I switched to a 4-day working week a few years back, taking a 20% pay cut in the process - and I haven't looked back!
There has been no drop in productivity - I guess I procrastinate less, and am more focused on doing things that need done.
I have an extra day for family and side projects - 1 day might not sound like much, but having that extra day off feels like my work/life balance is so much better!
If anyone else has the opportunity, and can afford the pay cut of course, I highly recommend it.
P.S. there was no way to negotiate less than a 20% cut; I work for a megacorp that has rigid rules and doesn't give half a crusty shit about individuals.
Edit: I should have also mentioned that I'm in the UK, where under EU law, employers have to consider reasonable requests for flexible working. I should have also mentioned that I work 7.5h per day, and the only time I work overtime is when I'm travelling to a customer site (which itself is rare, obviously not happening at all now!)
>I have an extra day for family and side projects - 1 day might not sound like much, but having that extra day off feels like my work/life balance is so much better!
That's because you increase your free days by 50% by cutting your work days by 20%. It's not a symmetric exchange. I did the same over the summer (just by using my excess vacation days) and it was a revelation. Highly recommend, especially now that it's so hard to travel.
For me, working from home these past 7 years has added this same kind of balance to my life. Chores and errands became easier to fit in, exercise at noon literally is a matter of stepping outside to bike, run, or hit the gym. It saves 10+ hours a week of travel, less stress and expense of commuting, and did I mention I don't need to shower until after my noontime workout?
Granted, at times I'm on the job until late at night, to get things done and, sometimes, to make up for an extra long shopping excursion etc.
A 4 day on-site job would feel severely disadvantageous by comparison.
I know trying to measure productivity is controversial and prone to issues but I wish there was an accepted way to measure it. At least then we'd be able to ask for a 4-day week and promise the same productivity.
I know I've spent half a day messing around before and then smashed out a piece of work in a few hours and still had the impression of being productive. Simply because the majority of employees aren't as productive as me. Being a very productive and capable developer will open lots of opportunities but some of us don't want to climb the ladder. I just want a comfortable job and be good at it.
I'd never take a pay cut though. If you kept the same productivity at a lower pay then you're effectively saying they overpaid you before. 20% less pay is 20% less work in my eyes.
100% seconded. I was expecting 4-day workweeks to be 20% better, but no, they're massively better. The weekend just drags on for ever and the workweek is over before you know it.
I think working less than 100% time, even as low as 50% time, is sort of a holy grail for software engineers, and can be well worth the reduction in pay. Any of your extra time you choose to spend on education will pay dividends in the future. I've managed to pull this off on occasion.
I'm a freelancer and not an employee, so you'd think it would be easy to negotiate such. However, I keep running into the same issue: few people need just a little software engineering. If someone needs some software engineering, they usually need a lot of it. Several times, I've been hired by customers with the promise of "we just need 10 hours a week", but somehow get talked into working full time pretty quickly.
A parallel experiment would have been to do the same informally - just work four days a week and "work" from home one day a week refusing to take meetings/oncall on that day - and see if anyone really noticed.
The megacorp I have spent large amounts of time at actually seems to have a significant population of people with this informal arrangement with mixed opinion on the part of their management mostly based on how close they are to a realist position.
I had a 32-hour/week contract position for a while. I'm pretty sure I was within a rounding error of productivity for full time.
The biggest thing about working fewer hours was I could shift my days around to optimize for tasks. When I sat down to write code, I was in the zone to write code.
It's something I could do, but I always think that as long as I'm able to earn that money, better get it as we don't know what tomorrow will be made of.
I’m guessing you’re in EU somewhere? If so you should probably mention that, because very normal and humane things like these (and others like healthcare, 25+ paid holidays, unemployment policies, maternity/paternity leave, etc.) are unimaginable for our HN fellows from the US ;)
edit: I’m teasing ofcourse forgive me :) But like I mention in another comment, you have to agree employment in the US is generally very different from the EU with regard to working hours etc.
Since being mandated to work from home, my team has switched to seven hour days (including an hour for lunch, ie, 10:00am - 5:00pm). My dream was a four day work week but this was my second choice! It’s so much easier to stay focused knowing the day is shorter and our productivity has shot up. There are, of course, other factors as well like. It having to commute and working remote, but still, the shorter day makes a huge difference.
