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Analysis of Four-Day Working Week Trial by a New Zealand Financial Services Company Finds Staff Were Happier and 20% More Productive (theguardian.com)
AmiMoJo shares a report: The founder of one of the first big companies to switch to a four-day working week has called on others to follow, claiming it has resulted in a 20% increase in productivity, appeared to have helped increase profits and boosted staff wellbeing. Analysis of one of the biggest trials yet of the four-day working week has revealed no fall in output, reduced stress and increased staff engagement, fuelling hopes that a better work-life-balance for millions could be in sight. Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand financial services company, switched its 240 staff from a five-day to a four-day week last November and maintained their pay. Productivity increased in the four days they worked so there was no drop in the total amount of work done, a study of the trial released on Tuesday has revealed.
The trial was monitored by academics at the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology. Among the Perpetual Guardian staff they found scores given by workers about leadership, stimulation, empowerment and commitment all increased compared with a 2017 survey. Details of an earlier trial showed the biggest increases were in commitment and empowerment. Staff stress levels were down from 45% to 38%. Work-life balance scores increased from 54% to 78%. "This is an idea whose time has come," said Andrew Barnes, Perpetual Guardian's founder and chief executive. "We need to get more companies to give it a go. They will be surprised at the improvement in their company, their staff and in their wider community."
The trial was monitored by academics at the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology. Among the Perpetual Guardian staff they found scores given by workers about leadership, stimulation, empowerment and commitment all increased compared with a 2017 survey. Details of an earlier trial showed the biggest increases were in commitment and empowerment. Staff stress levels were down from 45% to 38%. Work-life balance scores increased from 54% to 78%. "This is an idea whose time has come," said Andrew Barnes, Perpetual Guardian's founder and chief executive. "We need to get more companies to give it a go. They will be surprised at the improvement in their company, their staff and in their wider community."
Knee-jerk reaction is "That can't be true, somebody is lying"
So who'd be lying and to what end?
What is kinda strange is the math... So they say no loss in productivity (as opposed to a gain) and they furthermore talk about a 20% increase in productivity. It can't be both, right? If it was a 20% increase per workday, that would still make the workweek fall short. If it was a 20% increase per workweek, one would assume the title would go something like "Working four days actually gets more shit done!!!!" and you can bet your ass companies all over the place would jump on the idea.
After all, you need to work 25% more per day to make up for the fifth.
Soooo.... huh?
I've done 4x10's - and loved it. And, for an hourly position it would work.
However, for Exempt - you would sign up... then some bozo management type would still expect you to work on your 'day off'.
I'm not a 1000 person study; but back when I worked 4 ten hour days instead of 5 8 hour days I used to get a lot more work done. I can confirm this is true from my study of one.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Wasn't New Zealand offering free flights to people interested in working there?
Work contracts to fit into the time we give it.
would move to 4 12,5 hour work days ao their expectations of 50 hours a week from salaried workers could continue.
The place before that I was working 60-80 hours in a 6 day work week, but at least I got overtime.
That's how I read this.
This is all about treating employees as adults, it's all about trust.
Shock/Horror - when you entrust employees they respond favourably, who would've thought? /s
The other ways to accomplish work/home life balance is to allow working from home where feasible, with no limits at all.
If someone wants to work from home for two weeks straight and they are still accomplishing the tasks they have been assigned, or the tasks they have assigned themselves, then surely this is a positive?
This is one aspect from science fiction that is now entirely possible and is, in fact, very prevalent in the tech sector - that you can work effectively from anywhere, that physical location should never be a barrier.
Obviously this isn't going to work for every sector, but 4 day weeks will for pretty much all industry.
There's so many other hidden benefits from this looser work/home life balance approach - less traffic for instance.
Bring it on.
If you need to staff a phone 5 days a week, going to 4 days makes no financial sense, you're just a warm body we want to keep in the seat as long as possible for the least amount of money.
For people that have a career, where work-life is important this may be of benefit, but then again, you're already salaried and the job market (at least right now) is wide open. I understand the stress, but people have to get more used to asking what THEY want out of a job.
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result in another 30% more productivity ? :-)
But this study wasn't about moving around the 40-hour-week (actually 37.5 hour week in NZ due to lunch). It was literally just dropping one day from the schedule, and moving to a 30-hour-week (4x7.5).
And weekly productivity went up 20%. Which, given the 20% reduction in hours, means hourly productivity went up ~50%.
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Ninety years ago, companies were figuring this out.
Nixon ran with it 65 years ago.
But, what a CRAAZY idea, am I right?
Still work 5 days a week. But extend the week, by executive order, to 9 days. Make the weekend 4 days.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Partyday
Funday
Sunday
Then go back to work again.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Well, it might be all & well for the staff at that company to be happier, less stressed, healthier, & more productive but what about their souls? If those workers are denied the opportunity & support they need in order to toil relentlessly & arduously so that they can be better people, aren't they being condemned to an afterlife of eternal damnation? God will surely smite this evil company!
P.S. I'm reliably informed (Poe's Law) that humour must be accompanied by a smiley face in case someone thinks I'm an extremist nut-job :)
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
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20% of 40 is 8 so basically, the company gets nothing out of this for salaried employees. For hourly employees, the company gets 8 hours of work for free.
Maybe I'm too used to browsing with an ad blocker. But I'd completely forgotten that newspapers were similarly infested with in-line ads.
