I just recently started a 32 hour a week salaried job. Here’s my story.
I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week.
My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview process wasn’t arduous, and I felt I could do the job, I went through with interviews in good faith.
Every time I did this, I got to the offer phase. With nothing to lose, at that moment I asked to work four days a week. I didn’t demand it. I just asked for it. I think I even said the exact words “I know you’ll probably say no to this, but I want to work four days a week.”
One place made an offer that wasn’t better enough compared to my existing job. I didn’t accept and moved on.
Eventually a place made an offer I couldn’t refuse. I have been here almost two months. Have yet to work on a Friday. I’m actually working harder than ever on Monday through Thursday. I am motivated to make this last, because honestly it is just as fantastic as I imagined. My life is so good right now despite the world being terrible.
Context: I do recruiting as a team lead.
I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours, thats another topic). I was several times in the position where a candidate suddenly said, that he wants to work part time (at the last stage of the hiring process). By doing this he wasted not only mine but also his own time..
I'd love to see full transparency on both sides, but until we do I don't think they did anything wrong, and in fact just applied the same approach used by many companies, waiting until they were committed before making their big ask.
Telling a recruiter things you'd like usually leads to them telling you to fuck off, so this advice is very good for getting zero jobs. If you get through a whole interview process (i.e. you like them) and the fact that they don't want to sit in your (virtual) office for five days a week is still a complete deal breaker you have a poor process. If you feel like that realisation wastes your time, I think you have some growth to do as a team lead.
Actually telling things you like is a good thing. Why would it be a bad thing? Getting zero job offers is mostly, at least from my experience, a result of lacking the needed soft or hard skills (sadly errors can occure here - false negatives) or someone who doesnt meet organizational requirements (like the things we discussed here). In my process I tell in the first contact, that I am looking to fill a full time position in my team. If the candidate neither at the end of this call or in the organzation process for the second meeting says, that working full time is not an option, well sorry, thats just unfair. My opinion.
Telling this first is a good way to have every company think that 5 days/week is an organizational requirement and brush off the candidate. Having the candidate wait until after the interview puts them in a much stronger negotiating position, namely it forces the company to assess whether or not 5 days a week is a legitimate requirement or not. Many parts of the interview process are unfair to candidates, such as not advertising salary ranges in advance, forcing candidates to take vacation time to attend interviews, etc. This is merely a way to balance the scales away from the company, which generally holds almost all of the power in a negotiation, especially at the start, before an offer is made.
To be fair, most employers include a lot of things in their job ads that shouldn't necessarily be taken literally or in the strictest sense possible. For example, a decent chunk of ads I've seen ask for a set of qualifications that would leave them with zero applicants if taken literally. I've also heard from multiple hiring managers and recruiters that "if you're not qualified but you really want to job, you should apply anyway".
Applying for a "full time" job, if you expect to be able to handle a "full time workload" is not a great stretch.
Also, as several other commenters have pointed out, employers routinely leave a lot of critical details out in the early stages — especially details that might make applicants not bother applying at all. Unless you're very clearly a rare exception to that norm (i.e. an applicant can tell that easily from the job ad) then it's a bit rich to expect applicants to lay everything on the table before you've even met.
It's not a "chance to present my own full offer" when the role explicitly states full-time. That's called trying to re-negotiate and it's not great. Also, there's no way I'll let you convince me of formally hiring you at 32 hours because of the hassles involved on my side, and more importantly the slippery slope - say the next guy thinks he can do it in 16 hours, the next person is remote, the next person doesn't want to join Zoom calls because they're more effective async, another want to only work at night when they're "in the zone".. not everything is up for negotiation (even though in reality, you should try and have flexibility in the roles in day-to-day practice because we're all unique humans and stuff comes up etc. but you get my point). I think people in tech have gotten a bit precious and spoiled TBH :)
Allowing someone to work the hours that they work most efficiently in increases productivity.
Everyone knows that meetings are a waste of time and lead to poorly thought out solutions.
Asynchronous communication is more efficient AND gives better results.
Both of these things are objectively good for the company, and a company which sees that will outperform a company that doesn’t.
Nobody wants to work 5 days a week. Most people just put up with it. The company doesn’t really have a way to measure productivity so they just say more hours worked = more hours produced. But we all know this relationship is not linear.
I know anecdotally that my productivity is vastly higher when working fewer hours.
I have had times where I get more work done in 4 days than I did in 5 days. That isn’t always going to be the case. But if the company is paying you 80% salary then the company is definitely getting more work out of you per unit salary, and that’s all that really matters in the end.
I do agree that modern work is quite broken and there's times we are more productive in shorter amounts of time. I don't think it's the "time" that determines it though but rather the nature of work and whether it motivates us and is in the perfect balance of flow etc. etc.
And good meetings are good meetings. That said, 2/3 meetings are considered "unnecessary" in surveys we did - so it's a matter of killing off the waste-of-time meetings and doing that async and using tech, and using the more synchronous ways of working for things that needs that (specific real-time collaborative work)
Why can't you just make more clear in the beginning that this position is full-time and only full-time and that (for what ever reason) you are not able to consider part time workers for this job?
There is an information asymmetry. People want to disclose things that make them less attractive to employ as late as possible. Similarly there are things you don't tell the candidate beforehand too.
> Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed
Yet when there is demand from prospective employees for something that is not offered (4 day week) but known to exist if you ask later in the interview process with some companies people will have to try if you are some company. Whether you are offering reduced time jobs or not for some positions that is available is an information you hold. You do not seem to want to hold that information back so you can make a decision depending on the candidate so you should very visibly perform send a costly signal that makes it clear reduced work hours are not possible. A costly signal would be "we are not able to consider non full-time applicants for this position".
Ironically I think this attitude is what encourages the bait-and-switch scenario. If someone tells you before interviews they want to work 4 days, 100% chance they'll be rejected. But if a perfect candidate gets to the final stage and then tells you they will only work 4 days the odds are much better and the leverage is on their side.
Also there isn't really part time / full time with salaried work. I doubt you're paying overtime if someone stays in the office for over 40 hours. Hiring for presence over productivity doesn't seem like a good metric.
In the last two years I've been committing just 16-24 hours/week of actual sit-down-at-desk work to the projects/contracts I've worked on. Despite not working 40 hours, I hit all my deliverables and leave my clients very happy. No secret sauce - I just focus on getting deliverables done and religiously avoid "stuff-and-fluff".