Half my team do 4x10 hour days, I've done it in the past myself too, now I just flex my time over 5 days though. Perhaps helps that the larger department work shifts (the department we work most closely with are 16/7/365, but others are 24/7/365)
Even though we have many luxuries, modern life does require a lot of admin. Most of which needs be be conducted during business hours. I recently took a two week vacation and spent half of it catching up on BS life admin that I had neglected over the last 6 months / year due to a hectic work schedule.
I'd imagine many of us are not wealthy enough to afford a personal assistant but live complex enough lives to warrant it. Modern life kind of requires a 4 day work week, if you are salaried slave.
Something funny is happening in my native Belgium. Some people drop their fifth formal working day to become bicycle couriers, Uber drivers or whatnot in the "sharing economy". The reason is taxation regimes.
80% or 100% gross wage as a median income employee will hardly make any difference in net wage around there. A friend for example recently got a promotion from an entry level job (with tax discounts) to something more in line with her qualifications (without tax discounts). 600€ gross salary increase translated to 155€ net salary increase. All the rest got eaten by tax and social contributions increases.
Belgium combines high formal job taxes combine with a low tax scheme meant to formalise "sharing economy" jobs. These enjoy super low 10% taxation up to 500€ per month. Many people actually do the math. They switch to 80% formal jobs hardly losing any income. Some actually increase their income by becoming pizza couriers or Uber drivers in their 20% time...
UPDATED: corrected the net wage delta from 100 to 155€.
My first job out of college in 2008 was with Lockheed Martin, which supported flexible work schedules. You could work the traditional 40 hour week M-F, 9 hour days with every other Friday off (9-10), or four 10 hour days with every Friday off. Most people enjoyed the flexible schedules. Since Friday was the one day in flux, everyone knew to avoid scheduling important meetings on Friday. Being young and naive, I assumed most tech employers offered flexible schedules. I now know that this is regrettably not the case. I hope more employers will embrace this in the future. The costs to the firm are negligible, but flexible schedules can be a huge benefit to employees.
I worked at lockheed for my first job as well. I found the flexible schedules to be great but less productive so I understand why others don't support it. Most of the engineers I worked with seemed to not be great at staying productive on 9 or 10 hour days any more then they were at 8 so I'd call it a net loss for the company. Honestly though there is so much bloat at defense contractors it doesn't really matter for them.
It's appalling, but not surprising, how little of the world cares about taking even ONE day off every week, let alone two, and laughable to suggest mandating three days off.
In the UAE, for example, most people work 12+ hours every day, and barely get just Fridays off. Almost every one I know was working on Christmas, and they'll be working on New Year's. Vacations etc are unthinkable.
They don't feel it's odd or that it's "over"working or that having more free time would be rewarding; this is dominant mentality in the the Middle East and most of Asia and Africa (and I bet in other "poor" regions like parts of South America and Eastern Europe too).
Being idle in these societies is seen as a sin at best and the difference between survival and starvation in practice. Besides, even if people were forced to take 2 days off every week, they wouldn't know what to do with their time anyway (which manifests as the generally low output of creative arts from these parts), or have the disposable income to indulge in anything beyond a stroll at the mall or a meal at McDonald's (though KFC is more common round here I suppose).
Holidays are a first world luxury.
If everyone took them more often in every country, your Samsungs etc would be a lot more expensive.
I switched to a three day week (and then worked for two years on this basis before retiring). Overall it was successful and I was glad that I did it. My work-life balance was great and the pay cut was expected and manageable. I usually worked Mondays to Wednesdays so that I could get two contiguous days (Thursdays and Fridays) when children would be at school (so that I could go on child-free visits). Monday mornings were just as bad as they had always been, but Wednesdays were suddenly Fridays!
One thing that convinced me that the company would tolerate it was that women returning from maternity leave often worked a three day week, so there was good precedent from a management perspective. And my female colleagues also persuaded me that it was doable.
The biggest challenge I found was having to work on projects that had frequent and unpredictable interactions with customers / stakeholders. I didn't mind occasionally swapping my days around to accommodate interactions, but there was one project that I would have enjoyed in terms of the work, but which I stepped back from because its timings were so unpredictable. This was probably the main problem with non-standard hours.
