We should absolutely kill the 40 hour week and replace it with a 30 hour week.
> the 40-hour work week doesn’t work anymore
Doesn’t work for who? What does “works” mean anyway? Maximizes efficiency for our employers? Why is that the question? What works for you? Why not ask what works to maximize your happiness and flourishing? What works for me is fewer working hours in the week (doesn’t matter what time of day it was that I logged them) and more time to do whatever I want, whether that's coding, walking a dog, reading or doing absolutely nothing. We went from 80 hour to 40 hour weeks 100 years ago, why is 40 to 30 such a stretch today?
> During the Industrial Revolution, factories needed to be running around the clock so employees during this era frequently worked between 10-16 hour days.
In the 1920s however, Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, decided to try something different: His workers would only work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
That is completely ahistorical! The 8 hour day was carved out from the 16 hour day and paid for in blood by a militant labor movement over several decades, not granted magnanimously by Henry Ford. You don’t have to consult obscure labor history to find that out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
> kill the 40 hour week and replace it with a 30 hour week.
Or less. If you're over 40, cognitive function declines if you work more than 25 hours a week (and declines more the more you exceed). Up to 25 hours a week, cognitive function increases with more work.
Not that increasing cognitive function is the be-all and end-all, but (a) it's certainly something to consider whether you're degrading your brain and (b) 25 hours probably also works well for other reasons and for other ends.
in france there were the 35h weeks by law. result... everyone mocked the country and employers gave everyone a manager title which has no 35h restriction.
To add to this, human labor doesn't begin with the Industrial Revolution. Prior to it, people produced the bulk of their own food, clothing, furniture and tools. Most manufacturing was done in homes or small, rural shops, using hand tools or simple machines. Serfs may have been tied to the land, but they worked for themselves on their own schedule, not a micromanaging lord who demanded set working hours. Before mechanization and factories, textiles were made mainly in people’s homes (giving rise to the term cottage industry), with merchants often providing the raw materials and basic equipment, and then picking up the finished product. Workers set their own schedules under this system.
The Industrial Revolution's effect on the working class is somewhat similar to what Chinese peasants who are forced to move out of their ancestral villages experience. Sure, the economist will tell you that real wages increased and the working classes began to have a more varied diet, as if that in total defines the overall happiness of a person. But despite the rise in income, many feel worse off..going from working outside and in a small, yet tight-knit community to being forced to live in polluted cities in cramped apartments where even though there are more people, there is more loneliness and alienation.
I'm fortunate and I work remotely. Due to not having to deal with all the distractions and wastes of time that are part of the modern office, I'm able to be roughly 1.8x more productive (stats from github & RescueTime). I do the same amount of work in 20-25 hours/wk that I did in 40+hrs/wk (not even including commute times). My morale, motivation, and creativity has increased greatly. I don't have to take a vacation day to deal with doctor's appointments, picking up clothes from the cleaners, going to the DMV, or whatever else you can only do from 8-5 M-F. In short, the company I work for is getting the same, if not more productivity out of me (my code is definitely of a higher quality and I'm never burned out enough to take shortcuts.) without any cost. I don't have to commute, pay, spend less on gas, eat healthier and cheaper because I have access to my kitchen, etc. It's a win for both sides without costing either party anything beyond the risk it took on allowing a remote culture.
So much of work in the modern office is pure optics. So many times after lunch I would be well served by taking a nap for an hour or two instead of wasting 2-3 hours staring blankly at a screen while I'm doing the microsleep, head bob dance.
In some places 8 hour workday was achieved by union organized strikes, in other places by law decree and in other places by non-unionized workers and employers as an agreement.
The 8 hour workday was made possible by increasing productivity, mostly due to accumulated production capital and technological improvements ...
While I love my flexible, remote schedule... and I loved alternative schedules when I was in my 20s and had no children. The standard 40 hour week offers a stable schedule to the large population that does have children, and needs to both work a full time job to collect a paycheck while also knowing they can be home almost every hour their child is out of school.