That to say; recruiters, team leads et al have little idea of how workload converts to time. If you're measuring hours you've already lost. The only thing that matters is output value.
> Michael Scott: Jim Halpert: Not a hard worker. I can spend all day on a project, and he will finish the same project in a half an hour.
> Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours, thats another topic)
But that is the point.
If someone believes they can do a full-time workload in 4 days, how else should they approach this in a way that works?
Put another way: How many employers, do you estimate, would not even do an interview with someone if they knew they wanted to do 4 days? How would you, as a recruiter, figure out a candidate is capable of that? How would you pitch them candidate to an employer looking for full-time?
I did not think this gets so much attention. A lot of the points you all wrote are correct. But still, if I am looking to fil a full time position (of course this is written in the ad...) and you dont want to work full time than this is totally fine but not a match. Maybe you think you can convince a company that you can generate the same output as other employees who work full time - and maybe that is true. But its insanely hard to do so. To this day (at least in germany in most companies I know) people are just not ready yet to admid that working time != working results. Just the turh for now (I myself hope too that this will change and I do my bits). And by the way I would assume that a lot of people who are active here are above average in there profession. I dont have proof for that but thats what I think. And guess what: a lot of candidates are not above average.
If he had been up front his his ambition to work 4 days a week then he wouldn't have made it to interview at most of the places he did, let alone to offer stage.
Unfortunately you're in the minority in my experience. Maybe your colleagues and yourself all act in good faith during negotiations, but they are no longer the majority in a large part of the industry. Many recruiters don't act in good faith with candidates these days, especially as KPI's are getting stretched and firms are starting to close out their recruiting efforts.
For candidates who have this as a dealbreaker with a hard-sell like this, I have one suggestion: Don't tell them it's a deal-breaker, just say you're looking at another offer with this perk and see what they can do. That way it doesn't look like you're gaming their hiring process, nor that you were interviewing in bad faith.
I work as a developer, and recruiters emails me in a daily basis. We all should try to minimize the recruiting efforts, but the amount of secrets that recruiters won't tell is just annoying... Sometimes even the company name they're recruiting for is a secret until you pass 1 or 2 interviews.
I know, there must be reasons for that, but from my point of view, it makes me lost a lot of time, and just for context, I spend 3 months looking for a job (with several interviews each week), this is just the proper market research everyone should do. And the end I was able to double my salary, work less, and get a lot bunch of great
benefits.
And of course, the most annoying thing from this, was all the wasted time because recruiters 1) didn't wanted to handle me the proper information (like salary ranges or benefits) and 2) recruiters didn't make their own job, there was like 3-4 companies I applied for where, at the end of the process they wanted to hire me, but we're not able to do it since they have a contract with my previous company. Recruiters (or somebody else) should check that info before starting the process.
I consider the hours worked as part of compensation. It's something to be discussed during the negotiation phase. The company decides the structure of the hiring process. If you don't want to waste time, nothing stops you from moving the negotiation phase to the very start of the hiring process. I would personally prefer it if you did that as well. As an applicant it seems very awkward and unprofessional to come in and try to negotiate right from the start unless the company makes it clear that is what they want.
Yeah, and potentially the 3-5 other people who interviewed them as well! That would get me a bit fired up if they didn't ask me that until the end of the process.. as bad as when people tell me they want a remote role when it's clearly advertised as an in-city office-first role!
% in company not a thing here. I ask for a salary range from the candidate. If that meets the range I can potentially offer, I say so. If it is too high, I also say so. If it is lower than usual and it is a final match, our offer will be higher. If the candidate "refuses" to name it (acutally didnt happend in the last years) I can only assume that I would say my budget. Guess its fair or what would you say?
Yeah, that’s fair. It’s very common that candidates get surprised on the downside at the end of the process, though, so I think it’s generally fair for the candidate to hold back some information until you’re sold on them. Though it’d be nice if they didn’t have to.
Instead of asking for range from them, why not tell them your budget first? Or at least both write them down on pieces of paper and reveal simultaneously.
99% of candidates come through some 3rd party recruiter (in our case). They know our ranges and communicate this. The other 1%, well I just dont do, no special thoughts. Its not in my intention to push compensation down. This only has future downsides if I hire the candidate and he performs well.
Absolutely not. There are certain questions you can’t ask until after you have an offer because they will otherwise unfairly shade people’s perception of you. This is no different than waiting a few dates before disclosing medical issues and such to a potential mate. Convince people of your value first, then hit them with the conditions.
This isn’t a flaw to be fixed. It’s just how human interactions work. It has always been this way and always will be, no matter what you try to do about it.
For anyone else thinking of doing this I’d recommend asking for this up front. If a company isn’t open to it, then they’re not going to be later on after you’ve both invested all that time.
I'm a software engineer. I'm working at a startup now after basically refusing to work at start-ups, or any kind of tech company, my entire career prior. I always worked at normal stable trustworthy non-tech companies that happened to need software engineers. I would still prefer to go back to the non-tech non-startup industry, but the offer was too good.
The process took less than a year. I entertained pitches from many many recruiters. I can't even remember how many. Most of them I rejected immediately because the jobs were beneath my high moral standard. I had introductory interviews at maybe 10-ish places. I actually went through the full interview process at only 3 places.
I was able to do all this purely because my existing job was stable and excellent. I would go back to it in a heartbeat if necessary. I was negotiating from a position of extreme strength with absolutely nothing to lose if the prospective new employer said no. I'm honestly afraid of a situation where I have no job and have to accept the first offer I can get. I might end up in a spiral of changing jobs frequently while trying to get back to a place that I find acceptable.
> I would still prefer to go back to the non-tech non-startup industry.
As someone who has spent > 15 years in the tech-only industry, both in massive corporations and startups, I'm curious to know how someone finds these roles. I think I'd quite like something like this when I am ready to move on from my current (startup) role.
I live in NYC. NYC has a lot of companies in various industries such as entertainment, fashion, finance, advertising, etc. Some of those industries I refuse to work in, like finance and advertising, but you may find them acceptable. All of them have computers and software engineers because it's the year 2022. At bare minimum, those companies are buying SaaS products, but they still need experts to glue the APIs together with their internal systems. You get those jobs the same way you get any other job. Applying or being recruited.