I think one thing that really deserves emphasis in this conversation is that the notion of a 40 hour/5x8 work week is not something that was developed scientifically or based on any kind of evidence. It was developed by people who were working 80-100 hour/11-14x7 work weeks literally putting themselves in the line of gunfire to establish a 40 hour week. There's nothing sacrosanct about the 40 hour week or the 2 day weekend at all except the value we give it (or the value we let employers extract from it).
I used to do 4/10 hour days a week, and like it much better than 8/5. Between the commute, meal prep, grooming/getting dressed, etc., it feels like the day is gone anyway because I didn't feel like doing anything resembling work when I got home. 4/10 felt like getting a free day off. The only downside was when some sort of mandatory meeting would get scheduled for your off day, and you ended up having to do the whole morning routine and commute just to come in for an hour.
I had to move to 4days week due to covid. Must say that, unexpectedly, it was very good experience. It felt almost like 50/50 work/free days. I was more focused at work. I was more productive. Although, honestly, I don't think I was able to deliver same output as 5days week. The way I see it, you have only a few hours per day where your output is at the highest level. When you cut off 1 day you also decrease that hours. You can't just squeeze them into other days, because it doesn't work like that.
I actually learnt two lessons:
4 days a week is something I'm looking forward when I have a profitable side project.
5 days x 6 hours imo is better than 5 x 8 hours, better to be less tired and maximize next day's most productive hours than to be tired and burn out eventually
I feel like most office jobs are fairly accommodating about flexible time for chores these days. I work a 5-day week, but I don't think I've ever used vacation days to go to the DMV or the dentist either (~15 years as a white-collar worker in various parts of the US, multiple industries and levels).
What the hell do you do at the DMV? I honestly can't figure it out, but it seems like Americans are always going 'to the DMV', this side of the pond I think the equivalent (authority handling driver licencing, road tax, vehicle registration, etc.?) is the DVLA. I have and would never 'go to the DVLA', I have no idea where that would be, I assume it's just offices. It's all online and other than changing address when I moved I haven't even needed that.
Whereas in normal years, for all the jokes you'd like to make about British teeth, I go to the dentist every 6/9/12 months (according to ~how short of cash he is~ his recommendation) - but going by HN comments and films et al. 'the DMV' seems an even popular day out!(?)
I have never worked for an employer that didn't let you casually pop out to handle these things, provided you don't miss a previously scheduled meeting.
At my current company, we are explicitly allowed to schedule work hours off for these.
It really boils down to trust. My manager trusts I will make up lost time after my doctor's appointment, as they generally know if I've been falling behind work or not. We also give daily standup status updates so its obvious if work isn't progressing after some time.
This also works in reverse. If I work on Sat/Sun for some system maintenance then my manager tells me to swap time off during the week. But in my experience, What usually happens is I work my full week anyway because something important arose and I push that "time off" to the next week until I forget I had it.
In practice, are the last 8 hours of a workweek as productive as the first 8 hours? Would employers actually be losing 20% of a worker's productivity in many cases? Or would it be more like 10%? Maybe even less, if productivity improves on the four working days?
Hard to generalize of course, but my gut feeling (based on my company’s experiment for 13 weeks) is that it’s less than 10%. Potentially increasing longer-term productivity. Emphasis on long-term because it might seem like a drop in the short term. Longer term job satisfaction and general well being can increase, focus and just being able to recharge more effectively. Yes, completely anecdotal. FWIW My company since decided to switch to 4-days all year in 2021.
For myself, I find I'm more productive in the last half of the week. But my employer (and team) tend to front-load the week with meetings, so by Wednesday my schedule is clear enough to be heads-down and get stuff done.
I guess the impact is quite small since deadlocks (meetings, approvals, other peoples' code etc) you need to wait out is much of the work hours anyway.
You know what other societal paradigm shift could be really amazing but nobody seems to have brought it up yet?
Working in the evening instead of daytime.
Specially in hot ass countries/cities.
I mean really, do most modern jobs really depend on sunlight anymore?
Right now most people's daily cycle is "Rest -> Work -> Leisure -> Rest"
We should give "Rest -> Leisure -> Work -> Rest" a try.
Some other radical ideas: Let people alternate between 2 jobs every week. Like say being a waiter one week then a store clerk the other week. Most professions like cashiers etc could easily handle this. The benefit to workers would be the option to gain more experience/networking/mobility and a safety net of always having a backup job if you lose one.
