Re:It's time to switch to a four-day working week, say two e...
by Swizec on Saturday June 08, 2019 @05:19PM
(#20135256)
> most modern workplaces are not factory floors 'processing work items', so the analogy only goes so far.
I recommend reading The Phoenix Project. It does a great job of dispelling the myth that software engineering is unpredictable and artisanal and whatnot. At the abstraction layer of a department or division manager it becomes indistinguishable and the same stochastic modeling principles apply.
But that’s besides the point. A more important point is the idea of effectiveness.
4 days of effective work are often better than 5 days of being busy but ineffective.
Personally I get more done in a 4 day week because I am more cut-throat about saying No to things that don’t matter.
Re:It's time to switch to a four-day working week, say two e...
by necovek on Saturday June 08, 2019 @06:14PM
(#20135536)
Even just "more relaxed" waiting staff would result in better relationships with customers, resulting in better tips and more returning customers.
Again, this could only be (dis)proven in a large-numbers experiment (so no, not in a single cafe :)), but I don't think this is limited to any one particular area of work.
Also, it very well could be that reducing to 4 from 5 does nothing but simply reduce the number of hours 'the factory is operating'. Surely there'd be a bonus because people might be more relaxed, but it's hard to weight that against the lost day.
For example, my local coffee shop is open 7 days a week, let's say that their staff works 5 days on, 2 off so there's a steady rate of staffers.
If they just switched to 4 on 3 off ... I'm not sure anything would materially change in terms of productivity etc. - and 'all else being equal' (i.e. demand, cost of goods, wages/hour), the staffers would simply make less money and I doubt they'd chose that.
But maybe '3/4 days' would be better in some industries than others.