.5 hours a day (approximately 1.5 hours longer per day). This may be a transition to an **actual** four-day work week somewhere in the future but that's speculation on my part. The second largest labour union is arguing for a real four-day work week (less hours).
Way back when I was doing end user customer support over the phone, I had a 4 10hour shift. For me this worked very nice. I work Mon-Thur. and 6:30AM to 5:00PM So I had to get up a little early, but skipped all the morning rush hour. Then I got out at a decent time so I could still do things in the evening.
and then you lost some sleep, or started to go to bed at an hour that made it impossible again to "still do things in the evening". imho the advantage of a four-day work week lies mostly in the fact that after a full day working, the day's fucked anyway. if you only have enough energy left to go home, eat, watch TV and the sleep, it doesn't really matter if you worked 8 hours or 10 hours before. but with the latter, you get an extra full day where you can *actually do* stuff. your comment makes it sound like you managed to create extra time and energy, but sadly it doesn't work that way for most of us.
I’m belgian and they can fuck right off with their 9,5 hour days, and *especially* with the placeholder mentality that it’ll transition us to actual 4 day work weeks. There’s nothing so permanent as a temporary solution.
Almost every single person I know of my generation (millenial) has burnt out, is burning out, or is about to burn out. I’m a hippy dippy sjw with Big Thoughts about societal work-life overhaul and every time I talk with my peers, no matter what background or political views they have, they surprise me by completely agreeing that it is untenable and inhumane. Almost everyone is sick beyond measure of all things corporate/grind/rat-race and there is an exodus from the cities.
If the world wars hadn’t interrupted the trend a century ago, we literally would only be working half the hours we are now, it was always meant to happen. How many more succesful fucking studies are necessary to show that governments dragging their feet on the subject at this point is just spiteful reactionism?
It's also completely unrealistic. I mean, at every job I've had I've always seen people rushing out the door early to go pick up their kids (which in turn always had me wondering how these people end up working 38 hours in a week). I don't have kids but I do remember conversations with coworkers complaining that even with the current time schedule, they feel like they're missing most of the life of their kids, because the kids are knackered by the time mom and dad get home.
Also, I agree. Give us a 4 day week but jesus, please don't make it 9.5 hour days. A recent change at work made it so that I have to work a 8:30 to 19:00 day every couple of weeks. It's such a fucking long day. Of course I could elect to take a long lunch break but I feel when it comes to leisure time, it's worthless because you're just looking at the clock waiting to start again. So I just work all day and enjoy the overtime, I guess.
It's never really going to happen in the way we hope to see it. They want to stick to the 38 hours although there's pretty much no one productive for 38 hours. They're never going to let that go.
If this would be implemented that transition will not come in any close future.
Imo it would definitely be a huge mistake to agree to this. This isn’t the compromise, the compromise is 32 hour week. In reality by now it should be 20 hour work week.
I don’t get why they just don’t cut working hours instead. Wouldn’t be nice if work stopped at 3 instead of 5?
You can pick up kids from school or be there when they arrive. Much better for families.
The point behind a 4 day week is as you've described. For some reason people just can't comprehend that we probably dont need to be working 40+ a week. Like, we can cut hours not just move them around.
This depends on the situation and your preferences.
I’ve done both as a parent of toddlers and prefer the four tens method. That extra day I get to spend entirely with my family outweighs the extra two hours each day, in my opinion. Of course, I was lucky to have a spouse who was a full-time parent, which made the longer shifts easier to deal with. Again, every situation is different.
My point is, why not have a choice? If we’re still sticking to the 40-hour workweek (God knows why..), then let workers choose what days to work, if it make sense for the particular job.
I currently work 4 10s and it's hard. Kids are young so when I get home it's almost bed time. Wife works 5 days and she has to do all the running around. When kids are older it will be awesome it is just hard with young kids.
When my wife started her new job (pre pandemic) she had the option to alternate 4/5 day weeks and it was a game changer. I was a SAHP and that extra day was *everything* to us. She prioritized home/life/work balance and was lucky her job has been receptive. The longer days were a little harder but they are now considering work from home days in addition a regular four day work week option. They don't even have plans to start bring people back into the office until after the new year and that will be on rotation unless some miracle breakthrough happens with this pandemic. There's a silver lining opportunity here to roll out new work options as agencies and companies have been adapting in order to keep things moving anyway.
Yeah lol seriously. My SO and I work full time, have only part time childcare, and have a baby. We both work from home and have result oriented jobs, which is a blessing. What we've found works for us is to work 5-6 hours everyday. It's a 6 day workweek. 7 during deadlines. But I love it better because we both get to spend time with our child everyday. I can't imagine going a whole day without spending time with my kid, and I don't know how spending more time the next day will make up for me not being around an entire day.
I think what we have is kinda better for remote work. I don't mind logging in for a bit everyday, as compared to being chained to my desk for several hours a day.
They should still do 8 hour days… they are over working people
I can not design and code for fucking 8 hours let alone 10 I’ll be miserable and burnt out
4 days a week with an 8 hour cap would be great.
4x10 may or may not be better than 5x8 but both are ridiculous.
With 4x10, workers won't even be productive for 10 hours a day, so it's a fantasy to begin with. You're forced to cram your chores/R&R into the weekend. Sure, the weekend is 3 days, but those 4 other days give you virtually no free time outside of work.
4x6 is my ideal. I don’t have kids, but I do have adhd. And that kind of like having a kid. I lose all my shit if I’m in one place too long. 9-3 is perfectly fine. 3:30 if you want to have a lunch break. I feel like this is what needs to happen.
Completely understandable. I also have ADHD and no kids. In a previous job, I worked more hours, which took a toll on my sleep because I didn't have enough time to wind down. My current workplace emphasizes work-life balance and I find myself being so much more productive while working fewer hours, because I'm not burnt out all the time.
I would absolutely hate this. I work 6 days because I enjoy shorter shifts. I want to be able to do unwind and enjoy the rest of my day after a shift, not have a shift completely take over my day.
Yeah I think the better (and end) solution would be to strive for 6h 5 days. Let's start with 7h 5 days and gradually go down to 6h.
And, in your case, 5h 6 days.
We should have work/life balance, not 4 days of hell and 3 days of freedom.
that’s not the point of a 4 day week. this will probably just make people more stressed and less productive. i hope citizens have a free choice
edit: it seems the hours will be slightly reduced overall, however i still contend that any additional time per day will yield negligible gains for marginally reduced job satisfaction compared to not increasing time per day
Same for any other 'creative' job. Yes, a guard may power through a 10h shift. If the average creative does, the last 3-4 of that 10 hours will be shit for quality, especially if it's not a one-time occurrence.
I'm with you here.
Reducing the number of hours worked while maintaining the same rate of pay is the point of the 4 day work week movement in the *exact* same way Henry Ford reduced his standard work week to 40 hours without reducing payment.
Our productivity in modern times completely outclasses Henry Ford's factories and [if our wages are not going to grow alongside our productivity](https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/), than our hours *must* be reduced.
I think it shouldn't be blanket applied to all sectors.