I'm not arguing against flexible scheduling -- I live that life, and I will proclaim its benefits as much as anyone. But to really engage in a meaningful discussion about it, we need to realize that different people have different needs. And for much of the working population, the primary need is about providing for their family, not self-fulfillment in their own work.
but with flexible scheduling, people can still choose to voluntarily follow the current 40-hour week schedule. So what you are saying is not actually an argument.
I think we need to define what flexible actually means.
There are schools around here which start at 9 or 10 or finish at 3. Good luck picking up your kids or preparing your kids when you NEED to be at work at 9 AM sharp or can't leave your workplace until 5 or 6 PM.
So your argument is: because schools take our kids off our hands 40 hours a week during specific times, that is when parents need to work? That's kind of an ass-backwards way of looking at it. I have kids and I completely disagree. It would be far more efficient if you could individually construct the optimum schedule for you, your spouse, and your kids... Taking into account education, hobbies, work needs, etc. You'll end up with rythmns all your own, which will be internally consistent, even if they're very different from others'.
If killing the 40-hour work week means I'm now working six days a week instead of five, then long live the 40-hour work week.
Some people (myself included) need two days per week off work, except in special circumstances. We also need to be able to clock out of work and not feel bad about doing so just because we still have work. The worst thing about university to me was the feeling of always having more work to do. I understand avoiding the "I'm just working until the clock hand turns a little further" state, but often the cumulative effects of the proposed alternative are worse.
I agree. This seems optimized for workaholics; people who work as their primary goal in life. If work is not the first priority in your life, being replaced by kids, gaming, hiking (or you simply don't enjoy your day job; not everybody does), then you need a bit more structure around maximums every day, with time off to live your life. 5x8 works well for creating culturally acceptable maximums.
Large corporations need hordes of people doing boring work in a reliable and predictable, easily manageable manner. Society needs what large corporations produce. People need the wages these corporations pay. The 40hr work week is going nowhere.
100% this, most people don't realize a lot of these corps are the "Jobs Programs". They take huge tax breaks to provide these 40/hr week unproductive boring jobs, or no one else will. In Canada we call them Banks and Telcos.
corporations need to process work that can manifest in a specific manner, and in non specific manners too.
to use an example of a fictional manufacturing company, i'd like to commission a piece of software that can do almost anything- from processing an order from any business, that can come in digital format, scanned, printed, or spoken over the phone, to generating an purchase orders and sales orders to our suppliers and distributors who may have an online interface or who may still use fax or phone and may communicate in english or not english.
that is quite a difficult piece of software to build so most companies don't actually build that at all. instead they rely on hordes of people who are configurable in any imaginable way to solve problems that appear in unimaginable forms.
Large corps are simply small corps that transitioned from innovators to job-generators.
The are a bit like the socialism in capitalism. Most of the jobs are redundant and could be done more efficiently by a bunch of small corps instead of one big.
Good article but in essence, it only works for freelancers, especially the 20 something kind who programs or designs and interacts with his customer through skype.
Modern society has conventions that makes it work well. Like the expectation that the delivery guy will work from 9-to-5, instead of trying to deliver at 2am or in a Sunday morning, because that's optimal for his circadian rhytm. Same for the bank or the library or Starbucks open during the day. This convention lets us help plan our day. Without these you will have to plan for contingencies. These can be acute when you have a chronic disease, disabled or have babies/children. You just wish that everyone works 9 to 5 just so you can go through the day.
> Good article but in essence, it only works for freelancers, especially the 20 something kind who programs or designs and interacts with his customer through skype.
That's exactly my thoughts. I provide analysis & design work for government - even the fact that I'm an early riser is an issue, as leaving the office that 1-2 hours before the government mandated 4:30 end time causes them to be partially without the instant support and feedback they expect.
In my opinion, no consideration should be given to 'business interest' over the interests of the workers. The idea that the workers ought to just settle for compromises is rubbish.
Crediting the 40 hour week to Henry Ford's business acumen is a common mistake.
