[sentimentscan]

My friends and I would love to have 4/5 or 3/5 of working days with 4/5 or 3/5 of salary, but sadly I don't know any companies that offer that. I understand that it may be hard with meeting culture, but we can make 1 or 2 days with no meetings. I don't want to go back to the stress and uncertainty of freelancing; I want a predictable, safe income with simply scaled-back hours/pay. My salary (and my friends') in IT is 2-3 times more than the average pay, and 60/80% is more than enough to live comfortably

[zamadatix]

I don't think time worked linearly correlates with profitability, especially when talking about long timeframes. E.g. working 120 hours per week for a year is extremely unlikely to result in 3x the productivity as 40 hours a week. Same with working 3/5ths as much, it's unlikely to linearly scale down to 3/5ths the value (not that "it can't ever", just not as a typical expectation).

That aside, plenty of places offer a 4x10, or are fine with it when asked, and I think that's a more productive way to put in 40 hours each week while also being more convenient for yourself (before even getting into wanting to lower total hours).

[instagib]

4x10 is rough. I’ve been in positions that started with 5x8 then went to 4x10, then others 8,10, or 12 with built in overtime or comp time to get to 40hrs average.

You end up trying to cheat meals for speed eating unhealthy. High amounts of caffeine, little family time, and at least the first day off is usually wasted catching up on lost sleep. If you happen to do shift work, good luck trying to get much done as you need to shift to a different schedule to be somewhere during open hours.

We were more inefficient going from 5x8 to 4x10. Try training on little sleep before coffee kicks in. You need to re-do it later. Try sleeping after drinking coffee all day to stay awake, it’s great for your heart and blood pressure.

[snapplebobapple]

Those don't exist because of unintended (but obvious) consequences of government regulation. For all sorts of reasons the risk and cost profile is pretty similar per employee whether they are 20 hours a week or 60 hours a week (non exhaustive examples: health insurance costs me the same to provide no matter how many hours an employee works. Depending on your regulatory regime certain payments like pensions/unemployment are capped so more workers earning less can actually cost more than less workers earning more, firing regulations makes more employees riskier because the probability you hire junk you can't get rid of or an employee turns to junk and you can't fire is higher with more employees, etc.) Since there is a very real cost with what you want your skill set has to be scarce enough to make the added cost worth incurring. As long as I can hire someone that will work full time for similar hourly equivalent pay, the part timers will not be seriously considered.

[mcv]

Health insurance being dependent on your employment, is a whole problem on its own. Of course these things need to be arranged differently, ajd with more freedom for the people themselves.

That said, I recently opted for a 40 hour work week for the first time in decades because otherwise this job is too big a step back in income.

[cgravill]

It's definitely possible, and my current company were very happy to agree to 4/5 of the time for 4/5 of the salary and it's working out well for everyone. However, I've also found some organisations - that are otherwise good - to be hostile to working less than full hours. Since we work on interesting problems and they were happy to go with 80% it made it an easy task deciding which job to accept!

I should add that's it's a start-up so some weeks I work more and others less. But I still have the day my kids that I wanted.

Perhaps try quietly asking your current company? They might surprise you and start a trend.

[rayiner]

If you want to work a 25 hour week you can go to where my wife’s family is from and pick up however many shifts you want at the local convenience store. You can live a lifestyle comparable to my wife’s grandparents working far less of the day.

The problem is in knowledge work fields where manpower isn’t scalable (read the Mythical Man Month), and the industries are competitive and winner-take-all. A programmer who works 30 hours a week is far less valuable than than one that works 50 hours a week.

[fragmede]

Depends on what they do with those 30 and 50 hours. If they're burnt out, even 100 hours chained to an in-person desk, they aren't going to accomplish much, so that's just not true. The right software engineer can come in, have a pointed discussion, have some coffee, go look at some code, have a few conversations, and have a bigger impact in an hour in terms of setting future direction and avoiding pitfalls than a different engineer could do in a week.

[47282847]

In Germany companies are legally required to allow part-time deals for previously full-time employees. (§ 8+9 TzBfG (Teilzeit- und Befristungsgesetz)

[prmoustache]

You shouldn't have 4/5 of the salary when working 4/5 days because you would be doing the same amount of work.