you don't climb the corporate ladder and attain to c suite positions of authority by being the type of person who think employees even deserve 2 days off, let alone 3. these are also the type of people who demand that you answer the phone/emails between 5pm and 9am
I did that shit. 6 days, you find out your start time about 12 hours before it happens each day (make sure you're up to get the phone call about what time to come in, it could vary by 5 hours). Your work day could be from 4 hours to potentially more than 14.
I moved to a 5 day position at the same company.... 60 hours a week. 5 12s. Hourly, but no overtime pay.
This is only for white collar work. Every time I see this there is never any consideration for blue collar work. Factories would benefit from seven day work weeks, more time producing not less.
Not that I want it at all... We tried to argue for just 4 days weeks in the summer when it gets to be 95° and like 75° dew point and they still said "absolutely not, we need to ship 5 days a week. We have guys doing overtime why would we do less?"
I mean, a four day work week still benefits blue collar jobs, though it's understandably more difficult to implement this in a some blue collar workspaces, and I dont claim to have the answer for how to do it by any means.
Factories would benefit from seven day work weeks, more time producing not less.
Factories benefit from higher efficiency, and less downtime, which can be achieved with more employees, working less, being less tired, more satisfied with their pay and benefits, and having fewer accidents which interrupt production.
It can be done, but other systems also need changing to help it along.
I think the problem there is that there's a lot of workplaces looking for extra people. Losing 1/5th of your workforce, but not financially is how I assume employers look at it.
The fact people are more efficient probably doesn't mean more efficient than working 8 extra hours to them.
I could really do with a 4day workweek. And I don't mean working 40h in 4 days.
What about rotating 3 and 4 day shifts for twice as many employees? Then you get 7 days of productivity and nobody is getting burned out/making an unsafe work environment?
That would cost them more so it's a non-starter. In manufacturing you're not a human, you're another tool. You don't consider the wellbeing or happiness of your tools. :(
Imagine how boomers brains will melt when the four day week starts roughly when they all hit retirement. I would take that as consolation price for the failing pension systems.
Now if possible legal and contract things allow it get fixed and a number of employers start to offer this and pull in valuable workers... That might make the others nervous.
It's already happening, at least in my social circle. People changing to four day weeks or even changing jobs when their employer doesn't offer reduced work weeks.
The trick is how to make this work with 24/7 businesses. Now we have a set of 5 day workers that have full benefits and 2 day workers that have partial benefits. If the full benefit workers only work 4 days and the partial benefits workers now work 3, they will be pushing for full benefits as well. That means more cost to the business.
its the only real path to 24/7. As it stands now you can run 24/7 but you won't. weekends will never run like weekdays and its not for a lack of demand on the weekends. 4 day work week is primed for a two shift solution with one day where the shifts can collaborate.
4 12s one week, 3 12s the other, 4 shifts. I used to have that at an old job and it was kind of nice having 2 days off in the middle of the week and every other weekend having three days off.
It would be Tuesday,Wednesday, Then Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Then Thursday, Friday.
I suppose you could do this on 8 hours and have 6 shifts instead of only 4. So only a 28 hour work week on average 24/32.
The main opposition is not employers. As long as they maintain profit, they don’t care and that has long been shown as possible .
The main opponent to this will be government, who don’t want people to have to much free time on their hands, in case they call out inequalities and injustice.
But you have shifts and dayoffs that just don't necessarily correlate with the weekend, right? Or do you live in the Land of Free where there are no employees rights?
I don't work in healthcare but I know plenty of people who do. The industry is notoriously understaffed, and of course there are sudden emergencies you have to deal with. Therefore, they pretty much require 24/7 operations.
And also a minimum of 6 weeks paid vacation, and also they get recorded as clocked in on those days so employers can't easily discriminate against employees that actually use that time.
If the list of arguments is about productivity increases, then employers wouldn't run away from it, they don't care how they get more job done as long as it's done.
If the list of arguments is about how employees would personally benefit from it, the employers still wouldn't run from it because those arguments aren't arguments to them and they don't care.
I disagree. Leaders in both private and public sector make idiotic less productive decisions all the time. We're especially seeing that from the return to office crap.
Productivity isn't important to them, control is. It is, always, about control over people's lives. Money isn't what matters, it's just how they keep score.
This. There are employers out there who want you at their beck and call at ALL hours. Not because it "improves efficiency / productivity" but because they just want to fark with your personal life to the point where you don't have one anymore. To make you miserable. Being able to control you all the time is what gets them off.
they don't care how they get more job done as long as it's done.
That is a ridiculous assertion.
Employers in the US absolutely care about flexing power for the sake of flexing power. It's why many are against WFH (for their employees, not themselves of course) despite it being shown not to decrease productivity,
Do you believe employers desire for ever MOAR somehow doesn't extend to having more perks and time than their underlings? Employees having more days off DEVALUES the employer fucking off for drinks and golf, oh I'm sorry "networking," at noon every day by comparison.
Of course there are exceptions, but the larger the employer, the fewer there are, as growth/metastasis is a reflection of the insatiability of the employer's greed. The ones with any temperance eventually stop, the ones that are incapable of being satiated don't.
The type of person making these decisions is typically psychopathic and stubborn. 4 day work weeks may be objectively better for everyone but if it's not a common-sense productivity increaser, expect no change, at least in the US where corporate interests are extremely protected.