The call for eight hour workdays was over a century old by the time Henry Ford implemented it. It was a major point of discussion for Karl Marx. Forty years before Henry Ford's supposedly brilliant insight, in the Bay View Labor Riot of 1886, the Wisconsin state militia opened fire on labor activists protesting for an eight hour workday, killing seven.
None of this is new. This is a battle labor has been fighting for two centuries now.
The whole concept of an X hour work week is stupid for most of us on HN in knowledge intensive industries.
It makes sense if the work you're doing is a direct function of time - think receptionists, cashiers, phone customer service, assembly line workers.
If the work is knowledge intensive, then your output is generally not a mere function of hours worked. In software engineering, productivity can vary enormously when you're "in-the-zone" vs. feeling tired and sluggish. I'm not talking about a mere 15% difference in peak productivity vs. least productive, I'm talking multiples (short example I wrote http://www.jbernier.com/how-to-work-efficiently-and-stop-was...).
Judging an employee by "hours of ass in chair in office staring at computer screen" in a knowledge intensive field is an extremely inaccurate and lazy metric, used by non-technical managers who can't think of better ways to gauge the output of their employees.
Judging an employee by "hours of ass in chair in office staring at computer screen is the most common startup metric. I dislike it as much as you, but that won't change anything on it.
Everyone here seems to be thinking in hours, like they actually equate to produced product. I don't think that's really the case. It's more like working 8 hours a day so you can find that productive 2 hours in the middle somewhere where things get done.
As a manager, I don't care at all if my employees work 40 hours or 4 hours. I care about what they get done regardless of the time it takes or when they do it (to some degree). This requires _active_ management in their day-to-day with the domain knowledge to call bullshit when things aren't getting done.
This management style doesn't scale to large teams, but I find it very effective.
You sound like an excellent manager to work for. And you're right, it requires that people be adults and actively work together, make agreements, manage expectations and all that.
As long as the USA is still a nation that takes pride in the sort of values shown in this infuriating Cadillac advertisement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WKgSCPqY4M), working long (unproductive) hours isn't going away any time soon.
Besides all the scheduling trouble that would cause, what will you replace it with?
The 40 hour work week is an achievement, and if it is to be killed I would propose replacing it with the 32 hour workweek or a 24 hour one. Definitely not with a lack of structure.
I've worked for some companies long ago that did not adhere to the 40 hour workweek. Let's just say I would have been much happier if they had and that's not because they decided to go for 32 hours or 40 hours whenever I wanted to work them if you thought that was the case.
We should kill work, period. This is not the way it always was, and it's not the way it always will be. This is a brief moment in evolution, a learning experience. If some didn't insist on having plenty more than others, there would be enough for everyone without anyone working for anyone; and once you have everything provided, helping out is the natural thing to do.
No, we shouldn't. Most people are totally fine with it, me included. Why change something that works? There are always people not satisfied with the current system, but for the majority of our society, the 40 hours a week model is fine. And if it isn't, there are plenty of other options - maybe you have to look harder for them, but it's definitly possible to work on different schedules, too.
My proposal: 3 days work week. 3 days works the father, 3 days the mother, one day free for the whole family. Import taxes for all goods that come from countries that don't implement this.
As for the article, yes, it's true. But you need to have a "results based environment". This further needs that your manager can do your work. This means it will not work in most companies.
Import taxes are paid for by the consumers in your country, whose cost of living will go up and make them less competitive against consumers in other countries who don't have that burden. This is a surefire way to shift economic power away from your country and towards countries that are willing to import goods from places that have lower manufacturing costs. And it doesn't hurt the manufacturers at all, because they'll just sell to friendly markets someplace else.
