Ask HN: Would you rather work 4 days per week for 80% salary?
Here are some common responses:
- We are a start up working hard to launch so it wouldn't work for us. I read this as: "we've advertised this as full time, but really it's 24/7"
- It would require too much effort to change our current culture. I read this as: "it's the way we've always done it, so no thanks"
- "We are only looking for full-time employees". This is the most common response. I always find it interesting when companies who struggle to attract top talent don’t consider offering a benefit such as a 4 day week. The law of diminishing returns means there is little difference between the output in a 4 vs 5 day week. This is also due to Parkinson’s Law.
If there was a financial incentive, however, I feel many of these companies would be more inclined to offering a 4 day week.
So my question is, if you weren't able to get a 4 day work week job (e.g. 32hrs) on a full salary, would you accept a small reduction in salary? Or would you instead stick to 5 days @ 100% salary?
I've also created a poll on Twitter asking this [1]. So if you have a moment to give your honest reply, I'd really appreciate it. It may help me convince more companies to offer their roles on a 4 day work week - there are huge benefits for both employers and employees imo.
I personally believe that working 4 days per week doesn't equate to 80% output, more like 90%, and therefore I feel the salary should reflect this. However, in order to normalise the 4 day week, I feel that a small salary reduction might be a good first step.
[1] Link to the poll: https://twitter.com/philostar/status/1393199633543966723
122 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] threadI don't expect too many employers would be happy with 100% of the overheads (health insurance, office space, administration) for 80% of the productivity.
I wouldn't be happy if I heard that some random person is contacting my employer to change the contract and payment structure at the company I work for. Advocating for yourself is one thing, cold calling companies and potentially affecting people that never asked for this is just wrong. Even if it's just to offer it as an option and it doesn't sound compulsory in your pitch.
I hope that some unfortunate person with a couple of kids and a mortgage who is just getting by doesn't get get a 20% pay cut because of your actions.
I don't get what's in it for you but you're either underestimating the potential damage that you would do if you were successful, or you simply have bad intentions with this.
If you are struggling to hire (good) developers, consider offering what the majority of them want, but few companies offer. The quality of candidate will increase as you'll have a "competitive advantage" over other companies.
My personal preference would be to see (all) developer roles offered as both 4 days @ 80% and 5 days @ 100% i.e. the candidate can choose. This is very common in Switzerland
It's a big assumption that you know what the majority of developers want. And advocating for people who have never asked for your help is both arrogant and immoral in my opinion.
Also I'm currently running a poll and the majority of people so far (84%) would prefer to either work 3 days @ 60% or 4 days @ 80%. This has also been shown to be the case in my larger studies [1].
[1] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/0...
1. I work for a company and I want to get paid more, not less.
2. OP is contacting companies and asking them to move to a model in which they pay less. (Even if the rate is the same, the absolute amount is less)
3. From the previous two points it follows that I don't agree with what OP is doing.
I would personally take a raise + extra work. But I would never presume that I have things figured out to the point where I make a website and starting contacting companies so I can push my personal preferences as the clearly superior model for people I've never met in my life. Which is what OP is doing. That's what doesn't sit right with me.
Will you be on call?
Whats the culture around "off-hours" contact?
How often if ever does crunch happen? Will the company pay more after 32 hours?
What percent of my time is expected to be in meetings vs getting things done, and how much do you expect to be done?
I have worked at places with all fridays off during the summer. We did all our releases on time even though summer was usually the biggest time. 4 days really doesn't seem to make much of a difference at all. Fridays are so often either no meeting days or at least not important ones. Overall, I absolutely have taken a paycut for legitimate work life balance increases, and I prefer to work with others who would as well.
Then new management came in and started forcing everyone to crunch every week until almost all the engineers left.
What’s a specific example of this?
- Official company polls asking if I have been vaccinated. Particulars of my health status are none of their business.
- Mandated diversity, inclusion, and equity training.
- Statements from the C-Suite about the Derek Chauvin trial.
You’re setting yourself up to be a second class citizen from the get go unless the founders move.
You may as well just ask for people founding businesses to be remote first to begin with. That’s an easier ask than asking people who are founding businesses to setup remote offices and treat those people nicely. I’ve never seen it done.
I haven’t experienced any politics being shoved down my throat. But, idk, I am accepting of people and somewhat tolerant of others beliefs (white supremacy isn’t one I am tolerant of though...). So, there is that.
Frankly, so much is thrown into the "white supremacy" tent these days, the fact that you mention that outs you as an intolerant leftist.
Ain’t no one showing up to AIDs walks or walks for the cure and saying, “but you know, all viruses/cures matter, guys. Let’s walk for all.”
If I told you I was not in favor of BLM because the founders were caught embezzling funds or pushing Marxist propaganda, would that make me a white supremacist?
I do believe there is a problem with cops shooting people in the states, but I'm also not a fan of that movement being co-opted for political gain. Which is why I support the message but not the specific organization.