I did not need to sacrifice my moral standards for this current job. If that was the case, I would not have accepted for any realistic amount. However, if you ignore the compensation, which includes the reduced working hours, I must admit I would give a slight edge to my previous job just out of personal preference.
This is anecdotal, so not data, but I'm not 100% sure i agree. But it may be an age thing.
In my youth (for some definition of youth) I could work flat out for 10 hours+. I'd get in the groove and just fly.
I'm a little (or lot) older now - and I can do maybe 6 hours at a time now. I now fill the rest of the time with non-code work, like docs etc. Or I just knock off early.
If I have a solo code task, I can do a 10 hour day without feeling burned out. But a day of randomizations, collaboration and firefighting, I feel done after 6 heh.
I have 30 hours workweek and work 5x6, for the last 7 years. I also negotiated that I can leave at noon, and work the remaining hours, from where ever I am, when there is need (e.g. when I need to answer crucial things at evenings, weekends etc., which happens maybe once in a month). It is very good, I can spend more time with my son. I can go running when there is still sunlight outside. The problem is I could not go back to an 8 hour day.
I don't abuse this deal: When I really want to get things finished, or when there's something critical, of course it happens that I am still at work Friday 4PM. It works the other way, too: When there's something critical at home (and no planned interaction at work), I may not show up at all, and it is Ok.
I'm a bit surprised more employers don't offer this. It seems like a very good way to retain talent especially as it becomes harder to find experienced software engineers for the same low salaries.
Member of my team moved recently to 4x9.375 instead of 5x7.5. My company wouldn't allow an hours reduction at the same or similar salary, so he took the offered option above. He takes Wednesday off and seems to enjoy it. I'm considering the same now, too.
Engineers right now are negotiating from a place of power when it comes to employment. It's just that for whatever reason, our current employer at any given time usually struggles to see that. So we can ask for things and very well might get them (whether that's compensation, work-schedule, or something else), but we're going to have much better luck doing that at the time of getting a new offer (while still employed). That's where our negotiating power comes into focus for the other party.
For you it was a four-day work week, for me it was getting them to drop the overbearing inventions-ownership clause in my contract. But I think that, if there's anything important missing on a person's work-life wishlist, this is the way to go about getting it.
This july I tried one month of living close to the beach, in a rental apartment. I took half of the time off, and the rest of the time I worked from “home”. I went to the beach every day, and plenty of days I went all day.
By the end of the month I got tired of sitting on the beach.
Absolutely not. I would live in a beach house, and I would indeed spend many hours laying in the sand, swimming in the ocean, etc. But I wouldn't literally spend the entire rest of my life doing nothing else at all. There would be socializing with friends and family, traveling, and taking care of my affairs. I would also spend plenty of time on hobbies of all sorts.
The key is that I would be living a life of complete and total leisure. Wake up whenever I want. Sleep whenever I want. Eat whenever I want. And each day, each moment, I would do whatever in particular I happened to feel like doing. I would not spend one moment of my remaining short life doing something purely because a capitalist system forced me to do so. That's the ultimate, probably unachievable, goal.
> The key is that I would be living a life of complete and total leisure. Wake up whenever I want. Sleep whenever I want. Eat whenever I want. And each day, each moment, I would do whatever in particular I happened to feel like doing.
I ended up in essentially this state for several years. It was about as blissful as you would imagine. The problem is, what got me in to that state was an intense drive (among other things) that becomes increasingly hard to sate without a meaningful purpose.
So I've voluntarily made my way back into "capitalist systems" and have to consciously remind myself that it is optional and a choice I've made. It's hard to find lasting contentment.
So this life of total leisure is the thing we all want, and it is for that reason the capitalist system seems to work. Someone has to provide the labor that allows you to continue in a life of leisure.
Society doesn't require many people to work to sustain itself (we have the recent example of the pandemic). If we could enjoy for a while what we have built until this current moment, without inventing or creating anything new, how much time will it take for society to collapse?
Animals live a life of leisure without much work, and they don't have the infrastructure that we as humans have. They don't collapse.
How much work is essential in a society? Medical, agriculture, logistics? If we stopped creating new hardware or software for a few years, how much impact will that have on society? I would want to run a test to see the results.
If our ancestors thought this way, we would be living in much worse conditions now. Even if your goal is to maximize your own happiness, you will find that humans are happiest when they move towards some important goal they set out for themselves. Ever tried playing a video game with cheats? It's fun for about 10 minutes. Then it becomes extremely boring and meaningless. I'm sure there are ways in which hedonists can to some degree overcome this(rotating between different hobbies, doing drugs, immersing themselves in fictional worlds etc.) but this isn't even sacrificing the future for the present, it's just sacrificing both.
I think in some sense it feels like we want to live off the fat of the land so to speak.
And this totally doable, and I think a lot of people could live in leisure for quite a while.
At some point though unless we live much more nomadically and never storing up for the future, we will need to make sacrifices in life again for some higher goal, to those who come after us in order to once again have the fat of the land.
> Animals live a life of leisure without much work, and they don't have the infrastructure that we as humans have. They don't collapse.
^ This claim doesn't really sound like it has a lot of evidence to back it up.
As i see this problem I can break it down in 2 parts:
- systems (including animals & humans) evolve or decline
- our species doesn't have a central decision system
So, as I see it, animals live a life of constant pressure where the strong survive and the weak are culled out. No judgement here on the implications of striving for strength.
Suppose humans stop advancing our way to creating supporting tools that enable our weak to live. In my view this means those tools will decline and tend to disappear. Thus as a species we would be heading to the type of life animals live - I described above.
So, I argue that all work is essential work because when the outskirts of the bell curve of essential work are cut off, then the height of the bell curve drops as well.
> systems (including animals & humans) evolve or decline
This is not necessarily true. We could maintain systems without evolution or decline. For example, I don't think that cloth manufacturing has evolved much since the 70s. Shops have new ways to sell (via the internet), but we as a society could wear clothes from the 70s and have the same quality of life (in terms of clothing) as people back then. Think about how much unnecessary work and waste have we created by consuming clothes every year. How much damage could be avoided by not manufacturing more clothes?