Taxing imports doesn't "level the playing field" for your industries vs foreign industries. It just winds up hurting your citizens and economy. You can level the playing field by reducing your industry's labor costs by removing expensive regulations, but that means giving up environmental protections, worker protections, livable wages, etc. So that's not acceptable. I believe the only way to keep your industries competitive, while also providing the protections that your society deems valuable, is for the government to subsidize those protections instead of making the industries figure out how to pay for them. Ultimately your citizens and industries still wind up paying for it through taxes, but the cost burden is spread out and ideally the protections can be provided more efficiently by having a single organization managing them instead of every little company doing it independently.
> So the 8-hour work day, 5-day workweek wasn’t chosen as the way to work for scientific reasons; instead, it was partly driven by the goal of increasing consumption.
Money doesn't really work like that, unless you A. Saddle employees with debt or B. Boost short-term revenue so the company looks more attractive to investors.
Or is the idea that Ford would set an example so that the entire industry would start doing this, which benefits him more?
Keep in mind Ford also hired investigators to check up on his employees' morality:
> To qualify for his doubled salary, the worker had to be thrifty and continent. He had to keep his home neat and his children healthy, and, if he were below the age of twenty-two, to be married.
You could argue that Ford wanted model Protestants as employees because they increased productivity, but it's a more elaborate argument that just picking a quote or two. He may have done it for religious reasons.
We've had the concept of 'flexi-time' for decades, where people can start and finish work at different times, so they can work at the time of day that best suits them.
[+] [-] minimuffins|9 years ago|reply
> the 40-hour work week doesn’t work anymore
Doesn’t work for who? What does “works” mean anyway? Maximizes efficiency for our employers? Why is that the question? What works for you? Why not ask what works to maximize your happiness and flourishing? What works for me is fewer working hours in the week (doesn’t matter what time of day it was that I logged them) and more time to do whatever I want, whether that's coding, walking a dog, reading or doing absolutely nothing. We went from 80 hour to 40 hour weeks 100 years ago, why is 40 to 30 such a stretch today?
> During the Industrial Revolution, factories needed to be running around the clock so employees during this era frequently worked between 10-16 hour days. In the 1920s however, Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, decided to try something different: His workers would only work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
That is completely ahistorical! The 8 hour day was carved out from the 16 hour day and paid for in blood by a militant labor movement over several decades, not granted magnanimously by Henry Ford. You don’t have to consult obscure labor history to find that out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
[+] [-] mpweiher|9 years ago|reply
Or less. If you're over 40, cognitive function declines if you work more than 25 hours a week (and declines more the more you exceed). Up to 25 hours a week, cognitive function increases with more work.
Not that increasing cognitive function is the be-all and end-all, but (a) it's certainly something to consider whether you're degrading your brain and (b) 25 hours probably also works well for other reasons and for other ends.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers2.cfm?abstract_id=2737742
[+] [-] zobzu|9 years ago|reply
good luck
[+] [-] clarry|9 years ago|reply
How about this: we should absolutely become more flexible and let people find the workweek that works for themselves.
[+] [-] FullMtlAlcoholc|9 years ago|reply
The Industrial Revolution's effect on the working class is somewhat similar to what Chinese peasants who are forced to move out of their ancestral villages experience. Sure, the economist will tell you that real wages increased and the working classes began to have a more varied diet, as if that in total defines the overall happiness of a person. But despite the rise in income, many feel worse off..going from working outside and in a small, yet tight-knit community to being forced to live in polluted cities in cramped apartments where even though there are more people, there is more loneliness and alienation.
I'm fortunate and I work remotely. Due to not having to deal with all the distractions and wastes of time that are part of the modern office, I'm able to be roughly 1.8x more productive (stats from github & RescueTime). I do the same amount of work in 20-25 hours/wk that I did in 40+hrs/wk (not even including commute times). My morale, motivation, and creativity has increased greatly. I don't have to take a vacation day to deal with doctor's appointments, picking up clothes from the cleaners, going to the DMV, or whatever else you can only do from 8-5 M-F. In short, the company I work for is getting the same, if not more productivity out of me (my code is definitely of a higher quality and I'm never burned out enough to take shortcuts.) without any cost. I don't have to commute, pay, spend less on gas, eat healthier and cheaper because I have access to my kitchen, etc. It's a win for both sides without costing either party anything beyond the risk it took on allowing a remote culture.