I love it, it is my favorite perk of the job I have. I'm able to use my afternoons to exercise, take care of chores around the house, and run errands if necessary. My night after dinner time is completely free.
Another perk that's similar but not exactly the same thing is flexible schedule, meaning if I have something to do during work, I can "make up the hours" later. This is especially powerful when you work 80% time normally.
I would say that the reason most companies don't want to do 4 day weeks is because of meeting schedules. This is why I'm here each work day; so I can be at my team standups every day.
It's great. I'm done early in the afternoon and there is plenty of time left to spend with my family.
- 4 day week job listings get 15% more applications [1]
- Staff will be more productive. Microsoft experimented with a 4-day work week and productivity jumped by 40% [2]
- Staff will be happier and healthier [3]
- Staff retention will improve (e.g. "Now that I'm working a 4 day week, I could never go back to work 5 days")
- Some developers would compromise salary. In our current poll 84% of people would prefer to either work 3 days @ 60% salary or 4 days @ 80% salary
- Reduced office costs (e.g. close the office 1 day per week)
- It's better for the environment (e.g. less travel, closed offices etc)
[1] https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/four-day-workweek-res...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/04/microsoft...
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38843341
Link to the poll: https://twitter.com/philostar/status/1393199633543966723
Link to the website: https://www.4dayweek.io
I like the references for 1-3, even if they might be cherry-picked it's still more likely to be signal than noise, but the rest seems like leaps and assumptions. There are very few companies where everyone wants to work 4 days, let alone have that day not be flexible, so closing the office for a day seems out of reach for all but the smallest businesses. Retention I'm also not so sure about, virtually every company in our line of work supports 36 or 32 hours per week and they virtually all pay proportional to hours so that's all same same.
The problem is that an 80% workload for companies also means 80% of the salary which makes sense if someone wants to work part-time, but it's not the implementation of a 4-day work week idea.
Personally, I believe a 4-day work week will sooner or later be a standard, simply because Developers (including myself) waste a lot of their daily time and by having a constrained time-frame they will also be more efficient. In the same time (hopefully) management might reduce the number of meetings forced onto the Dev team.
I’ve occasionally seen co-workers on YouTube throughout the day, and I’m like, “wtf”.
I don’t see it penalized and I’m not their manager and I’m not tracking their output. I guess if it works for them then it works for them, and no one’s complaining, except my own pride or righteousness.
Maybe that’s what they need to handle a full time work load. But in that case it’s not really full time? It doesn’t feel right to me so at my current place I work significantly reduced amount of hours for a proportional paycut. And I only work when I’m working.
Some companies in some countries offer 7.5h/day (37.5h/week) and NOTHING bad happened. Turns out it probably improves the lives of the company's employees (which in turn, improves the company itself).
No, I wouldn't work 4 days per week for 80% of the salary. Hell, I would be more productive working 4 days per week! Why on earth would I receive less money? If any, pay me more. Obviously, this only applies to a few jobs out there (e.g., software engineering).
It is actually easier to penalize a company that makes you work more than agreed upon when the agreement is less than 100%.
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[1] https://youtu.be/ALaTm6VzTBw.
We had to economize a little more, but I was happy with it. I started doing side work, spent more time learning things or sometimes I would do nothing.
I'd have a hard time doing it willingly because it's not just me. But if it was forced on me, I wouldn't complain.
A 5x6hr or 6x6hr schedule seems to work well also. SW is a mental game, and similar to learning an instrument the reps and sleep time in between matters more than giant globs of hours with declining productivity and potential bad habits/injuries due to fatigue.
But as you also state, i wonder if, due to Parkinson’s Law, that it would be mutual beneficial for all both employers – and employees – to work 4 days for 90% of the pay?
As far as I know I was first who had this arrangement two years ago, but now I see it quite common among my team. I am also thinking about lowering my work to 3 days a week for further pay reduction.
For me, it's the best arrangement I've ever had. If I don't feel like it or need to take care of some other stuff, I just work for a couple hours a day. Other times I really enjoy it and work 8-10. Additionally I get long weekends without having to use any holidays.
I also think my employer gets a better deal this way. Being productive 8 hours a day is more or less wishful thinking. I think the reality is somewhere between 4-6 hours for normal people. Hence I'm still almost as productive asif I were working 40h/week, but at 80% the cost for my employer. Everybody wins.
In fact I recently went down to 3 days a week for 60% salary and that's even better (although I do use the other day for other work sometimes if it's something I'd like to do).
Main benefit has been increased time with my daughter.
My 2 cents for anyone trying it:
1) Take Monday off - everyone is still getting stuff together on Monday so it won't be so disruptive. Plus, you won't hate Mondays anymore :)
2) Be very strict with the day off. Never compromise on it, at least for the first few months. Make sure everyone understands that you are absolutely not working and cannot work that day and things will be OK. If you don't it will cause confusion and many problems.