> So, as I see it, animals live a life of constant pressure where the strong survive and the weak are culled out
Animals have the pressure to eat. They hunt, they consume what they need, and they rest until they are hungry again. They aren't constantly accumulating food or killing other species. That's the difference between animals and humans. The fisherman goes fishing every single day from 9 to 5, no matter if society is hungry or not.
>> I would not spend one moment of my remaining short life doing something purely because a capitalist system forced me to do so. That's the ultimate, probably unachievable, goal.
Given your profession, a capitalist society is by far the most likely way for you to get what you want. What do socialist-type EU countries pay software engineers again compared to the United States? How much money do you need to save to achieve your dream? The US is without question the best country to chase that goal.
Statistically the US is also the best country to end up destitute, homeless and harassed by the police regularly. Plus - what are "socialist-type EU countries"?
>> Statistically the US is also the best country to end up destitute, homeless and harassed by the police regularly.
The first two points are false, I could present to you high double-digit countries where it's much worse than the United States. Charitably though, I assume you mean non-developing nations, in which case, you have a point.
It's an interesting idea that's fairly new to me. I guess I don't have enough communist friends. :)
It sounds nice, but will never
happen on a global scale IMO because people will always fight for positions of power. Complete freedom/autonomy/no agency is not what a government wants of its citizens.
So if there was some kinda revolution, sure, but I speculate it would be quite isolated.
No, I could spend all day at the beach for the rest of my life. Same with hiking desert climates. Same with spending all my time in my wood and metal shop.
I would. Also my skin burns in like 15 minutes, so I'd have to wear a burqa or something. But I imagine OP doesn't mean literally being on the beach all the time. Just have leisure time that you can structure as you like. I could probably last a year or two like that if I didn't have to work. Or maybe I'd find a project or several to work on anyway, just not as employment.
A tiny anecdote just so you know the other extreme exists. I've lived very close to a beach (200 metres or so) for about 1.5 years and never got tired of the beach. Barring day where I was unwell or out of town, I went for a walk or a swim every single day. All my current career goals are centered around eventually settling down near a beach!
GP didn’t say that the world is terrible because it is comparatively worse than it used to be, that would be a different statement. “Terrible” is not an objectively quantifiable adjective subject to factual policing.
For example, one person can say “The world is terrible because fascism is on the rise in many countries.” Another person pointing out that polio infection rates are very low does not cancel out the first statement. Everybody gets to have a subjective opinion!
In the greater scheme of things, you’re probably right. On the other hand, 2019 was the last “normal” year we will experience for a very long time. That doesn’t feel good.
War, Deglobalization, Climate Change, Resource scarcity, Economic bubbles.
What the fuck are you on about, the world is olympic diving into the garbage heap.
Edit: If you downvote, please have the decency to explain your reasoning. Are you saying this opinion is incorrect? Why? It is to my understanding a race against time, when concerning climate change alone. One we are losing. Do you just dislike hearing about it?
Many of the issues that seem like doom and gloom will be solved, through human ingenuity and perseverance. Getting all bent out of shape and depressed is not the answer as the truth is that all those things aren’t nearly as bad as many are making them out to be. Your understanding of climate change is severely limited, and yes your opinion is thoroughly unfounded when you look at the full picture.
The current wars are barely a blip compared to wars in years past.
Deglobalization at the scale it’s happening is a good thing so I’m not sure why you’re upset about it. The scale at which we were doing it was unsustainable and was causing more harm than good in the more recent past.
Resource scarcity is something people like to cry wolf about but never actually comes to pass.
Economic bubbles have existed for millennia and aren’t new or that scary.
Before about 1800, when the world didn't have billions of people?
And who knows how shitty it really did feel for most people throughout history, when they had little else to compare against.
I dropped down to a 4 day week so that I could look after my son one day a week. The negotiations were pretty simple, I just told my boss that due to our circumstances I needed to drop down to 4 days, and his reaction was basically I’d rather have you working for 4 days than to see you have to quit ( I never even mentioned quitting, but I guess I put it in a way that my circumstances didn’t give me much wriggle room).
And honestly it’s the best thing ever. I get a whole day each week where my son and I get to explore and play and have fun together. He’s 15 months old and he’s never going to be this young again. I’m super grateful to my work giving me the flexibility, and I enjoy work more than ever before because I get to have a better life balance.
That's how and why I got down to 3 days a week. I went to 4 to get my next job, then down to 2 at my current job. If you can afford it and arrange it, it's fantastic.
Isn’t that just a (very) part time job at that point? Sounds like pseudo-retirement really,
so I would assume you had quite a bit of savings by the time you went to 2-day-job.
Depends on the company/salary - I'm on 10x my initial salary when I started in tech 8 years ago so if I went down to a two day work week I'd be on 4x my initial salary still. I couldn't afford this nowadays because of lifestyle creep, but it's fun to think about. If you were in Europe and found a 2 day remote role for a US based startup you could probably find a comparable salary!
I’m a contractor at a large IT integrator in Australia.
It helps that my boss was (see below) a good friend. I think it was mid-last-year, I just realised I’d be mentally healthier if I worked 4 days a week. So I said, I’m going to start working 4 days a week. And he said, okay. Because he’s great.
And it is glorious. You go from spending almost three-quarters of your life at work (71.4%) to just over half (57.1%) and I know those numbers are silly but I put them there because that’s really what it feels like.
Previously the weekend was this fleeting thing that came and went. I barely remembered it before it was over. Now … well, right now it’s Monday morning, and Monday is the day that I don’t work. Monday is the day that I spend on my side projects. Monday is the day that we go to the movies or go shopping or to a gallery.
FAQs, do I still work 40 hours? No. I did for a spell, when it was busy. I’d say my average has been 36. But now I’m on 32.
Do I get less done? Not really. There’s so much wasted time in the typical day, and I do think that this has focused me the times that I am at work. When I’m on, I’m on.
I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep this arrangement. I’m looking for a new job. The boss moved on to a different role, it’s that transition time when everyone seems to move on.
I’ve put my 4 day thing in the front section of my résumé. Which is on GitHub, so if anyone in Canberra is reading and wants to hire the guy behind Johnny.Decimal, all my details are here.
Bit if a tangent but I absolutely love the Johnny Decimal system so much. It has become my defacto way of sorting things now. Didn’t know the person who invented was Aussie too, very cool! Good luck with your job search.
This is the most important thing to understand, at least in IT as a whole and in the integrator/MSP wrold specifically.
