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Amazon To Experiment With Part-Time Tech Teams (usatoday.com)
Elizabeth Weise, reporting from USATODAY: In an effort to lure hard-to-hire tech workers and possibly recast its reputation as a harsh workplace, Amazon plans to pilot a program of part-time teams composed entirely of employees putting in 30-hour weeks. The Seattle company will test using entire teams of engineers and tech staff who will all work 30 hours a week, thus side-stepping many of the problems faced by part-time workers in a full-time environment. The pilot teams' core hours would be Monday through Thursday from 10 am to 2 pm, with flexible hours throughout the week. The 30-hour groups would receive the same benefits as 40-hour-a-week employees but less pay, Amazon said. The plan is smart from a recruiting standpoint and a unique strategy in the highly competitive tech world, said Kate Kennedy with the Society for Human Resource Management.
I'm pretty sure their goal is to pressure people into actually working less hours and have a life outside of work (while maybe saving the company some money in the process), not trick people into working two 30 hour jobs a week. I could be wrong, but this seems to be a whole different concept from "I work at McDonalds in the morning and as a janitor at night and I hate my lif!"
Count me among the group that would happily accept a 25% pay cut for a guaranteed cap at 30 hours per week, if I didn't have to give up benefits.
My wife works for a European based company. They have ingrained in their culture no more than a 40 hour workweek. This would work well for her company.
Amazon and the large tech company I work for - this would NEVER work and only cause more problems than help. Upper management would get the good publicity of out it, middle management would use it as a means to cut costs, and lowest management would inevitably end up dumping the extra workload on existing full timers who aren't subject to the hard cap. Coworkers end up resenting each other because either they are working more than are supposed to (if in the 30-hour group) or because they are working too much because of the mixed composition (if in the traditional 40+ hr group).
Amazon doesn't have the culture at their company to make this work - and that comes from the VERY top. Nice experiment but will never come to full fruition until the culture changes.