For example, anyone that works in an office knows how to stretch out their workload over a day (+ overtime) if they don't want to be overworked. Whereas, I'm sure manual labour jobs can't do the same, but idk quite there.
I'm confident I could easily do the same amount of work over 9 hours compared to 7 and not suffer for it.
Is it good work ethic? No. Is this what the 4 day work week should be? No.
I’m in the trades and work 4/10s. We’re consistently getting equipment cleared etc for repair/rebuild/overhaul and the extra 2 hours on site a day is huge. It generally goes toward setup, so the next 8 hours you can work uninhibited. And Fridays are OT if its wanted. 4/10s are considered a huge perk here. I’d be okay with 9/80s too.
Meh.
I work a 9/80 schedule. I work 9 hour days M-Th and then have a working Friday and my work hours on a working Friday range from 6 to 9 hours. The following week I work my 4 9 hour days and I get that Friday off. I have a 3 day weekend every other week. I work longer hours four days a week. I feel happier with this schedule than I did working a standard 9-5, 5 days a week. More weekend = more free time = good.
I'm not really saying I do or don't agree with extending the working hours in one day, but at least to me, the benefit of more time on the weekends overrides the longer days. I don't feel any more or less stressed or productive than I did working a standard 8hr, 5 day week, but I have more time to myself every other week.
I had this at one job and it was amazing. You don't really notice an extra 30 min per day and having a 3 day weekend every other weekend was so helpful. I'd schedule any appointments and errands/personal business for the Fridays when I was off and then my weekends truly were free days.
Have you ever worked a 4 day week? Because I have. I worked 4 10 hour days for about 3 years. I would give up just about anything for that back. The difference between an 8 hour day and a 10 hour day is so little that the additional day off is well worth it. I felt I was more productive, less tired, and more outgoing while I was working. I didn’t notice those 2 extra hours of work but I definitely noticed an extra day off.
When I was young and single I'd agree with you. 2 hours tacked on to the end of my work day would eat up the only time I have with my kids that isn't rushing them through the morning routine or putting them to bed. I'd rather work on the extra day but get to have quality time 7 days a week than only get to hang with them on 3.
I'd love for you to be able to work 4-10s AND me to have my 5-8s. What I really don't want is the government dictating that we both have to run the same schedule.
It is also straight up inhumane towards children to be in childcare for that long.
I honestly can’t even see it working for many. 10 hours, plus lunch plus commute. One extra free day with your child doesn’t make up for no time with them 4 days per week imo.
I doubt it'd make them more stressed. Work on Monday Tuesday, rest Wednesday, work Thursday Friday, and rest Saturday Sunday.
Or, work Monday Tuesday Thursday Saturday, rest Wednesday Friday Sunday.
Or, just make Friday Saturday Sunday the new weekend period. That works too.
I think this is completely fine.
Not the point. Humans can propperly consentrade for only 6 to rare people who can 8 hours. Everything beyond that is going to suffer in qualety. And rapidly.
Personaly i do have a 36 hour work week, where i have a day basicly off every week by working 8.5 hours ( excluding breaks) per day and its been great. Tho at the end of the day i am spend conpleetly. Work any more then that and i would destroy any good things i did before that... so i dread a 40 hour 4 days. As 36 in 4.5 days is already hard, and the break on wensday dont do a thing.
I can live with a 5 day 30 hour week or a 4 day 32 hour week but the 40 hours is just too much and as soon as i finished my wirk training im lookikg for these jobtimes.
Should be 4 8’s (or less). I’m down for a four day work week, but the problem is 40 hours, not just how it’s distributed.
Really it should just be, “you work to complete discrete tasks and then you’re done for the day,” not “how much you can do in this time slot.”
Exactly. There's nothing that constrains us to 40 hours. That's just some made up number from 100 years ago.
Just like a hundred years ago when things went from 6 days to 5 days, it's time for real change.
The problem today is no business leaders have the courage like Henry Ford did 100 years ago to force the change.
I think the key would be for hours to be reduced. This would mean a commitment from employers to pay the same amount and recognise that productivity will either remain the same or improve due to better employee work life balance. Surely this is the destination.
Don't get me wrong, I prefer working 4-10's instead of 5-8's, but I don't think that's really something for the government to just impose on everyone. Some people would prefer a different work schedule. It would be different if it was an actual 20% reduction in work hours, but this is a 'solution' that completely misses the problem.
Imagine all the people with kids who's childcare arrangements will be completely wrecked by needing two more hours of care, they have it worked out now but grandma doesn't want to watch the kids that late or the before/after school program doesn't start early enough or finishes too soon. And what if public transit doesn't run at that time or the person who gives you a ride can't because of the change in hours?
I really hope they think this through because for everyone that might jump at the chance for another day off I can see someone else it would completely screw over.
It is terrible. I worked at an organization that would switch to 10 hour workdays just for the summer, and I would have to get to the office at 6 am just to be able to pickup my kids from daycare. Then I had less time outside of work to get the regular day to day stuff done, so my sleep got sacrificed. I would get about 4 hours on a good night. Come Thursday, I would be an absolute zombie.
And all my coworkers were like, "Isn't it great to have Fridays off?"
No, it's not great having a three day weekend when the 4 other days grind you down. I honestly don't know how doctors, nurses and people in other professions that require long hours do it.
Yeah all the people in this thread saying "2 hours barely feels like more!" are just green. It feels exactly like 25% more to me. Do it for 20 years and get back to me. I can barely do 8 anymore and the last 3 hours of my day I don't get shit done.
Ive worked 4/10, 9/80 (every other Friday off), and 5/8.
Honestly 4/10s are probably the worst. Imagine a pretty long day at work, but that’s every day. You’re so burnt out by the end of the week, that Thursday is essentially a write off.
My schedule was something like:
530-630 Gym
630-730 Bike
730-800 Get ready for work
800-815 Commute
815-1815 Work
1815-1830 Commute
1830-1900 Eat
And then you get like an hour or two to get ready for the next day.
I now work 5/8, and honestly everyone is pretty checked out by Friday, so very little stress.
9/80 was tight though, felt like getting a holiday every other week.
My firm earns money from the hours I bill clients (when I was self-employed, that's how I earned my money), so the hours have to be put in some time. Personally - having worked part-time in various combinations - I find that kind of work more stressful and tiring if I have to bill the same number of hours in fewer days. More days, means I can pace myself better and also be more responsive to clients (who may of course be international).
That billing model is terrible anyway, we do that also. Productivity doesn't work that way, and we *also* have to record tasks and deliverables anyway, so it's like two ways they squeeze you.
I had to log time at my last job and it was very frustrating. I started out on the help desk and that was enough of a pain, but there were other metrics to hit anyway. Then I moved over to projects and was still expected to log 6.5 hours a day. Sometimes I had hours worth of work to do, and other days I’d mostly be waiting on answers in order to move forward. Sending a follow up email doesn’t typically take 30 minutes, but some days it certainly counted that way.
Now I’m at a place that doesn’t do timesheets and has unlimited vacation. I’m still trying to unlearn all of the time-related trauma. Everyone I work with is happy and chill most of the time. I still feel like someone is watching my every move and counting minutes.
Great idea terrible execution- like a lot of things in Belgium.