There were the times were the actual work didn't clocked more than two hours a day for months. Not because there was no work, but because there were meetings, red tape, e-mail chains with a dozens addresses in CC...
Currently working 35 hours a week, in a unionized job with banked time starting at 36h (1:1), (2:1 at 40+ hrs), 4 weeks vacation & unlimited sick days up to a point(6 per year I hear...), meaning I can take a day off whenever I'm too tired/sick. Due to the negotiated conditions, it's also really not advantageous for the employer to force us to be on call or have us do any amount of OT. Thus the workload is really stable. In a way I now have too much free time.
It's been a bliss overall on my work/life balance. I've never been that healthy and my stress level has never been so low in my life. I know I'll live longer and once I am more stable financially, I'll be able to have time to contribute to my community.
The salaries are also quite good. I highly encourage people to unionize, it is the only way to get proper leverage in this highly inequitable period we live in.
The union we have is small and consists exclusively of people with at minimum university degrees. Most of them have some form of life accomplishments due to the hiring process also. Due to the conditions negotiated, the well provisioned pension fund and general job advantages, most people coming in are experienced (5+ years) except for some amount of diversity/equity hires (which the company kinda needed since everyone stays there until retirement...).
Thus, the union is well organized to have leverage, well structured and reasonable with whom they should defend when there is abuse on the side of the employer. People are mostly diligent in their work obligations.
There is some rare exceptions, some employees with too much mastery of transferring issues to others. Frankly, I've seen the same or worst in Big Corpo, mostly in middle management, the only difference here is some employees do it instead of the managers...
German here, where part-time arrangements in tech are somewhat normal. I negotiated my 32 hour work week right at the beginning, and there was no discussion about it, and none was expected.
I kind of get only an 80% salary, which seems a bit unfair as studies prove that part-time workers are more efficient [1], but the way better work-life balance is definitely worth it.
[1] Researching the validity of this claim is left as an exercise for the reader.
You must offer your part‑time staff the same employment conditions as full-time workers, including pay, leave, notice periods and other rights and benefits linked to their employment.
Modifying working arrangements
Whenever possible, you should try to accommodate requests from your employees if they want to change their working schedules, such as:
- transferring from full-time to part-time
- transferring from part-time to full-time
- increasing their working hours
You cannot dismiss an employee if they refuse to transfer from part-time to full-time work or vice versa.”
Agree on the 80% thing but it's so hard to quantify output that a simple formula probably ends up feeling the most fair to most people. Also, remember what another person pointed out—it's not really a 20% pay cut because it's your highest-taxed salary that's been cut.
It’s an interesting question. I’m at a fairly senior level so aside from meetings I’d say my work is semi-continuous as I think about the problems I’m working on regardless of if I’m at my desk or not. So I don’t really think the “hours on the clock” paradigm applies in one sense.
It’s not unusual for me to knock out a couple casual meetings on Friday morning then just sign off and go for a hike. But again, there’s a good chance I’m thinking about work on that hike. Is that a 4 day week? Is it 4.5? Is it 7? I dunno!
> Is that a 4 day week? Is it 4.5? Is it 7? I dunno!
To me that sounds like 4.5 days–in this modern work environment I see “working days” as days where there is an expectation of availability and/or action. An off day therefore should involve no expectation that you’re reachable, or that you’ll make outwardly visible progress on your projects.
Personally I really try not to work weekends, but some weekend days I’ll have an idea, or feel the need to get ahead of things, and I’ll do some work. I don’t consider myself to have a six day a week job in that case–nobody has the expectation that I’m reachable then or that things on my todo list will be getting checked off.
> I’m at a fairly senior level so aside from meetings I’d say my work is semi-continuous as I think about the problems I’m working on regardless of if I’m at my desk or not.
This is true for me as well, but somehow my boss doesn’t seem to think that way. For the sake of consistency I think we should say time not spent at your desk is time off.
I have negotiated a four day week twice. I would recommend a four day week to anyone who can afford it. Don't forget that because of tax bands the effective pay cut is less than 20%.
The first time I just straight up asked my boss in a conversation and with a request in writing. I said I was unhappy in my life in general and wanted more time to spend on other things than work. There is legislation in the UK that means that employers must consider these requests and reply with an answer and explanation in a fixed time frame. They accepted and I worked it for about 4 months before other circumstances meant I had to relocate and leave that company.
The job I moved to was a start-up. After a string of executive resignations and engineering team redundancies I was left as the most experienced team member. I had another job offer in hand that I didn't really want but took it to the only remaining senior lead and asked for 4 days (at full pay this time) or I'd leave. They accepted in an informal way rather than modify my contract in this case and just called it "taking a day off when you need it". I would not recommend accepting this in general as it puts you in a vulnerable position for being punished for doing what you thought was the agreed deal. In any case, working 4 days at this job was a disaster because the company was such a mess and I had so little support that I spent my day off and my weekends obsessing about work unhealthily. I ultimately went back to 5 days in a more senior role to try to help right the ship but couldn't take the stress then either so ended up leaving.
I'm now at 5 days again. If I stick my new job out I plan to request 4 days after my probation period ends.
The decision for an employer comes down to retention - do they want to keep you enough to accept 4 days instead of the risk of you leaving? So if you have a manager who can understand your value and represent that to internal decision makers then that's the main key.
I've worked formal 3 and 4 day week arrangements. Net experience: it's pointless, if you're working 4 day weeks and you're feeling behind, you may well end up working that 5th day without anyone asking.
Similarly in a 5 day week arrangement, I've never felt compelled to actually work the full week especially when I'm ahead.
Ignoring any formality, I think most folk work a 2-3 week if they were honest about it.
I wouldn't sweat having a 3/4 day arrangement as a reason to pick one company over another, especially if the offer is implicitly part of attempting to screw you on salary
We work 4 days a week (4x7.5) and we have a very strict “policy” that no one works on a Monday. The same way that no one works on a Saturday or a Sunday. It’s easy to see when people work outside of work, and we don’t celebrate it, we try and find out why it happened and to change process to better protect time off. Generally employees working “overtime” is not a failure of them, it’s a failure of process (estimation, workload, support, roadmap etc)
“Most folk work a 2-3 day week” - while this maybe true, don’t let it discount a bonafide 4 day work week. On the extra day off I’m presumed uncontactable and not at my desk. There’s a big difference between that and being at work but not really working.
