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.

Comments

Hope this becomes a trend

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love the option to work for 20 or 30 hours/week even for half the money. I've always felt like I had to choose between 40-50 hour weeks or nothing.

"Well, of COURSE they'd like that."

[jeffb (2.718)]

I'm sure a large company would love to hire people for 30 hours or less a week, thus dodging any requirement to give them full-time benefits.

<reads rest of summary>

The 30-hour groups would receive the same benefits as 40-hour-a-week employees but less pay, Amazon said.

...hmm. Now I'm intrigued. 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.

Actually, given the cost of benefits, the pay cut would probably have to be more than that, because the cost of benefits is mostly constant. If your 40-hour week earns you $100K/yr take-home, and your benefits cost another $50K, Amazon would want to pay $150K * 0.75 for three-quarters of the work, or $112.5K, of which you'd see $62.5K -- a 37.5% cut in take-home pay. But I still might consider it.

Re:Look at that shift

[rmdingler]

It's not a scheme by a large evil corporate entity to stick it to the working man?

What fun is that?

Re:"Gig Economy" indeed!

[Anonymous Coward]

5 days on 2 days off is a joke. 2 days doesnt afford time to actually have a break and do something, or even start something - Saturday = doing all the stuff you cant do during the week because work. Sunday, bah why bother - you cant get away anywhere because you're back to work the next morning.

3 consultive days off, time to get stuff done, time to go somewhere, time to start something and maybe finish it - or make some progress on it, time to feel like you've had a break.

In tech at least one could argue that over a 5 day week, people will screw around and waste most of at least one day not being productive. 4 day week after a 3 day weekend, BAM 120% effort.

Re:Look at that shift

[ErichTheRed]

This is what I think too. I have always worked in "normal" environments, but there are plenty of stories about people in tech companies getting worked 90+ hours a week simply because that's the culture. Microsoft in the early 90s was like this, every dotbomb SV startup in the late 90s too -- and it's getting repeated for this current tech bubble.

I think part of it is companies self-selecting people who will put up with no life and love the idea of an "all inclusive" workplace. Not surprisingly, growing up and having real-life responsibilities like a family aren't compatible with this lifestyle long-term. Google provides 3 meals a day, concierge service, beanbag chairs...everything a recent grad needs to continue the college lifestyle. Amazon probably wants to try expanding out of the monoculture they have and see what happens when they don't burn people out. Might just be the effect of a mature company - Microsoft is still famously all-inclusive, but people have the option of going home at a reasonable time. They operate more on the academic model than the sweatshop model.

The problem is going to come when the MBAs and management consultants pick up on this and pervert it into "oh look, Millennials don't want stable jobs. They prefer to string together 4 part-time gigs to get through life." Then it just becomes an excuse to hire part-timers exclusively.

Re:What happens at crunch time?

[dgatwood]

I find it odd that they specify which days have core hours. I mean, an ideal 30-hour week for a lot of folks would be Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday so that they can have a break in the middle of the week. Or Tuesday through Friday, shifting Monday holidays to Tuesday. Or not having to work on the day when their kids have baseball/soccer/* games after school. It would make a lot more sense to say that you have to be there for those core hours on four days, without specifying which. It is not as though they're going to make use of the space on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday anyway.

For that matter, I find it really weird that they would choose 30 hours and not 24. If they hired people for 24-hour weeks (3 days), then they could have one shift from Monday through Wednesday and a second shift from Thursday through Saturday (or alternating days if folks preferred that). That would mean that their facilities cost for the second set of employees would be almost zero (maintenance and power only), and those savings would probably make up for the extra benefits. So they would be able to increase their output by 20% by increasing their costs by about 20%, all while employing twice as many people and giving employees the shorter work weeks that many of them would prefer, rather than decreasing their output by 20% by decreasing their costs by much less than 20%.

But maybe I've thought way too much about how to make part-time employment work at a tech company.