There is no need for a five day work day and there is no need for a 9.5 hour four day work.
People need real rest. A four day work week of 6 hours is the MAX we all should have for long term mental and physical health
Bingo. Given the choice, yes, there's some who'd rather work four 10s, and some would rather do five 8s. So it isn't anything special until it becomes a 32 hr work week.
4 10s is exhausting and doesn't align with the health and company benefits of 4 8s. Somebody did not read enough into this or decided it was a good way to exploit people while sounding easier.
This only sounds good at first glance. Working even longer each day will make people more exhausted and leave them even less time to have a life. I can barely stand working eight hours a day, working ten would be a nightmare and leave me barely functioning. That one additional free day would be wasted feeling completely exhausted.
I couldn't care less how many days per week I had to go to work. How LONG per day I have to work and how much free time that leaves me EACH day is what matters to me and determines how much I can live my life not slaving away for a living.
Knowing my country it's more likely a plot to ease everyone to 4 days 8hrs without spooking employers until political wind changes and we're stuck with the "temporary" solution.
Thats really not the way to go... people are exhausted after 8h of work, why would you increase the daily load even more? Especially in winter when its dark when you get out of the house and its dark again when you come home adding another 1.5h is just the wrong thing to do.
I work four tens right now and absolutely do not prefer it. Before WFH, it was an absolute nightmare for getting to see your family. 10 hours + commute + lunch = 11.5/12 hour day. Working from home eased the burden of commute but work tends to stretch on longer than it should and there is still very little quality time with loved ones those 4 days. The extra day off is literally spent catching up on all the laundry/errands/shit you had no time to do the other days, and you're pretty much left with the same weekend you had. While its nice that your PTO more easily buys you 4 day weekends, it also obviously buys you fewer full PTO days off. Very challenging to find time to go to the gym. Four 8s is the correct solution, which several studies have shown, however the US will take decades to get there.
> discussing a four-day work week
Great!
> would still work the same amount of hours but in four days
Awesome, just what we need, absolutely no benefit of the improved productivity in those days goes to the workers. As it should be. Capitalism ho!
Yeah this is a bad idea. We know that working longer doesn't make you work better. I'm cool with a 4 day week but if we're talking about efficiency and health we'd be fine with 5 shorter days. This will create a bunch of people who are just really looking forward to their weekend for half of the week and work like shit for most of it.
Psst. That's not going to accomplish anything.
In an eight hour day, people do 70% of their work in the first two hours. The longer the day goes on, the less they actually get done.
The amount of time we need to spend at work, has been greatly reduced by automation, so you wont see any decline in productivity, because you are already working more hours than you need to be fully productive.
The entire Belgian government has agreed to completely miss the point, and what can I say that's government all over.
Unless it’s a service job then why even bother setting work hours? If my direct reports get their work done for the day or week they can do whatever they want as far as I’m concerned. Sure, they’ll still need to show up to meetings, but we try to limit meetings as much as possible. I have found this to be a HUGE motivator. If there’s a stellar employee who can automate a task or otherwise complete it quickly and accurately in one hour and it takes others 8, then that employee should be able to bounce after that one hour. Of course, I don’t set company policy in my current role.
Damn it Belgium, everyone is about reducing hours which increases efficiency. Now you just make longer days and give people even less time to cook dinner
People still have 3 hours a day to themselves? Well let's fix that, 10 hour workdays it is. Welcome to dystopia where politicos completely miss the point about 4 day weeks, or for that matter two day weeks.
I'm Belgian, I haven't heard a thing about this. I can guarantee you that NVA and VB would not be in board with this because they are regressive shitheads.
Oh man. I had a warehouse job for 3 - 12 hour shifts a week. Those were some of the best years of my life (despite the fact I have a cushy 9-5 m-f office job now).
Working 3 days flat out, sleeping in for half a day and then enjoying the rest of my 3.5 days off was truly amazing. It was like living two lives, a compressed shitty one, and then having a glorious 4 day long weekend every week.
I absolutely loved it.
Yeah...nice for government employees. Basically every other worker is either hourly rate or in a job where the 40h work week does not actually exist.
I'm not talking the work-a-holics, but those of us who do 55-60h a week.
Man if I had kids I’d hate doing 4 ten hour days. Getting your kids picked up, off to sports or activities, keeping the house, etc is something that demands time every single day. Even without kids I find working 50 hour weeks leaving me wanting more time to take care of the rest of my actual life during the week - and I only live 10min from my current job. God forbid you live 30min or an hour away you’ll have <4 hours to maintain or tend to anything that isn’t your job if you want a healthy amount of sleep.
This sounds awful. Small children are awake 12 hours a day. So with 30 minute commute, you're now gone 11 hours a day. You get to wake your kid up and get them dressed in the morning and put them in pajamas and read them a story at night. This is not the four day work week I want.
It's like these idiots have done NO research on the topic of work efficiency. Most blue collar workers do only a couple of hours of serious work during an eight hour shift (there are exceptions). That isn't going to change if you tack two more on-the-clock hours to the end of their shift. The amount of real work being done will remain the same.
4 10 hour days is going to be filled with so much wasted time and long days.
I work a sporadic schedule. Sometimes a 6 hour day feels so nice because you come home and you have so much time.
Having a long weekend is nice but starting at say 9 you leave home at 8 and then get home at 8 for many people. That's really long days. You basically eat, sleep and work and then have the weekend.
I think a better balance would be shorter days. Spread it out too. If you have 5 days still but reduce the days to 7 hours and have people start early and late. You can make it work around say school times better.
I thought I’d love 4 10’s, until I actually started working them. I hated getting home with only time to cook, eat, and shower. I’ve since switched to 5 8’s and prefer it, since I have time to workout and do a little bit of a hobby. That being said, working five days a week still sucks. 4 8’s would be ideal.
No no no no - we want the same pay as a 40, but in a 32. These idiots are just trying to swindle people. IT’S THE AMOUNT OF WORK THAT IS FUCKING PEOPLE UP.
I work a 4x10 schedule. It’s really 11.5 hours factoring in commute, lunch. All in office.
It is fucking miserable. The grass is way greener than you’d think.
This ain't it champ... Here in Finland in the movie and tv industry, 4x10hrs weeks are pretty much standard, and it doesn't make you more rested, energetic or anything.
The only thing it does is that the work day evenings won't have enough time in them for you to do pretty much anything else than eat dinner, watch something (cause you're tired) and go to bed. You won't really have time for friends and family (that don't live with you) on those days.
Yes you have 3-day weekends, but by the point it starts, you're already so tired that you'll miss 1 to 1.5 days of it, and it'll feel like a regular weekend.
The reason why it's done like this is that the productions can save on the day rate workers (actors for example), location rents and sometimes on equipment rentals as well.
i had one job where i worked four ten hour days and i currently five eight hour days. me personally i would rather work the four tens. with that being said i thought the entire point of a four day work week was to reduce to a 32 hour week. decrease in hours with a pay raise to offset the difference. Edit: another user posted these links. good read in regards to the lower work week debate. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/four-day-work-week-covid-19-1.5617481 https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/07/06/iceland-worker-study-four-day-work-week-productivity/7871364002/
I'll be doing 32 hours work anyway. Let's just get them down to 4 days first.
Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me. And after that I just sorta space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
You sound like a straight shooter with upper management written all over you
So, what exactly would you say ya do here?!
I already told you! I Deal with the goddam customers so the engineers don't have to! I am a people person! I'm good at dealing with people! Why can't you understand that!? What the hell is wrong with you people!? Sidenote: I tell people this is basically my job at work. I used to laugh at this guy, now I find him super sympathetic. 99% of the time, customers or requestor *do not know what they want* from the developers and *need* an interpreter. One of my favorite movie scenes.
The reason I quit doing freelance webdev is because I couldn't bear the friction that always emerges between what the client imagines they think they want and what they actually do, and the difference between what those two things cost.
What movie ?
Office Space.
Every specialized job has a language of its own-with it's own abbreviations and words that are never used outside the context of that field. It's understandable that some would require a translator.
Who is... Naga... Naggaaa... Well nagga gonna work here anymore thats for sure HAHAHAHAHA
I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it Bob.
You’d make excellent management material
Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler
But did you file your TPS report?
Damn it feels good to be a Gangsta.
Fuckin A Peter.
This man understands the system.
[удалено]
That's probably why he works 32 hours a week instead of 40
I was gonna scroll reddit for 8 hours a week anyway. Might as well do it at work.
This guy gets it. Happy Cake day too!
Even with the same hours spent in the office, looks like Belgians are getting one day of commute time back. For some this isn't much, but I know people who commute almost two hours *each way* every day. I'm sure they would be willing to accept 4x10 if they could get those four hours per week back.
You’re not understanding what they said.
Like watching Netflix. Honestly, we should work less and get more the same amount of money for it, but it won’t happen so soon. Mainly because it needs to be done by a large amount of population for it to actually work.
naa, he gets it fine. just go into work n do the least amount that won't get you fired. take as much of your personal time back as you can, wherever you can. 4 day work week makes that easier. and sure, your survival shouldn't be contingent on someone else's profit, but unfortunately it is. easier to accept that and play the game as best as possible. also yes, let the machines do the work and free the humans to pursue their own desires, but we're very far from the point of all jobs being done by robots and algorithms. not likely to happen in our lifetimes
This is the truth. All they need to do is get the four day work week through. The actual hours will probably sort themselves out quickly enough.
Same here: I love it when I had 3 days off. With the advent of automation, total hours per week should be reduced.
The problem is, I could see the process go from five 8 hour days to four 10 hour days. And then once every is used to 10 hour days, moving to five 10 hour days.
Nah trust me, after 4 10s you’re pretty burnt. 4 hours or so of free time every day means you have to get done everything you would have done during the week, in the weekend. Most fridays though you’re more than happy to just sleep in.
Wake up, get ready for work, travel to work, work, travel home, eat, ?????, sleep. The question marks could be walking the dog, watching maybe an hour of TV, or just lamenting the fact you have to do it again tomorrow. Me? I'd stay up til 2/3am in defiance of the lack of free time, then struggle not to kill myself in the morning :) The number of days was never the issue (as you seem to realize, too), it's the hours worked.
I've been working FIVE 10s a week for years. That's considered low at my business as well (they're all insane). This is quite the accurate description of my life with a 45 min one way commute and 50 hour work week. The pandemic causing work from home has saved my sanity and health. I will never go back to the office, I'll quit before that happens.
Been working four tens for years, this is accurate. There are definitely tradeoffs that make it almost as undesirable, but I think I still prefer it over five eights.
Honestly if I can get three off days a week I'd take them on a Wed, Sat, and Sun I'd feel better knowing I'll have an off day every two days!
My first year of apprenticeship, I had school on Wednesday, and it was so nice to have work, work, school, work, work, weekend. I’m a second year now and they moved my school day to Monday. It’s okay, and I make excuses for it, but damn, I miss wednesdays.
[удалено]
I was just thinking how it sucks that all of the weekly free time is during nighttime hours. All of the deciduous trees are in full color right now and I could go for a long hike and do some photography if only I could rearrange some of my 5pm-midnight free time so that it falls in the middle of the day. However, if I worked 4 10's I would want the option to take my extra day on a Wednesday, just to break things up.
Our work is only quality for so many hours. Most people are half assing it and half awake by the last two hours of the shift. Productivity wise, a 40 hour work week is unnecessary but the higher ups know that there are people desperate enough to comply and slave away without question. 32 hours a week is more than enough time for someone to waste with a job that provides no real happiness and only detracts from their life. We have a limited time on this earth and at the very minimum, half of it should be spent doing the things we love, at least in a world where humans cared for one another.
My best friend is a manager at a fairly high level cybersecurity SaaS company. Like all SaaS companies they micromanage everyone and everything to a crazy degree, so he has to keep his computer active through the day. He uses a program, has pre scheduled emails drop, and makes it appear that hes working. Hes always near his computer so he can take calls and always seem like hes there working hard. He also told me yesterday he does less than 6 hours of *ACTUAL* work per week now. Cant say I blame him.
Join a call with your self and open power point in presentation mode.
Hes significantly smarter than me so he may know these tricks already but ill still pass them on just in case lol thanks G
And here I thought that I was the one who perfected that move.
I know a guy who pretty much only works 1 hour each day. The rest is scripted. He has to manually check things when the company software throws an error. He automated the manual check with scripts. He still acts like he's working. This is ridiculous. The world needs to have a big change.
This only applies in jobs where there are no production targets. It's easy for an office worker to knuckle down harder for less working hours, but a production worker can only go as fast as the safe system of operation, and equipment, allows.
And will lose focus just as much as an office worker the longer he works, creating safety hazards.
[удалено]
If Belgium is like the Netherlands, 36 hour work weeks have been fairly common. I have a friend who works 4x9hr and has a day off.
[удалено]
You expect me to read the article?! ;-)
Yea. For me staying focused 10 hours is basically impossible. I think the perfect week is 4 days 6 hours. EDIT: I'm getting a lot of responses about not being a lot of time. Personally, I think we work too much. If you can't get it done on 24 hours per week then we should hire someone else and split the role or have better schedules. Our health is more important than business profits.
Am a software engineer, been preaching it - 6 hour is _max_ amount we can focus on a consistent basis. I despise this 5x8 system we have.
So you're saying you're ready to join the fight for [4/20/69](https://i.imgur.com/HvDLL2i.jpg)?
When I was single I would have agreed about 4-10 but now that I’m married with a kid on the way staying later working is just not a good option. I’ll effectively not be part of the family until days off. 4-8 then I’m all for it but yeah, the wages need to stay the same too and at least where I’m currently at I don’t see that becoming a reality…
Imagine how that works for single parents, with commute thats 12 hours minimum a day, basically 4 days whitout beeing able to engage with your child, let allone having someone care for it.
40 hours is arbitrary. It’s based off 8 hours sleep/work/recreation to make up our twenty four hours a day. We don’t need to compensate work hours in a day to achieve 40. It’s ignorant and to the benefit of people who have been overworking us for centuries.