>>Similarly in a 5 day week arrangement, I've never felt compelled to actually work the full week especially when I'm ahead.
Ignoring any formality, I think most folk work a 2-3 week if they were honest about it.
While I agree with you, ya gotta admit that most don’t have the luxury to just say “I got my work done already im just gonna take Friday off.”
Most of us are expected to be available at the least from M-F, 9-5.
> Ignoring any formality, I think most folk work a 2-3 week if they were honest about it.
The real difference maker is if you need to show up to the office or be reachable. I am sure there were weeks where I did 16 hours of work(i.e 2 days) at BigCo but I still showed up to the office 5 days as week. It didn't really matter to me if I was working at the office or just goofing off in the coffee room, I still couldn't go surfing or do something I enjoy.
> if you're working 4 day weeks and you're feeling behind, you may well end up working that 5th day without anyone asking.
If you're behind on a 5 day work week, do you work the weekend? I don't see how this is any different.
Just accepted a 32hr week job. Was advertised as, and applied for it, as 40hrs. After having an offer from them, I got another offer elsewhere at a much higher salary.
I knew the first was a better cultural fit, so went back and asked them to work with me. No room to negotiate on salary, so they offered 32hr weeks and I jumped at it.
For sure, they hire people part-time quite often, so its just set up as a part time job.
Not too worried about them turning around and screwing me over, because we both know I'm the one holding all the cards. I trust them to look after me and treat me right, which is why I turned down the higher offer. If they betray that trust, there's nothing stopping me leaving. Didn't burn any bridges with the 2nd company, they're happy to have me back if it doesn't work out.
Pay and holidays stayed the same as the original offer, not pro-rata. It was a case of "not enough money in the budget" rather than "you're not worth more"
"For the foreseeable future, I'm going to take Fridays to be with my family. Can we make that work?"
"Good for you! Coordinate with your team and make sure you fill HR in on your absences."
This was after working the full 40 weeks for four years* with an employer that knows how important work--life balance is.
----
* Well, I did take one afternoon/week off for medical reasons for half a year. And arranged 60 % work to have time for university in parallel another year. And was away on parental leave for most of yet another year. I guess a good employer does not make it hard to stay with them.
Dutch here. Haven't worked more than 32 hours a week in 20 years. I did downgrade to 24 a week for a while, convinced my boss I wanted to do a masters and he let me. Salary was just enough to pay for everything.
Its mostly normal to work 32 hours in my country. I feel 32 should be the norm actually. In my line of work - software development, 32, 36 and 40 hours are all very common. Less than 32 is really uncommon though, as a salaried employee.
I consider 32 hours to be a full-time job these days and noticed a lot of people around me are starting to do the same.
When I working in NL (small embedded tech company) all my colleagues were doing 32 hrs. My friend in different company did the same. Some companies do have a 40 hr culture, but it's quite normal to do 32 hrs in my experience.
I Live in Vienna now, most of my colleagues do 32 hrs. Boss doesn't love it, but it's better than losing people.
I work for a large financial co in NL (~50k employees) and 36-hour contracts are the standard for all full-time employees. 32 is considered part-time for us.
Regardless, most people certainly work 4 days a week here. Of all my friends and contacts, I think I know of only a handful working 5 days a week.
That is strange. I am working in the tech sector and it is normal and accepted everywhere I work. Maybe not the norm, at some companies most people work 40 hours - but its not like 32 is unacceptable.
Maybe its different for people in leadership positions, or embedded development or some other domain I am not so familiar with?
My input probably isn’t as valuable except as a data point, but the company I work for (around 100 employees) moved all employees over to a 32 hour/4 day work week without a change in salary. No negotiation involved technically, though there were a few employees who have been talking about 4-day work weeks for a long time.
They made this change with a 6-month trial period where we would determine if we would keep it at a later time based on some sort of productivity measurements. Everyone, including the CEO, seemed to agree that trying to measure productivity would yield few meaningful metrics. The consensus at the end was that productivity was either the same or a little less, but we ended up keeping it anyway.
4 days/32hrs, working at current job for over 2 years now. It's not a common arrangement over here, sadly. I just decided that that is how i want to do things and simply asked for it, when looking for jobs, until i got a good offer that accepted this. I did take 20% off from my salary, were i working 40hrs, but still ended up with more than i was making at my previous job.
I like it, the weekday/weekend balance seems just right.
In my previous job I asked my boss if he would let me drop down to 3 days per week (60% salary). To my slight surprise, he was totally fine with it
I did this after working hard for ~1 year at the company. Once you prove your worth, it's in your employers interests to keep you i.e. it would cost them way more if you left for another job with shorter working hours so don't be afraid to ask
If it was doing it again though, I'd request this during my yearly review, and I'd ask for a 4 day week with no drop in salary
There are already companies offering a 32 hours work week though:
Is it typical to find completely unacceptable pay on your site? Listings that have requirement for engineers which could pull home 200-300k a year wanting to pay $15 an hour. I guess this is why "nobody wants to work anymore"
One listing (company name omitted to protect the witness):
Requirements
BS/MS in Computer Science
Strong in Data Structure/Algorithms, can solve intermediate-level Leetcode questions with ease
Experience in conducting technical interviews and well-trained on how to grade candidate performance
Passion for mentorship!
Nice To Have
Have the flexibility to work 10-20+ hours per week when business needs warrant
Have prior start-up experience
Compete in Leetcode contests weekly and rank top 2000. Previous experience competing in ACM contests.
What's In it for you
100% remote work (1099 basis)
Flexible work hours
Opportunity to network and build connections with aspiring and established designers
Compensation: $15/hr
Where I live, even Walmart can't get people to show up for less than $15 an hour (even though we have no separate minimum wage than the national $7.25/hr).
The KFC across the street from the Walmart was recently advertising $17/hr.
$15/hr for that kind of tech experience would never fly here!
Most companies originally had a 5 day week, but dropped to 4 days without effecting salaries
So typically the salaries are "market rate". Difficult to say for sure though as most companies still don't disclose this
As for the job you mentioned, I know which company this is and its for a part-time job (i.e. not a 4 day week for 100% salary)
Speaking honestly, I added the part time jobs are added to "bolster" content (given there are so few 4 day week jobs atm). I'd recommend focusing on the jobs marked as "4 day week", they are typically "higher quality"
Awesome! I joined the industry temporarily but the 5 days week (with 3 hours commutation) is soul crushing. Four days makes it fine to cope with. I hope I can find something using your website so I can work more on my personal projects.