So much of work in the modern office is pure optics. So many times after lunch I would be well served by taking a nap for an hour or two instead of wasting 2-3 hours staring blankly at a screen while I'm doing the microsleep, head bob dance.
[+] [-] np422|9 years ago|reply
The 8 hour workday was made possible by increasing productivity, mostly due to accumulated production capital and technological improvements ...
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] codingdave|9 years ago|reply
I'm not arguing against flexible scheduling -- I live that life, and I will proclaim its benefits as much as anyone. But to really engage in a meaningful discussion about it, we need to realize that different people have different needs. And for much of the working population, the primary need is about providing for their family, not self-fulfillment in their own work.
[+] [-] kome|9 years ago|reply
That's another problem, not entirely related to the 40h work week.
[+] [-] em3rgent0rdr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the-dude|9 years ago|reply
This baffles me the most.
[+] [-] decebalus1|9 years ago|reply
There are schools around here which start at 9 or 10 or finish at 3. Good luck picking up your kids or preparing your kids when you NEED to be at work at 9 AM sharp or can't leave your workplace until 5 or 6 PM.
[+] [-] laughfactory|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] didibus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcmonk|9 years ago|reply
If killing the 40-hour work week means I'm now working six days a week instead of five, then long live the 40-hour work week.
Some people (myself included) need two days per week off work, except in special circumstances. We also need to be able to clock out of work and not feel bad about doing so just because we still have work. The worst thing about university to me was the feeling of always having more work to do. I understand avoiding the "I'm just working until the clock hand turns a little further" state, but often the cumulative effects of the proposed alternative are worse.
[+] [-] falcolas|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helthanatos|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksk|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dilemma|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kawera|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nvk|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] princeb|9 years ago|reply
to use an example of a fictional manufacturing company, i'd like to commission a piece of software that can do almost anything- from processing an order from any business, that can come in digital format, scanned, printed, or spoken over the phone, to generating an purchase orders and sales orders to our suppliers and distributors who may have an online interface or who may still use fax or phone and may communicate in english or not english.
that is quite a difficult piece of software to build so most companies don't actually build that at all. instead they rely on hordes of people who are configurable in any imaginable way to solve problems that appear in unimaginable forms.
[+] [-] k__|9 years ago|reply
The are a bit like the socialism in capitalism. Most of the jobs are redundant and could be done more efficiently by a bunch of small corps instead of one big.
[+] [-] barnacs|9 years ago|reply
That's what machines are for. We need to embrace automation.
> Society needs what large corporations produce
Nope. Large corporations spend loads of money and manpower to make people think they need what they produce.
> People need the wages these corporations pay.
Not if they resist the manipulation to buy all the useless stuff. Not if automation makes everything cheaper.
> The 40hr work week is going nowhere.
Oh, but it is going. The sooner we realize this, the easier the transition will be.
[+] [-] aloisdg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] branchless|9 years ago|reply
We should move to a 4 day week.
[+] [-] mtw|9 years ago|reply
Modern society has conventions that makes it work well. Like the expectation that the delivery guy will work from 9-to-5, instead of trying to deliver at 2am or in a Sunday morning, because that's optimal for his circadian rhytm. Same for the bank or the library or Starbucks open during the day. This convention lets us help plan our day. Without these you will have to plan for contingencies. These can be acute when you have a chronic disease, disabled or have babies/children. You just wish that everyone works 9 to 5 just so you can go through the day.
[+] [-] SketchySeaBeast|9 years ago|reply
That's exactly my thoughts. I provide analysis & design work for government - even the fact that I'm an early riser is an issue, as leaving the office that 1-2 hours before the government mandated 4:30 end time causes them to be partially without the instant support and feedback they expect.
[+] [-] lsy|9 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
Keeping this history in mind might allow us to determine other reasons and means for improving on the workweek than pure business interest.