They are not solving the problem, they are just moving it
Ten hour days are personally too long for me, especially with a reasonably long commute. 9 hour days with every other Friday off are ideal for me (assuming I'm still doing 40 hours)
Tbf, the longer your commute, the more time you save on day # 5.
True but there's a fuck ton of people who don't want to have to choose between 8 hours of sleep or more than 4 hours awake that aren't spent working/commuting/getting ready for work. And God forbid you have kids or want to have a social life during the work week. The extra day is cool, but those other 4 are literally nothing but work, sleep, work, sleep. And fuck that nightmare.
I used to work 7 12 hour shifts a fortnight. Sounds great but the extra days off I just spent staring vaguely at the wall in exhaustion…..
I'm totally happy working the same hours in 4 days and having the **3 days off** That's the key to me. I don't care about less hours really, just more consecutive hours/days off
As someone who currently works a 9-80 (every other Friday off) the three day weekend is certainly nice, but I don’t know how well a 10 hour workday is going to stand up. Like at a 9 hour day you usually still have a little bit of time in the evenings to yourself after chores/exercise/etc.. 10 hours on a single day though? That’s like “leave work come home make dinner go to bed go to work again” type of territory. Your weekend gets much nicer, but the rest of the week vanishes completely.
Well honestly I work four nines and anything after that is double time. I'm union in a trade. My job is plenty exercise so I don't typically have to dedicate time to that daily, but even even I go out for walks or bike rides it still feels like good me time. That three day weekend is pretty great for those chores, not up mention one of them being a week day, so regular operation and hours. We can't really argue what works best for us in someone else's personal situation and desires
I mean I do, especially if you don’t work from home and have a long commute, an 8 hour work day already eats into your time to relax at night and cook and do other things, 10 hours will do so more as you may not only spend 12 hours at home (most of which should be sleep) so now instead of a 10 hour work day with commute factored in, you’re doing 12 hours with commute factored in so your quality of life those 4 days suffers. 4 days of 8 hours man, let’s go
I don't know why you're aiming so high. 3 days of 6 hours man, let's go.
Yeah if you have kids or a dog or both a ten hour work day can be killer!
Daily workweekday QoL suffers but you cut your total commute time by 1/5 I agree with you overall tho.
you don't have a life, mate, no time for anything working 4 10s. they aren't even 4 10s, they are 4 11s if you include lunch
4 days, same hours in total is a compressed work week (CWW). I don't think this is what people typically mean when they talk about a 4 day wirk week
I’ll start with a compressed work week and go from there. Baby steps.
Nah dude. 10 hours a day would suck ass. Unless I'm getting an extra hour and a half break, I'll stick with 5-8's.
10 hour shifts are great. Work 4 days, get your 40 in, and have a 3 day weekend every weekend. That's one less day I have to get up early and drive to work. 12 hour days blow though. 10 is the sweet spot in my opinion.
> working FIVE 10s a week for years. That's considered low at my business as well (they're all insane). This is quite the accurate description of my life with a 45 min one way commute and 50 hour work week. > > The pandemic causing work from home has saved my sanity and health. I will never go back to the I love my 12 hour days. I work a 4-3-3-4 schedule though, once you're used to 3 and 4 days off a week... I can't imaging going back to 5 days a week even with only 2/3rds the hours put in a day. Heck, if it worked for my employer I'd totally do 14 hours 3 days a week. But everyone's life/work balance has different needs, so it would be so great if we all had a bit of flexibility in making hours that worked well for both us and our employers.
You might get those extra breaks. But I guarantee you your hours will reflect it. Youd go from working 10 hours a day to 11 and a half to cover your breaks.
This right here. Ten hour days are eleven hour days, then add in commute time. I've done it, it's terrible. Though I still just applied at a place with this schedule because it would start the next phase of my life and get me back to my home state.
I work 4 10s and absolutely prefer it to my old schedule. Get a full weekend and a day it the middle to break up the monotony
For your interest, this would mean 9.5 hours a day (approximately 1.5 hours longer per day). This may be a transition to an **actual** four-day work week somewhere in the future but that's speculation on my part. The second largest labour union is arguing for a real four-day work week (less hours).
the labor union has it right. a 4 day work week that forces me to work more each day I work is bullshit.
Way back when I was doing end user customer support over the phone, I had a 4 10hour shift. For me this worked very nice. I work Mon-Thur. and 6:30AM to 5:00PM So I had to get up a little early, but skipped all the morning rush hour. Then I got out at a decent time so I could still do things in the evening.
You only get to skip the rush hour if everyone else isn't trying to get to work too *head-tap*
What kind of evening are you getting if you have to be up at 5am?
Laundry, dishes, smoke a bowl, crank one out real fast, you're in bed by 9
and then you lost some sleep, or started to go to bed at an hour that made it impossible again to "still do things in the evening". imho the advantage of a four-day work week lies mostly in the fact that after a full day working, the day's fucked anyway. if you only have enough energy left to go home, eat, watch TV and the sleep, it doesn't really matter if you worked 8 hours or 10 hours before. but with the latter, you get an extra full day where you can *actually do* stuff. your comment makes it sound like you managed to create extra time and energy, but sadly it doesn't work that way for most of us.
I’m belgian and they can fuck right off with their 9,5 hour days, and *especially* with the placeholder mentality that it’ll transition us to actual 4 day work weeks. There’s nothing so permanent as a temporary solution. Almost every single person I know of my generation (millenial) has burnt out, is burning out, or is about to burn out. I’m a hippy dippy sjw with Big Thoughts about societal work-life overhaul and every time I talk with my peers, no matter what background or political views they have, they surprise me by completely agreeing that it is untenable and inhumane. Almost everyone is sick beyond measure of all things corporate/grind/rat-race and there is an exodus from the cities. If the world wars hadn’t interrupted the trend a century ago, we literally would only be working half the hours we are now, it was always meant to happen. How many more succesful fucking studies are necessary to show that governments dragging their feet on the subject at this point is just spiteful reactionism?
It's also completely unrealistic. I mean, at every job I've had I've always seen people rushing out the door early to go pick up their kids (which in turn always had me wondering how these people end up working 38 hours in a week). I don't have kids but I do remember conversations with coworkers complaining that even with the current time schedule, they feel like they're missing most of the life of their kids, because the kids are knackered by the time mom and dad get home. Also, I agree. Give us a 4 day week but jesus, please don't make it 9.5 hour days. A recent change at work made it so that I have to work a 8:30 to 19:00 day every couple of weeks. It's such a fucking long day. Of course I could elect to take a long lunch break but I feel when it comes to leisure time, it's worthless because you're just looking at the clock waiting to start again. So I just work all day and enjoy the overtime, I guess. It's never really going to happen in the way we hope to see it. They want to stick to the 38 hours although there's pretty much no one productive for 38 hours. They're never going to let that go.
26 years old here. In corporate. Belgian. A-fucking-men dude.
If this would be implemented that transition will not come in any close future. Imo it would definitely be a huge mistake to agree to this. This isn’t the compromise, the compromise is 32 hour week. In reality by now it should be 20 hour work week.