In countries with relatively high progressivity in taxes the equation becomes even more attractive. You lose 20% of your pre-tax salary, but you lose much less on your post-tax salary. In europe the marginal tax can easily be close to (or even over) 50% so in practice you work 20% less hours and lose 10% of your post tax salary. The thing that amazes me is why people do not push for this more.
I have been working four six hour days a week for the last two years. It’s life changing. I can wake up and lay around the house in a tired stupor for an hour if I didn’t sleep well, and then start getting ready for work and leave an hour later. If I did sleep well I can go outside for a hike around the neighborhood trails or finish whatever software project I started for fun the night before. The weekends feel long. My personal project game is off the chart and I feel like I’m on the path to monetizing personal projects via YouTube. I am learning so much. I’ve started a computer vision project for my off road robot and I’m learning all the stuff required to make a self driving vehicle using only cameras, inspired by what Tesla has done and the lectures Andrej Karpathy has given on that architecture.
I don’t think I can ever go back to the Silicon Valley corporate churn. I’d rather be careful with my cash than be flush with RSUs and dream of living my life. I’m 36 and I’m living my life NOW, not in some far off dream after two decades of churn.
I feel bad that most people don’t get this opportunity. I really think we need to change our work norms to allow for this. What is the point of life if we spend it always working? I’ve been very productive at work. I’ve designed and built a whole solar powered farming robot vehicle (no tools, just the autonomous vehicle so far) in 18 months working 20-25 hours a week. Does one individual really need to be more productive than that? (You can if you want, but do we all NEED to?)
My employer has an unlimited PTO policy- you simply make the arrangements with your manager, which are almost always approved as long as your on-call/customer-facing shifts are covered.
We most often use this policy to take a few hours off during a day when needed to take care of errands. It's nice to be able to schedule around doctor's offices, bank and school hours.
My sister worked a 9/9s schedule at a previous job (9 hour shifts with every other Friday off) and also found it very useful.
Something that seems to be missing here is retention. By giving this sort of flexibility to employees you will improve it. This will offset losses in producitivity, assuming a 4 day week created any (which is a moot point), as people become more productive the more they know about the company / domain etc.
Poor retention and high churn is a HUGE problem in most tech companies as half the people generally know very little about what they're working on.
I moved to a 4-day week at the beginning of the pandemic due to a salary reduction.
it was so good for my productivity and mental health that when we returned to full pay i negotiated to continue the pattern but switch from 4/8 to 4/10. No objections.
My eldest just started her career in nursing. They do three 12 hour shifts a week. She's exhausted at the end of the day, but she's loving having four days off each week.
[+] [-] GordonS|5 years ago|reply
There has been no drop in productivity - I guess I procrastinate less, and am more focused on doing things that need done.
I have an extra day for family and side projects - 1 day might not sound like much, but having that extra day off feels like my work/life balance is so much better!
If anyone else has the opportunity, and can afford the pay cut of course, I highly recommend it.
P.S. there was no way to negotiate less than a 20% cut; I work for a megacorp that has rigid rules and doesn't give half a crusty shit about individuals.
Edit: I should have also mentioned that I'm in the UK, where under EU law, employers have to consider reasonable requests for flexible working. I should have also mentioned that I work 7.5h per day, and the only time I work overtime is when I'm travelling to a customer site (which itself is rare, obviously not happening at all now!)
[+] [-] bitcurious|5 years ago|reply
That's because you increase your free days by 50% by cutting your work days by 20%. It's not a symmetric exchange. I did the same over the summer (just by using my excess vacation days) and it was a revelation. Highly recommend, especially now that it's so hard to travel.
[+] [-] blisterpeanuts|5 years ago|reply
Granted, at times I'm on the job until late at night, to get things done and, sometimes, to make up for an extra long shopping excursion etc.
A 4 day on-site job would feel severely disadvantageous by comparison.
[+] [-] MHordecki|5 years ago|reply
As in, your output is the same as with a 5 day work week? So essentially a 20% pay cut per unit of work performed?
[+] [-] Philip-J-Fry|5 years ago|reply
I know I've spent half a day messing around before and then smashed out a piece of work in a few hours and still had the impression of being productive. Simply because the majority of employees aren't as productive as me. Being a very productive and capable developer will open lots of opportunities but some of us don't want to climb the ladder. I just want a comfortable job and be good at it.
