Man, it'd be sweet to switch to 4-day weeks.
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Microsoft Japan’s experiment with 3-day weekend boosts worker productivity by 40 percent
- Thread starter Septimus Prime
- Start date
Every time I have a three day weekend I think to myself, "This is how it should be all the time."
You have time for chores, family, friends, and then some time just for yourself.
You have time for chores, family, friends, and then some time just for yourself.
Japanese workplaces are infamous for inefficient meetings. Would be great to see this experiment tried out in more and more countries to see how the four day week effects various working cultures
With a lot of industries even if you only work 4 days if the other companies you're dealing with work on Friday youll be forced to work on Friday too and end up working 45+ hours
Heard from so many peoplw in Japan that people will work mindlessly until 8pm just to say they did.
It's okay to decline meetings. And it is also okay to bring up the question whether a meeting needs to happen and if the same conclusions can be reached via a simple email / slack conversation.
I dreaded when I worked at a call center years ago but the only thing I loved about working there (other than the fact that I got paid) was that it was a 4 day week.
Basically worked 10 hours a day for 4 days so it would equal out to 40 hours still.
Loved working that way.
I would love to do it again (4 day week I mean) but my current Job I enjoy it as it is.
Basically worked 10 hours a day for 4 days so it would equal out to 40 hours still.
Loved working that way.
I would love to do it again (4 day week I mean) but my current Job I enjoy it as it is.
The thing about the 4 day work week is that it would actually be BETTER for businesses (assuming these small studies are legit). I understand that business owners are going to be skeptical, but I hope that more companies are willing to take the "risk" in the future. There should be no logical defence force for pointless extra work unless your entire life philosophy is based around the spiritual zen of labour.
I don't know where you work but most of us can't just decline meetings.
Pretty much every unbiased study has found that 4-day weeks are generally better for productivity in most professions.
I've had a 4-day work schedule for almost 6 years now and I can't imagine going back to 5 8-hour shifts a week. Having Friday - Saturday off is awesome and it should be the standard for most industries.
Fridays and Saturdays are also optional overtime days for me with additional bonus payouts depending on the amount of OT you put in during a pay period.
Fridays and Saturdays are also optional overtime days for me with additional bonus payouts depending on the amount of OT you put in during a pay period.
time for right wingers to argue that this only happened because of "social capital" and "cultural homogeneity"
I've always been an advocate for 3-day weekends, even if it meant 5 days of work and then 3 days off. 2 days just isn't enough since at least 1 is reserved for adult responsibilities. It contributes to people feeling like they're not progressing in their personal endeavors, no matter how much money is made.
I have worked at companies with shitty work/life balance and I swear people still only worked 8 hours a day. If that. People took hour lunches, lots of breaks, and surfed the internet but stayed late to put in facetime. Sure there was crunch time where people actually worked hard, but we were expected to pull long hours each and every day regardless. Fucking sucked.
Company I am at now is the first and only 9-5 accounting job I have ever had, and we all work our tails off in that time. Crazy how being appreciated as a human being with an actual life motivates you.
Company I am at now is the first and only 9-5 accounting job I have ever had, and we all work our tails off in that time. Crazy how being appreciated as a human being with an actual life motivates you.
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Yeah, my husband has a good job and makes a good salary, but partially because of my arthritis, at least 1 full days' worth of his weekend is doing chores I can't do (cooking a week's worth of dinners and vacuuming, in addition to his daily chores of feeding the cats and cleaning up their shitboxes). He has offered to work fewer days for a disproportionately lower amount of pay, but his company refused. And it's hard to find decent-paying part-time jobs in his field. Unlike me, he's creative, so he never feels like he's progressing in writing because he's got so many things he's gotta do.
Thankfully I had the foresight(?) to choose accounting, where there's more part-time work available than most fields, which has helped impede the progression of my arthritis. I work 2-3 days a week at a company that respects me and pays me a great rate and also allows me to work remotely. I work hourly so they can't fuck me with exempt overtime like with full-time accounting jobs. They don't offer health insurance at my hour level, but honestly if we ever needed to go on the ACA, with my pay I could still afford to purchase health insurance for us anyway.
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There's a lot of weird cultural business norms in Japan like not leaving the office until the higher ups/boss have left, which means if your boss decides to stay at work until like 8:30 PM, you have a bunch of people just milling about the office until 8:30 PM.
Although my understanding is this type of thing is starting to finally change.
Yeah, it has to do with the archaic thinking that you can't leave before your boss, and because of it they need to stretch whatever mild task they were given.
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It's okay at EA, but at all the (Japanese) companies I worked at before, it most certainly wasn't. Doubly so if the meeting was setup by someone more senior.
In my experience, they're terrible inefficient. A lot of the time is literally just being there.
I think this is will be implemented in more businesses very soon. Two months in the winter, two in the summer. That's how it will become the norm at least in office spaces.
Every time I have a three-day weekend, I think, "You know what would be great? A four-day weekend."
Why stop at three... If productivity already goes up by 40%, imagine how much it would go up for a 4,5,6, or even 7 day weekend.
i only recently entered a proper career and i requested my contract reflect a 4 day work week. my parents are mortified and gave me the whole "lazy millennial" drill but honestly? 4 days is enough for me to get all my work done, and then have 3 days to actually be a human being. i have chronic health issues and 5 days fucking wrecks me. it takes 2 days to recover so i never actually get anything done except some basic cleaning and odds and ends.
Yeah, I'd even prefer working four ten-hour days to my current five-day work week, but having one paid day off each week automatically would be amazing, as well.
I work part-time and can confirm 4 day weekends are amazing. I would suggest 4 also actually inhibits the return to work, at least for me. 3 days sounds ideal.
Places like Dentsu for sure, but not everywhere. There are companies here in Japan that are equitable, and care about their employees. It's usually the older, larger ones that do this shit.