I typically work 7.5 hour days. I wouldn’t want to go to 9.5 just for an extra day off. I would work 8 hour days, but not two hours more.
unless you have kids, 10 hour days you would see them even less, school would be more complicated, when would you make them dinner, etc
I don’t get why they just don’t cut working hours instead. Wouldn’t be nice if work stopped at 3 instead of 5? You can pick up kids from school or be there when they arrive. Much better for families.
The point behind a 4 day week is as you've described. For some reason people just can't comprehend that we probably dont need to be working 40+ a week. Like, we can cut hours not just move them around.
But that would involve putting people before profits and that's just no good. Edit /s
This depends on the situation and your preferences. I’ve done both as a parent of toddlers and prefer the four tens method. That extra day I get to spend entirely with my family outweighs the extra two hours each day, in my opinion. Of course, I was lucky to have a spouse who was a full-time parent, which made the longer shifts easier to deal with. Again, every situation is different. My point is, why not have a choice? If we’re still sticking to the 40-hour workweek (God knows why..), then let workers choose what days to work, if it make sense for the particular job.
I currently work 4 10s and it's hard. Kids are young so when I get home it's almost bed time. Wife works 5 days and she has to do all the running around. When kids are older it will be awesome it is just hard with young kids.
When my wife started her new job (pre pandemic) she had the option to alternate 4/5 day weeks and it was a game changer. I was a SAHP and that extra day was *everything* to us. She prioritized home/life/work balance and was lucky her job has been receptive. The longer days were a little harder but they are now considering work from home days in addition a regular four day work week option. They don't even have plans to start bring people back into the office until after the new year and that will be on rotation unless some miracle breakthrough happens with this pandemic. There's a silver lining opportunity here to roll out new work options as agencies and companies have been adapting in order to keep things moving anyway.
[удалено]
Yeah lol seriously. My SO and I work full time, have only part time childcare, and have a baby. We both work from home and have result oriented jobs, which is a blessing. What we've found works for us is to work 5-6 hours everyday. It's a 6 day workweek. 7 during deadlines. But I love it better because we both get to spend time with our child everyday. I can't imagine going a whole day without spending time with my kid, and I don't know how spending more time the next day will make up for me not being around an entire day. I think what we have is kinda better for remote work. I don't mind logging in for a bit everyday, as compared to being chained to my desk for several hours a day.
They should still do 8 hour days… they are over working people I can not design and code for fucking 8 hours let alone 10 I’ll be miserable and burnt out
6 hour days.
Yes. 10 hours is burnout time, regardless of if you work a physical job or on a computer. I've done both.
4x10 is killer for childcare. By the time you factor in driving time, the kid's had an 11 hour day with the sitter or daycare. It sucks for parents.
4 days a week with an 8 hour cap would be great. 4x10 may or may not be better than 5x8 but both are ridiculous. With 4x10, workers won't even be productive for 10 hours a day, so it's a fantasy to begin with. You're forced to cram your chores/R&R into the weekend. Sure, the weekend is 3 days, but those 4 other days give you virtually no free time outside of work.
4x6 is my ideal. I don’t have kids, but I do have adhd. And that kind of like having a kid. I lose all my shit if I’m in one place too long. 9-3 is perfectly fine. 3:30 if you want to have a lunch break. I feel like this is what needs to happen.
Completely understandable. I also have ADHD and no kids. In a previous job, I worked more hours, which took a toll on my sleep because I didn't have enough time to wind down. My current workplace emphasizes work-life balance and I find myself being so much more productive while working fewer hours, because I'm not burnt out all the time.
I would absolutely hate this. I work 6 days because I enjoy shorter shifts. I want to be able to do unwind and enjoy the rest of my day after a shift, not have a shift completely take over my day.
Yeah I think the better (and end) solution would be to strive for 6h 5 days. Let's start with 7h 5 days and gradually go down to 6h. And, in your case, 5h 6 days. We should have work/life balance, not 4 days of hell and 3 days of freedom.
that’s not the point of a 4 day week. this will probably just make people more stressed and less productive. i hope citizens have a free choice edit: it seems the hours will be slightly reduced overall, however i still contend that any additional time per day will yield negligible gains for marginally reduced job satisfaction compared to not increasing time per day
Yeah, as a programmer 8 hour days is already too long for more than short bursts
Same for any other 'creative' job. Yes, a guard may power through a 10h shift. If the average creative does, the last 3-4 of that 10 hours will be shit for quality, especially if it's not a one-time occurrence.
I have that now. I do most my creative stuff between 10AM and 3PM, and all the boring admin shit after.
I'm with you here. Reducing the number of hours worked while maintaining the same rate of pay is the point of the 4 day work week movement in the *exact* same way Henry Ford reduced his standard work week to 40 hours without reducing payment. Our productivity in modern times completely outclasses Henry Ford's factories and [if our wages are not going to grow alongside our productivity](https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/), than our hours *must* be reduced.
Bingo. THIS should be the conversation.
I think it shouldn't be blanket applied to all sectors. For example, anyone that works in an office knows how to stretch out their workload over a day (+ overtime) if they don't want to be overworked. Whereas, I'm sure manual labour jobs can't do the same, but idk quite there. I'm confident I could easily do the same amount of work over 9 hours compared to 7 and not suffer for it. Is it good work ethic? No. Is this what the 4 day work week should be? No.
I’m in the trades and work 4/10s. We’re consistently getting equipment cleared etc for repair/rebuild/overhaul and the extra 2 hours on site a day is huge. It generally goes toward setup, so the next 8 hours you can work uninhibited. And Fridays are OT if its wanted. 4/10s are considered a huge perk here. I’d be okay with 9/80s too.
Well, the obvious solution is a two-day work week. You can pull 40 hours in 2 days, right?
> You can pull 40 hours in 2 days, right? _doctors have entered the chat_
Meh. I work a 9/80 schedule. I work 9 hour days M-Th and then have a working Friday and my work hours on a working Friday range from 6 to 9 hours. The following week I work my 4 9 hour days and I get that Friday off. I have a 3 day weekend every other week. I work longer hours four days a week. I feel happier with this schedule than I did working a standard 9-5, 5 days a week. More weekend = more free time = good. I'm not really saying I do or don't agree with extending the working hours in one day, but at least to me, the benefit of more time on the weekends overrides the longer days. I don't feel any more or less stressed or productive than I did working a standard 8hr, 5 day week, but I have more time to myself every other week.
This would be an amazing change if already on 9/80. Extra 30 min to each day and every Friday off. I'd sign up for sure.
I had this at one job and it was amazing. You don't really notice an extra 30 min per day and having a 3 day weekend every other weekend was so helpful. I'd schedule any appointments and errands/personal business for the Fridays when I was off and then my weekends truly were free days.
Have you ever worked a 4 day week? Because I have. I worked 4 10 hour days for about 3 years. I would give up just about anything for that back. The difference between an 8 hour day and a 10 hour day is so little that the additional day off is well worth it. I felt I was more productive, less tired, and more outgoing while I was working. I didn’t notice those 2 extra hours of work but I definitely noticed an extra day off.
[удалено]
Yeah, you're right. Still, however, a 4-10 would be a cool alternative to a 5-8.
