Ask HN: Are companies open to a 4-day work week?
I've been experimenting with a 4-day work week at my current employment. I'm curious if any other employers are open to that kind of arrangement.
Definitely do it, by the way. I dropped down to 4 x 8h when my second son was born, and simply never switched back. My quality of life is a lot better now, I don't seem to ever get sick anymore, and I get 3-day weekends every single week.
Way better than having an extra few grand on a paycheck.
I've worked 32 hour weeks (with occasional overtime) for most of my working life, I think. I've never had a 5 day work week since 2009, and I don't quite recall my work weeks from my first few jobs (2001 - 2008), but I think those may have been 4 day weeks too. My brother had also always worked 4 day weeks, since the early '90s, I think.
But I have also worked a 5 day week for at least a year, and I've turned down a job at a company that totally understood my desire for a 4 day week, but still only wanted to hire me for 5 days.
All my freelance gigs (since 2012) have also been 4 days or less, though my current client cannot accept less than 32 hours per week for some odd reason.
But this is in Netherland. I'm sure it's different in other countries.
4 x 8h is a good idea as long as you can maintain the level of productivity. Given the competitiveness of the marketplace 4 x 8h might not work unless you have extra employees to fill in the 20% void.
Another factor to consider is your location. If you're getting paid 80% of the full time income and you live in an expensive city, you might find it difficult to adjust your lifestyle. Usually when you're not working (earning), you're spending.
In the end it's all about balance.
"In respect of employment conditions, part-time workers may not be treated in a less favourable manner than comparable full-time workers solely because they work part-time, unless different treatment is justified on objective grounds. [...] social partners and/or Member States after consulting the social partners should identify and review obstacles which may limit the opportunities for part-time work and, where appropriate, eliminate them."
Such directives get translated into law in different ways in different countries, but the overall message is clear.
We call it a 9/80 schedule (9 days, 80 hours), and it doesn't require a pay cut, or a reduction in the number of hours worked.
We work 9 hour days, 4 days per week and then we alternate between having the remaining day off and 8 hour work days. We also stagger the our days off, so that any department is never down a significant number of people.
It works really well. We arrive 1 hour before anyone else, so that hour of uninterrupted work is very valuable. There is some pushback from a particularly unorganized Account Leader, but I think everyone understands why that pushback exists.
It depends heavily on how those four days are managed, the nature of what you specifically need to be doing while "on duty", etc.
Reasonable companies will recognize that an efficient 32 hours can be as productive (or more so) than an inefficient 40 hours. The trick is to show that this is the reality of what happens.
If you can generate empirical evidence supporting the same, it should be an easy sell. Good defect and task tracking can help with this.