The reporter (or a non-technical person) said 20%. They wanted to say it came out to a wash, and they knew it was a 20% reduction, so they thought 20% improvement. (And the wash probably had some fairly large error bars)
Note, I messed up elsewhere in the comments and thought it was a 20% weekly improvement.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
In America cheap work visas mean you have an unlimited access to fresh employees. No need to worry about burnout, long term health or well being.
Also, a certain percentage of the populace _is_ able to be productive for extended hours. 40, 50, 60 even 80. Yeah, there aren't a lot of them, but when you're drawing from a pool of over a billion workers you've got plenty.
More than anything else this is why us tech folk can't compete with India. Their middle class is as large as our entire country. It's just a numbers game at that point.
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And if they get the same amount of work done in 2 days, then it sounds like the best move would be to fire the 60% of staff who apparently weren't doing anything worthwhile and get the rest working 5 (or maybe 6) days.
It seems to me that you can re-work these statistics any way you like. Draw whatever conclusions suits the current fashion and find an example of pretty much any working practice if you scour the world. There's bound to be 1 example of anything.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The eight-week experiment...
Smaller companies experimenting with the four-day week have found performance has been better in the first few weeks as excitement about the project took hold, before falling slightly.
A 240 person staff is pretty small, and eight weeks (over Christmas no less) isn't enough time to draw any conclusions.
The productivity increase isn't any surprise though. The employees are offered the day off *if* they could get the same amount of work done in a shorter time. Of course people will respond to a reward like that...for a while. Makes you wonder what would happen if people were offered a 20% pay increase for working five days per week but getting 20% more work done.
This idea is of course really similar to Google's 10% do what you want idea - except it's specific to a day. One day a week, you can work on whatever you want.
Maybe that means you just catch up on professional reading or courses. Maybe it means you work on a side project. Maybe it even means you do regular work that you just really want to move along more.
I feel like having this option or break, would have nearly as much of a benefit for happiness and productivity as just a day off , and additionally give the company a huge unexpected and unquantifiable return. It would also build company loyalty a little more than just a mere day off.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Pay attention to what Nixon actually said: Vote Republican in the upcoming election and the economy will be so good you'll soon be working 4 day weeks.
Well the gop plan is an 3.9 day 3 10 hour + 1 3.9 day. So we get an full week but don't have give out any of the Full time worker perks.
Free ponies FOR ALL!
Why not? We can easily afford it, Wall Street has plenty of money.
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Hold on they 20% more productive while working 20% less sorhey where 50% more productive the tine rhey actuslly where at work,if this is true (I mght have missed somrhing), this is a rather imoressive result give the emploies a15 percent pay increae ( compared tonwat they got working 5 day week and have a nice boost to your net result. And ohe ea an emploee that just got a 15% income increese and an aditional day off (or 5 shorter work days) ar less lightly to quit so reducesd cost in reqruring + retraining replacements later.
So.. they were 20% more productive with 20% less time to do their work?
Same amount of work, less time to do it.
In only 80% of the time. Hmmm...
Well, the economy is much better now than in the 50s. The GDP is about 60 times higher now than it was in 1950. So where is the 4 days week?
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Vote Vermin Supreme. Vote pony party.
Don't worry, everybody will get a pony. There are 200,000 ponies in the USA. A Little genocide might be required to make the numbers work. Brush after every meal. Brush your ponies teeth too. Beware the secret dental police.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I want Fluttershy then if we are going that route.
Wow, if they're 20% more productive just working 4 days a week, let's put them back up to 5 days a week as now we know what they're really capable of! /s
We are so conditioned in the USA we need other county's to lead for a while. After spending some time in Europe proper (France, Norway.) Its downright shocking how unhappy and unproductive Americans are right now.
Other country's are going to have to slaughter these sacred cows, incredibly sadly as Americans we are just unable at present.
(Also there's many, many studies pointing to the same result. But you know if you don't agree with the science, attack and discredit. If Americans get to much time off what will they ask for next? Healthcare?)
...about 15 minutes a day.
This sounds dumb, I have no life and I like going to work, who wants a 3 day weekend anyway.
"We need to get more companies to give it a go."
I'm sure every manufacturing plant would love a 20% reduction in weekly output. True to most financial/economic 'genius' they fail to see how this simply cannot apply to other industries.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Known as Friday, the local feminazi gestapos invade the workplaces to review the covert surveillance footage for potential suspects (males). If any are discovered, they're terminated from their employment, and thoroughly investigated (gaslighted) while denied any future employment. The USA is a terrible & nasty place. Hey Putin, send a few nukes this way, why don't ya?
I.) "If you tell everyone you are happy, and fudge the numbers to look productive," -- nice projecting Bill, is that what you do?
And what is your incentive to lie Bill? More pay while doing more bullshit?
II.) 'The summary says "20% gain in productivity" and "same amount of work gets done". So they are getting 20% more done each day they work, with makes up for the day they don't work.'
The reason is simply this: concentrated work without all the bullshit stress caused by overloading and interruptions caused by people like Bill is more productive
Yes it is CRAAZY - Dirty commie rat spreading his poisonous lies again, trying to destroy America!
How about you all stop pretending and tell it how it is? Oh wait, you can't, you could be fired cause of 'freedom' and 'democracy' :)