After few months if everyone's happy with your work, you can definitely ask for some days being remote and gradually increase it to fully remote, if you can manage yourself responsibly. 3 hours commutation is definitely not something you should endure for the rest of your life.
While I’m already very much an advocate for paying my team what why’re worth, the recent shifts with remote work has put extreme pressure on companies to meet salary expectations in much larger markets.
I have an employee who needed a 33% increase due to market pressures. While we were going to already meet 15% of that at his next annual, budgets didn’t easily allow for the other 18.
Instead, he got a significant raise and a 4-day week to boot. He’s happy. I’m happy. And, frankly, we don’t see any productivity loss.
Yes I recently changed to a 4 day job with higher pay. Right now I have a week off while taking up only two vacation days, because I worked the last two Fridays. Pretty neat.
It's pretty common in Europe I would say. In Germany you even have a right to reduce your hours after half a year of working somewhere, and your employee has to accept it unless they have a very good reason to reject it (e.g. it would be devastating for the company).
Good software developers are still scarse and lots of companies are competing for them, so generally companies are very accomodating for these wishes.
I said working 4 days does not necessarily make me less productive. And on top I use the extra time I have to become better at my work and contribute to open source (which is true).
In the Netherlands (Europe), where I reside there are plenty of jobs offering 36 or 32 hours. I think most employers are ok with it since they often also work 36 or 32 hrs. Quite a lot of people share the 'load' of bringing up a family, taking care of parents or sick family members & basic house chores & therefor will (have to) work a bit less than 40hrs.
I work four days in my current role and will continue doing so in my next one. I don't have much choice in the matter so I always raise it at the earliest opportunity and have even added it to my CV to make sure I don't waste anybody's time.
I've found the majority of the companies I've spoken to over the last few years (in the UK) have been open to me working 4 days a week but I've also had the frustrating experiencing of being told this isn't an option after interviewing successfully.
At the moment people with my experience are in huge demand so having this leverage must be a big help and I'm happy to take advantage of it while it lasts.
I was happy doing 40h, but after we had a baby I asked for 4 days instead for an undefined amount of time. Tbh, I don't think my productivity changed at all with the day dropped so it's a bit of a shame that the salary did.
But given I work in tech and basically get a very comfortable lifestyle either way, I don't think I'll go back to 5 days if possible. I know the current company won't push me to do it, and I interviewed with another which was fine with 4 days.
My wife also does 4 days (different), so my son gets an extra weekday with each of us independently which is also a great thing.
I'm working for a company that was originally a 40h workplace, but since last month and until the end of January will test a 32h week, with preferably the Fridays off (preferably because there are some departments that must have at least one person every day). After this test period the management will evaluate the productivity, basically some OKRs set before the change and if objectives were met we will keep this benefit.
Important to mention that no other benefit was removed or any salary reduced.
We made the change company-wide a few months ago. No reduction in pay, employees are able to choose their 32-hour schedule based on their needs. Some people take off Mondays, some Fridays, some work 5 days but shorter hours. We're just expected to coordinate with our coworkers which has worked out fine so far.
As someone who has historically worked long hours, I wasn't expecting to enjoy the change so much. It will be very hard to move back if/when I move companies in the future.
I'm not, but I manage an engineer who recently asked. He's fantastic, why would I care? I just filled out a form with HR and he's now at 80% pay 4 days a week.
I treat him with respect and he treats me with respect. If it ends up turning into a really difficult situation for the team, we might have a discussion about how to improve. But honestly knowing he's out every Friday will probably be a good forcing function for us to have a day with few meetings etc.
It seems like people are 95% as effective working 4 days as they are working 5, and quality of life for everyone goes up massively -- shouldn't this just become the norm.
In NYC "summer Fridays" were a thing where some 9-5 jobs gave Fridays off for a couple months. Back in 2005-2010 I worked at a magazine that did that until my boss was like, wait, if we can put out the magazine in four days for a few months, we can do it in four all year. No one objected, and thus began the best job I ever had. Managing editor for a 4-day-a-week magazine.
So… do you mean I work 4 days a week and my work is aware of it (and, presumably, approves of it), or I work 4 days a week and my work has no clue because we don’t do meetings on Fridays?
I've worked 20h weeks for the past 18 months. It's been great. I actually wanted to do 24h but they said they only allowed 75% and 50% part time. I was wondering how it would work to do a 4h day but it's actually a nice way to soft-start the "weekend".
As for how I negotiated it, I just told my manager I wanted to do it. He was like "well, if it's that or lose you, sure." Part time is not very common where I work, so approval had to go up to VP level but was not a problem. I'm paid 50% of what I was paid before, I didn't feel the need to negotiate this. Full benefits.
My nominal work week is 8h+8h+4h, but when we've had deadlines I've also done 4 full weeks and them 4 weeks off. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.
I work 4 days at Microsoft in Germany (PM at Github)
In Germany employees have the right to demand part time. for new hires it's usually 40h and then reduce after the probation period. might reduce your career growth but I still got promoted and am happy with Fridays off
Yup. Been for a few years now. Hired through normal application, full time developer on a team of 6-ish. Worked there for a few years before negotiating down to 90%; a day off every other week. Then a year after that negotiated down to 80%. Proportional salary cuts in both cases.
Wasn't very hard to convince them. Made sure I was available for whatever coordination is required. Made sure I still meet expectations. Argued that my productivity wouldn't fall proportionally to the drop in time. No one has complained. Was a few months of adaption to make people realize I'm normally not available one of the days a week, but everyone has taken it in stride. Most are a little jealous.
In Sweden we're allowed by law to work 75% while we have kids under 8. I started doing that when the kids were small, and continued even though my youngest is now 9.
I work 7 hours per day Monday to Thursday, and Fridays I alternate between 8 hours and having the day off. Over two weeks, this equals 80%. If needed I do some work on my "free" Fridays as well, but it's usually not needed.
If you ask me, I'd say I'm as productive on this schedule as I would have been on 8 hours per day - if not more. So it's win-win: my employer gets the output of 100% but only pays 80%, and I get time off to do other things.