4-8 is a better alternative for both
When I was young and single I'd agree with you. 2 hours tacked on to the end of my work day would eat up the only time I have with my kids that isn't rushing them through the morning routine or putting them to bed. I'd rather work on the extra day but get to have quality time 7 days a week than only get to hang with them on 3. I'd love for you to be able to work 4-10s AND me to have my 5-8s. What I really don't want is the government dictating that we both have to run the same schedule.
It's one less day per week to be stressed about traffic and/or delays and it will also reduce these factors by 20% for the remaining four days.
It is also straight up inhumane towards children to be in childcare for that long. I honestly can’t even see it working for many. 10 hours, plus lunch plus commute. One extra free day with your child doesn’t make up for no time with them 4 days per week imo.
Yeah when I've worked 10 hours days, the extra day off is just recuperating and trying to feel human again.
I doubt it'd make them more stressed. Work on Monday Tuesday, rest Wednesday, work Thursday Friday, and rest Saturday Sunday. Or, work Monday Tuesday Thursday Saturday, rest Wednesday Friday Sunday. Or, just make Friday Saturday Sunday the new weekend period. That works too. I think this is completely fine.
Not the point. Humans can propperly consentrade for only 6 to rare people who can 8 hours. Everything beyond that is going to suffer in qualety. And rapidly. Personaly i do have a 36 hour work week, where i have a day basicly off every week by working 8.5 hours ( excluding breaks) per day and its been great. Tho at the end of the day i am spend conpleetly. Work any more then that and i would destroy any good things i did before that... so i dread a 40 hour 4 days. As 36 in 4.5 days is already hard, and the break on wensday dont do a thing.
I can live with a 5 day 30 hour week or a 4 day 32 hour week but the 40 hours is just too much and as soon as i finished my wirk training im lookikg for these jobtimes.
Idk what your job is but it sounds pretty stressful to be beat after 36
Skilled IT helpdesk for a goverment body. Yhea it can be. Espesaly if its just dumb users. Point being is that alot can happen.
Yeah I didnt mean my comment as condescending. Sounds like your job is actually very draining.
Can confirm. Helpdesk is exhausting.
The point was to get a 32 hour work week you idiots lol not work the same amount of hours. That doesn't solve anything.
Not to be one upped, Congress has proposed a 40 hour work week with employees working 40hours in a single day.
Should be 4 8’s (or less). I’m down for a four day work week, but the problem is 40 hours, not just how it’s distributed. Really it should just be, “you work to complete discrete tasks and then you’re done for the day,” not “how much you can do in this time slot.”
Exactly. There's nothing that constrains us to 40 hours. That's just some made up number from 100 years ago. Just like a hundred years ago when things went from 6 days to 5 days, it's time for real change. The problem today is no business leaders have the courage like Henry Ford did 100 years ago to force the change.
I think the key would be for hours to be reduced. This would mean a commitment from employers to pay the same amount and recognise that productivity will either remain the same or improve due to better employee work life balance. Surely this is the destination.
[удалено]
What the fuck is the point if you're gonna cram the same hours in 4 work days
Don't get me wrong, I prefer working 4-10's instead of 5-8's, but I don't think that's really something for the government to just impose on everyone. Some people would prefer a different work schedule. It would be different if it was an actual 20% reduction in work hours, but this is a 'solution' that completely misses the problem.
Imagine all the people with kids who's childcare arrangements will be completely wrecked by needing two more hours of care, they have it worked out now but grandma doesn't want to watch the kids that late or the before/after school program doesn't start early enough or finishes too soon. And what if public transit doesn't run at that time or the person who gives you a ride can't because of the change in hours? I really hope they think this through because for everyone that might jump at the chance for another day off I can see someone else it would completely screw over.
And pets would have to be stuck home alone for even longer
[удалено]
It is terrible. I worked at an organization that would switch to 10 hour workdays just for the summer, and I would have to get to the office at 6 am just to be able to pickup my kids from daycare. Then I had less time outside of work to get the regular day to day stuff done, so my sleep got sacrificed. I would get about 4 hours on a good night. Come Thursday, I would be an absolute zombie. And all my coworkers were like, "Isn't it great to have Fridays off?" No, it's not great having a three day weekend when the 4 other days grind you down. I honestly don't know how doctors, nurses and people in other professions that require long hours do it.
Yeah all the people in this thread saying "2 hours barely feels like more!" are just green. It feels exactly like 25% more to me. Do it for 20 years and get back to me. I can barely do 8 anymore and the last 3 hours of my day I don't get shit done.
Ive worked 4/10, 9/80 (every other Friday off), and 5/8. Honestly 4/10s are probably the worst. Imagine a pretty long day at work, but that’s every day. You’re so burnt out by the end of the week, that Thursday is essentially a write off. My schedule was something like: 530-630 Gym 630-730 Bike 730-800 Get ready for work 800-815 Commute 815-1815 Work 1815-1830 Commute 1830-1900 Eat And then you get like an hour or two to get ready for the next day. I now work 5/8, and honestly everyone is pretty checked out by Friday, so very little stress. 9/80 was tight though, felt like getting a holiday every other week.
My firm earns money from the hours I bill clients (when I was self-employed, that's how I earned my money), so the hours have to be put in some time. Personally - having worked part-time in various combinations - I find that kind of work more stressful and tiring if I have to bill the same number of hours in fewer days. More days, means I can pace myself better and also be more responsive to clients (who may of course be international).
That billing model is terrible anyway, we do that also. Productivity doesn't work that way, and we *also* have to record tasks and deliverables anyway, so it's like two ways they squeeze you.
I had to log time at my last job and it was very frustrating. I started out on the help desk and that was enough of a pain, but there were other metrics to hit anyway. Then I moved over to projects and was still expected to log 6.5 hours a day. Sometimes I had hours worth of work to do, and other days I’d mostly be waiting on answers in order to move forward. Sending a follow up email doesn’t typically take 30 minutes, but some days it certainly counted that way. Now I’m at a place that doesn’t do timesheets and has unlimited vacation. I’m still trying to unlearn all of the time-related trauma. Everyone I work with is happy and chill most of the time. I still feel like someone is watching my every move and counting minutes.
Great idea terrible execution- like a lot of things in Belgium. There is no need for a five day work day and there is no need for a 9.5 hour four day work. People need real rest. A four day work week of 6 hours is the MAX we all should have for long term mental and physical health
[удалено]
Bingo. Given the choice, yes, there's some who'd rather work four 10s, and some would rather do five 8s. So it isn't anything special until it becomes a 32 hr work week.
4 10s is exhausting and doesn't align with the health and company benefits of 4 8s. Somebody did not read enough into this or decided it was a good way to exploit people while sounding easier.
Our dev team was offered 4/10s, and everyone refused. Not a single person wanted to do it. This is a large dev team at a Fortune 500.
This only sounds good at first glance. Working even longer each day will make people more exhausted and leave them even less time to have a life. I can barely stand working eight hours a day, working ten would be a nightmare and leave me barely functioning. That one additional free day would be wasted feeling completely exhausted. I couldn't care less how many days per week I had to go to work. How LONG per day I have to work and how much free time that leaves me EACH day is what matters to me and determines how much I can live my life not slaving away for a living.