[+] [-] ue_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beat|9 years ago|reply
The call for eight hour workdays was over a century old by the time Henry Ford implemented it. It was a major point of discussion for Karl Marx. Forty years before Henry Ford's supposedly brilliant insight, in the Bay View Labor Riot of 1886, the Wisconsin state militia opened fire on labor activists protesting for an eight hour workday, killing seven.
None of this is new. This is a battle labor has been fighting for two centuries now.
[+] [-] JDiculous|9 years ago|reply
The whole concept of an X hour work week is stupid for most of us on HN in knowledge intensive industries.
It makes sense if the work you're doing is a direct function of time - think receptionists, cashiers, phone customer service, assembly line workers.
If the work is knowledge intensive, then your output is generally not a mere function of hours worked. In software engineering, productivity can vary enormously when you're "in-the-zone" vs. feeling tired and sluggish. I'm not talking about a mere 15% difference in peak productivity vs. least productive, I'm talking multiples (short example I wrote http://www.jbernier.com/how-to-work-efficiently-and-stop-was...).
Judging an employee by "hours of ass in chair in office staring at computer screen" in a knowledge intensive field is an extremely inaccurate and lazy metric, used by non-technical managers who can't think of better ways to gauge the output of their employees.
[+] [-] watwut|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deedubaya|9 years ago|reply
As a manager, I don't care at all if my employees work 40 hours or 4 hours. I care about what they get done regardless of the time it takes or when they do it (to some degree). This requires _active_ management in their day-to-day with the domain knowledge to call bullshit when things aren't getting done.
This management style doesn't scale to large teams, but I find it very effective.
[+] [-] laughfactory|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TurboHaskal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minikites|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielschonfeld|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|9 years ago|reply
The 40 hour work week is an achievement, and if it is to be killed I would propose replacing it with the 32 hour workweek or a 24 hour one. Definitely not with a lack of structure.
I've worked for some companies long ago that did not adhere to the 40 hour workweek. Let's just say I would have been much happier if they had and that's not because they decided to go for 32 hours or 40 hours whenever I wanted to work them if you thought that was the case.
[+] [-] codr4life|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koonsolo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thatfrenchguy|9 years ago|reply
You need workaholism consulting. Repeat after me: more hours do not mean higher throughput.
[+] [-] Longhanks|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GoToRO|9 years ago|reply
As for the article, yes, it's true. But you need to have a "results based environment". This further needs that your manager can do your work. This means it will not work in most companies.
[+] [-] DougWebb|9 years ago|reply
Taxing imports doesn't "level the playing field" for your industries vs foreign industries. It just winds up hurting your citizens and economy. You can level the playing field by reducing your industry's labor costs by removing expensive regulations, but that means giving up environmental protections, worker protections, livable wages, etc. So that's not acceptable. I believe the only way to keep your industries competitive, while also providing the protections that your society deems valuable, is for the government to subsidize those protections instead of making the industries figure out how to pay for them. Ultimately your citizens and industries still wind up paying for it through taxes, but the cost burden is spread out and ideally the protections can be provided more efficiently by having a single organization managing them instead of every little company doing it independently.
[+] [-] MichaelBurge|9 years ago|reply
Money doesn't really work like that, unless you A. Saddle employees with debt or B. Boost short-term revenue so the company looks more attractive to investors.
Or is the idea that Ford would set an example so that the entire industry would start doing this, which benefits him more?
Keep in mind Ford also hired investigators to check up on his employees' morality:
> To qualify for his doubled salary, the worker had to be thrifty and continent. He had to keep his home neat and his children healthy, and, if he were below the age of twenty-two, to be married.
You could argue that Ford wanted model Protestants as employees because they increased productivity, but it's a more elaborate argument that just picking a quote or two. He may have done it for religious reasons.
[+] [-] joosters|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxerickson|9 years ago|reply
Companies aren't going to cut hours much when it drives up the effective cost of benefit packages.
[+] [-] em3rgent0rdr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcmonk|9 years ago|reply