I'd never take a pay cut though. If you kept the same productivity at a lower pay then you're effectively saying they overpaid you before. 20% less pay is 20% less work in my eyes.
[+] [-] StavrosK|5 years ago|reply
Highly recommended.
[+] [-] simmons|5 years ago|reply
I'm a freelancer and not an employee, so you'd think it would be easy to negotiate such. However, I keep running into the same issue: few people need just a little software engineering. If someone needs some software engineering, they usually need a lot of it. Several times, I've been hired by customers with the promise of "we just need 10 hours a week", but somehow get talked into working full time pretty quickly.
[+] [-] foobiekr|5 years ago|reply
The megacorp I have spent large amounts of time at actually seems to have a significant population of people with this informal arrangement with mixed opinion on the part of their management mostly based on how close they are to a realist position.
[+] [-] tristanperry|5 years ago|reply
20% less pay for 50% more leisure time each week = winning.
[+] [-] jahewson|5 years ago|reply
That means there’s been a 20% increase in productivity! So you’re now underpaid by 20%.
[+] [-] SkyPuncher|5 years ago|reply
The biggest thing about working fewer hours was I could shift my days around to optimize for tasks. When I sat down to write code, I was in the zone to write code.
[+] [-] yodsanklai|5 years ago|reply
It's something I could do, but I always think that as long as I'm able to earn that money, better get it as we don't know what tomorrow will be made of.
[+] [-] maya24|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rvanmil|5 years ago|reply
edit: I’m teasing ofcourse forgive me :) But like I mention in another comment, you have to agree employment in the US is generally very different from the EU with regard to working hours etc.
[+] [-] dpc_pw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sillysaurusx|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sodapopcan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbeller|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iso1210|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gazelleeatslion|5 years ago|reply
Why as people do we not just add an extra day to the week between Saturday and Sunday?
Who cares about official calendar?
Make all months 4 days longer.
All work weeks still 5 days.
All monthly : 30 day contracts stay the same.
People who need cash or work hard can use the extra day to get ahead.
3 day weekend society - I would vote for it.
[+] [-] runawaybottle|5 years ago|reply
Fake-work-fridays is the new casual Friday.
What are you gonna do it about? And no, I’m not taking a pay cut either.
[+] [-] coenhyde|5 years ago|reply
I'd imagine many of us are not wealthy enough to afford a personal assistant but live complex enough lives to warrant it. Modern life kind of requires a 4 day work week, if you are salaried slave.
[+] [-] markvdb|5 years ago|reply
Something funny is happening in my native Belgium. Some people drop their fifth formal working day to become bicycle couriers, Uber drivers or whatnot in the "sharing economy". The reason is taxation regimes.
80% or 100% gross wage as a median income employee will hardly make any difference in net wage around there. A friend for example recently got a promotion from an entry level job (with tax discounts) to something more in line with her qualifications (without tax discounts). 600€ gross salary increase translated to 155€ net salary increase. All the rest got eaten by tax and social contributions increases.
Belgium combines high formal job taxes combine with a low tax scheme meant to formalise "sharing economy" jobs. These enjoy super low 10% taxation up to 500€ per month. Many people actually do the math. They switch to 80% formal jobs hardly losing any income. Some actually increase their income by becoming pizza couriers or Uber drivers in their 20% time...
UPDATED: corrected the net wage delta from 100 to 155€.
[+] [-] gingerlime|5 years ago|reply
[0] https://blog.gingerlime.com/2020/how-we-switched-to-4-day-we...
[+] [-] cebert|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbish|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scapeghost|5 years ago|reply
In the UAE, for example, most people work 12+ hours every day, and barely get just Fridays off. Almost every one I know was working on Christmas, and they'll be working on New Year's. Vacations etc are unthinkable.
They don't feel it's odd or that it's "over"working or that having more free time would be rewarding; this is dominant mentality in the the Middle East and most of Asia and Africa (and I bet in other "poor" regions like parts of South America and Eastern Europe too).
Being idle in these societies is seen as a sin at best and the difference between survival and starvation in practice. Besides, even if people were forced to take 2 days off every week, they wouldn't know what to do with their time anyway (which manifests as the generally low output of creative arts from these parts), or have the disposable income to indulge in anything beyond a stroll at the mall or a meal at McDonald's (though KFC is more common round here I suppose).