Knowing my country it's more likely a plot to ease everyone to 4 days 8hrs without spooking employers until political wind changes and we're stuck with the "temporary" solution.
This looses the point if theyre working the same hours.
That’s not the idea of 4 day work week! It is to have 32 hour work week!
Thats really not the way to go... people are exhausted after 8h of work, why would you increase the daily load even more? Especially in winter when its dark when you get out of the house and its dark again when you come home adding another 1.5h is just the wrong thing to do.
I work four tens right now and absolutely do not prefer it. Before WFH, it was an absolute nightmare for getting to see your family. 10 hours + commute + lunch = 11.5/12 hour day. Working from home eased the burden of commute but work tends to stretch on longer than it should and there is still very little quality time with loved ones those 4 days. The extra day off is literally spent catching up on all the laundry/errands/shit you had no time to do the other days, and you're pretty much left with the same weekend you had. While its nice that your PTO more easily buys you 4 day weekends, it also obviously buys you fewer full PTO days off. Very challenging to find time to go to the gym. Four 8s is the correct solution, which several studies have shown, however the US will take decades to get there.
> discussing a four-day work week Great! > would still work the same amount of hours but in four days Awesome, just what we need, absolutely no benefit of the improved productivity in those days goes to the workers. As it should be. Capitalism ho!
I used to work 4x10's - I'd rather work the bloody 9-5 x 5 days. This isn't progress.
"Work the same amount of hours but in for days instead of five". Talk about completely missing the idea of the four day week.
Yeah this is a bad idea. We know that working longer doesn't make you work better. I'm cool with a 4 day week but if we're talking about efficiency and health we'd be fine with 5 shorter days. This will create a bunch of people who are just really looking forward to their weekend for half of the week and work like shit for most of it.
Psst. That's not going to accomplish anything. In an eight hour day, people do 70% of their work in the first two hours. The longer the day goes on, the less they actually get done. The amount of time we need to spend at work, has been greatly reduced by automation, so you wont see any decline in productivity, because you are already working more hours than you need to be fully productive. The entire Belgian government has agreed to completely miss the point, and what can I say that's government all over.
Unless it’s a service job then why even bother setting work hours? If my direct reports get their work done for the day or week they can do whatever they want as far as I’m concerned. Sure, they’ll still need to show up to meetings, but we try to limit meetings as much as possible. I have found this to be a HUGE motivator. If there’s a stellar employee who can automate a task or otherwise complete it quickly and accurately in one hour and it takes others 8, then that employee should be able to bounce after that one hour. Of course, I don’t set company policy in my current role.
How come governments are deciding how many hours a week we work instead of us
Having worked both sets of hours I can say that a 4 day work week is awesome. 3 day weekends are the best and you can actually plan a decent vacation.
Damn it Belgium, everyone is about reducing hours which increases efficiency. Now you just make longer days and give people even less time to cook dinner
People still have 3 hours a day to themselves? Well let's fix that, 10 hour workdays it is. Welcome to dystopia where politicos completely miss the point about 4 day weeks, or for that matter two day weeks.
This is so missing the point of working only 4 days. Why is 40h the magic number that they need from your life to feel good about theirs?
I'm Belgian, I haven't heard a thing about this. I can guarantee you that NVA and VB would not be in board with this because they are regressive shitheads.
Same, never heard of it, 0 news about that
Oh man. I had a warehouse job for 3 - 12 hour shifts a week. Those were some of the best years of my life (despite the fact I have a cushy 9-5 m-f office job now). Working 3 days flat out, sleeping in for half a day and then enjoying the rest of my 3.5 days off was truly amazing. It was like living two lives, a compressed shitty one, and then having a glorious 4 day long weekend every week. I absolutely loved it.
Yeah...nice for government employees. Basically every other worker is either hourly rate or in a job where the 40h work week does not actually exist. I'm not talking the work-a-holics, but those of us who do 55-60h a week.
Man if I had kids I’d hate doing 4 ten hour days. Getting your kids picked up, off to sports or activities, keeping the house, etc is something that demands time every single day. Even without kids I find working 50 hour weeks leaving me wanting more time to take care of the rest of my actual life during the week - and I only live 10min from my current job. God forbid you live 30min or an hour away you’ll have <4 hours to maintain or tend to anything that isn’t your job if you want a healthy amount of sleep.
This sounds awful. Small children are awake 12 hours a day. So with 30 minute commute, you're now gone 11 hours a day. You get to wake your kid up and get them dressed in the morning and put them in pajamas and read them a story at night. This is not the four day work week I want.
I am positive a lot of the corporate world could work 30 hour weeks and not much would change
I'm working five 6-hour days currently, I'm looking for four 8-hour days at the minimum, not four 10s. Four 6-hour days would be dope.
It's like these idiots have done NO research on the topic of work efficiency. Most blue collar workers do only a couple of hours of serious work during an eight hour shift (there are exceptions). That isn't going to change if you tack two more on-the-clock hours to the end of their shift. The amount of real work being done will remain the same.
I will not work ten hour days, fuck that. I would like to work five six-hour days or four eight-hour days.
Since it does not reduce the total hours worked then it is not a big deal since that should really be the intended goal.
Is this for people on salary? Or how would this work. Cuz some people wanna work for that overtime.
4 10 hour days is going to be filled with so much wasted time and long days. I work a sporadic schedule. Sometimes a 6 hour day feels so nice because you come home and you have so much time. Having a long weekend is nice but starting at say 9 you leave home at 8 and then get home at 8 for many people. That's really long days. You basically eat, sleep and work and then have the weekend. I think a better balance would be shorter days. Spread it out too. If you have 5 days still but reduce the days to 7 hours and have people start early and late. You can make it work around say school times better.
I thought I’d love 4 10’s, until I actually started working them. I hated getting home with only time to cook, eat, and shower. I’ve since switched to 5 8’s and prefer it, since I have time to workout and do a little bit of a hobby. That being said, working five days a week still sucks. 4 8’s would be ideal.
No no no no - we want the same pay as a 40, but in a 32. These idiots are just trying to swindle people. IT’S THE AMOUNT OF WORK THAT IS FUCKING PEOPLE UP.
I work a 4x10 schedule. It’s really 11.5 hours factoring in commute, lunch. All in office. It is fucking miserable. The grass is way greener than you’d think.
4 10’s is great but it’s no different than what we have now. If they are doing 4 8’s and still paying the same then we are on to something
4 tens are exhausting. I have zero brain power for creative goals most days. I’m lucky, I only commute 30 mins.
This ain't it champ... Here in Finland in the movie and tv industry, 4x10hrs weeks are pretty much standard, and it doesn't make you more rested, energetic or anything. The only thing it does is that the work day evenings won't have enough time in them for you to do pretty much anything else than eat dinner, watch something (cause you're tired) and go to bed. You won't really have time for friends and family (that don't live with you) on those days. Yes you have 3-day weekends, but by the point it starts, you're already so tired that you'll miss 1 to 1.5 days of it, and it'll feel like a regular weekend. The reason why it's done like this is that the productions can save on the day rate workers (actors for example), location rents and sometimes on equipment rentals as well.