Holidays are a first world luxury.
If everyone took them more often in every country, your Samsungs etc would be a lot more expensive.
[+] [-] kome|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KineticLensman|5 years ago|reply
One thing that convinced me that the company would tolerate it was that women returning from maternity leave often worked a three day week, so there was good precedent from a management perspective. And my female colleagues also persuaded me that it was doable.
The biggest challenge I found was having to work on projects that had frequent and unpredictable interactions with customers / stakeholders. I didn't mind occasionally swapping my days around to accommodate interactions, but there was one project that I would have enjoyed in terms of the work, but which I stepped back from because its timings were so unpredictable. This was probably the main problem with non-standard hours.
[+] [-] eyelidlessness|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dx87|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamzapasnik|5 years ago|reply
I actually learnt two lessons:
4 days a week is something I'm looking forward when I have a profitable side project.
5 days x 6 hours imo is better than 5 x 8 hours, better to be less tired and maximize next day's most productive hours than to be tired and burn out eventually
[+] [-] caturopath|5 years ago|reply
I feel like most office jobs are fairly accommodating about flexible time for chores these days. I work a 5-day week, but I don't think I've ever used vacation days to go to the DMV or the dentist either (~15 years as a white-collar worker in various parts of the US, multiple industries and levels).
[+] [-] OJFord|5 years ago|reply
Whereas in normal years, for all the jokes you'd like to make about British teeth, I go to the dentist every 6/9/12 months (according to ~how short of cash he is~ his recommendation) - but going by HN comments and films et al. 'the DMV' seems an even popular day out!(?)
[+] [-] MattGaiser|5 years ago|reply
At my current company, we are explicitly allowed to schedule work hours off for these.
[+] [-] amdelamar|5 years ago|reply
This also works in reverse. If I work on Sat/Sun for some system maintenance then my manager tells me to swap time off during the week. But in my experience, What usually happens is I work my full week anyway because something important arose and I push that "time off" to the next week until I forget I had it.
[+] [-] pkaye|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beat|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gingerlime|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dhagz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rightbyte|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway201103|5 years ago|reply
Friday you are less inclined to start anything big because you've got the weekend coming up. Monday you are getting back into the flow.
My WFH has been weird because I'm basically unsupervised. I've found that my work productivity has fallen off a cliff.
[+] [-] Scapeghost|5 years ago|reply
Working in the evening instead of daytime.
Specially in hot ass countries/cities.
I mean really, do most modern jobs really depend on sunlight anymore?
Right now most people's daily cycle is "Rest -> Work -> Leisure -> Rest"
We should give "Rest -> Leisure -> Work -> Rest" a try.
Some other radical ideas: Let people alternate between 2 jobs every week. Like say being a waiter one week then a store clerk the other week. Most professions like cashiers etc could easily handle this. The benefit to workers would be the option to gain more experience/networking/mobility and a safety net of always having a backup job if you lose one.
[+] [-] beefield|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|5 years ago|reply
I don’t think I can ever go back to the Silicon Valley corporate churn. I’d rather be careful with my cash than be flush with RSUs and dream of living my life. I’m 36 and I’m living my life NOW, not in some far off dream after two decades of churn.
I feel bad that most people don’t get this opportunity. I really think we need to change our work norms to allow for this. What is the point of life if we spend it always working? I’ve been very productive at work. I’ve designed and built a whole solar powered farming robot vehicle (no tools, just the autonomous vehicle so far) in 18 months working 20-25 hours a week. Does one individual really need to be more productive than that? (You can if you want, but do we all NEED to?)
[+] [-] dharmab|5 years ago|reply
We most often use this policy to take a few hours off during a day when needed to take care of errands. It's nice to be able to schedule around doctor's offices, bank and school hours.
My sister worked a 9/9s schedule at a previous job (9 hour shifts with every other Friday off) and also found it very useful.
[+] [-] jmfldn|5 years ago|reply
Poor retention and high churn is a HUGE problem in most tech companies as half the people generally know very little about what they're working on.
[+] [-] uncledave|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hprotagonist|5 years ago|reply
it was so good for my productivity and mental health that when we returned to full pay i negotiated to continue the pattern but switch from 4/8 to 4/10. No objections.
[+] [-] jcims|5 years ago|reply