My former employer mandated that everyone took days off every Friday of July.
I happen to live ~2 hours away from the see and 10 minutes away from the lake and in a area with a lot of hiking to do, so that was cool.
Still, I can’t picture myself doing it all year around… maybe because I don’t have kids… I would prefer a shorter workday
Also, Friday off, but that it taken out of your own paid leave days!!
I guess this was a big deal 30-40-50 years ago when it was setup, especially for factory workers, but it’s 2022, come on!
Yeah that’s really not the vibe! That’s just stingy by your old boss.
In NZ, loads of professional firms shut down over Xmas as it’s summer. They basically make their staff take at least two weeks leave over this time because there’s no provision in employment law to force them to find work for people who don’t want to holiday then. My wife was a lawyer so she got caught up in this, used to annoy the shit out of me being forced to use so much leave at a time we did’t want to.
Most Italian companies do this for Christmas/new years eve, but also for “Ferragosto” 15th of august, some mandating even 2 weeks off!!
Italy, as a whole is basically completely shut off during the central weeks in august, with hotel prices easily doubling July prices… go figure out why hahaah
By law, there’s generally 4 weeks go paid leave, and the unwritten agreement is that the employer peeks 2 of them for you…
Tech companies generally dont do this, maybe to feel more international and modern
When my kid was born I wanted to have a day off with her every week, so I just asked for 36 hours so I could work 4x9. I was so used to working 40 hours I thought the jump to 32 would be too much. How wrong I was haha.. 4x9 with a kid is not doable unless your partner can also be flexible. Asked to go down to 32 hours, was asked if I could hold on for a month since a new engineer was joining and said OK.
The cut in salary is 100% worth it to spend a day with my daughter. I feel happier.
I worked 24 hours a week for a few years for an IT service company. Before I switched to the 24 hour weeks, I was managing the software division and was getting burned out.
I told my boss I would be putting in my resignation. He asked if there was anything he could to do keep me on. I asked to move back to a development role with 24 hour weeks of three contiguous days. My boss agreed.
The schedule was great, but I eventually quit because I started a new business and wanted to focus all my time on that.
I worked a 4-day week for years, but that only means you get the same shit done in 4 days, not 7. I was due to get a promotion as an engineering manager, but I refused the promotion and the increased salary in lieu of fewer days at work. Over time, lesser quantum of work gets thrown your way because you are away from people's faces for a larger fraction of the time. That particular equation has changed because of WFH.
It was fantastic to have a long weekend every week. I also miraculously became more disciplined, because I promised and delivered by Thu evening. For some reason Friday evening used to always spill into Saturday, then Sunday, into the interstitial spaces between home and social life.
The downside was that people would more often than not hold meetings without me, and get to work on more juicy projects, and I would feel hurt at the beginning. I had to continually remind myself of the increased free time. At the peak frenetic pace of the early 2000's and the dot com boom, this was seen as career suicide. I knew that it wasn't any such thing, that you can always get work when you show quality, but the social pressure still made me doubt myself sometimes.
As edith piaf sang, je ne regrette rien. I regret nothing.
I worked 4d weekday in my last job, taking every Wednesday off. I lost 20% of my salary but I loved it, the break into middle meant that Mondays were no longer dreaded things and I could do all the chores during Wednesday, freeing up my weekend to do whatever I wanted. (Also Fridays had free drinks , pre-covid)
I think the company got a good deal out of it too, as they paid 20% less for almost no productivity loss at all.
Yes, I always let it be known early in the interview process. Sometimes I get rejected.
I have medical reasons. I have autism, and experience has taught me that working 40 hours simply burns me out within 3 months. I usually ask for the 4-days without mentioning the autism. But if they ask why, I won't hide it either.
Yep, best decision I have made. I am focussed at work in a way I have never been before, because I don't feel as though the treadmill of life is getting away from me. I solve bigger more complex problems faster because I feel comfortable comitting my full focus, as I know I will get time to myself to catch up with the rest of life.
I work 4 x 7.5 hour days, I just took a paycut in theory. So I negotiated a full time wage and then calculated what I get paid at 4/5ths of that number.
I was freelancing for about 4 years prior, and I am currently preferring this arrangement as I truly get to focus and commit both to work and hobbies rather than splitting focus. I am getting more fulfillment by performing highly at work now too, which was an unexpected benefit. I also enjoy the camaraderie I get from work over freelancing, which can be a very lonely affair.
Of all the arrangements I have had, including a "sabatical" of 6 months, I prefer this. Retirement I hope to work 0 days of course, buy while earning, 4 days has proven a good balance.
You just negotiate how many days you want to work on that client.
Plenty of coworkers from Italy do it to avoid paying higher taxes: they increase their hourly rate until they hit the 65k pa limit and then they just start dropping days. If they were to earn even 66k, they would start paying way more taxes and they would need to earn ~30k more to get the same salary after taxes.
It sounds like you're saying their total after-tax income would decrease if they worked more hours? I'm not sure how, because that's definitely not how income tax works (Italian or otherwise).
It's an unintended consequence of the reduced (5-15% flat) taxes available via "regime forfettario"[1] which only applies to businesses with <65k income. Otherwise you have to pay much more (23%-43%) via the regular progressive tax brackets.
Somewhat similarly, in the USA there is a "welfare trap"[2] where earning more income would reduce other benefits (eg housing, food) enough to result in an effective >100% tax on income.
I've always worked 32 hours. When I got my first job in 2001, I told them I wanted to work 4 days, taking Wednesday off (giving me two two-day work weeks with a mini-weekend in between). All my later jobs were also 4 days. This was never a problem. I once spoke to a prospective employer for a really interesting sounding job that really didn't want people working 4 days per week, and couldn't be budged no matter what arguments I used (they understood, and agreed, but still wouldn't move), so I had to let them go. Never regretted it.
For the past 10 years I've been freelancing, and still 4 days a week. It's a good standard, and it has never been a problem for any client.
It probably helps that I live in Netherland, though. Part-time work is completely accepted here. Lots of parents work 3 or 4 days to have more time with their children. Before Covid, lots of people had one WFH day. Nowadays, many teams have one office day.
Work-life balance is important. Don't sacrifice it.
A friend on mine quit his FAANG job, took a one year sabbatical, and went back on the job market. He found a remote-only job at a boutique bank in NYC, negotiated his compensation, and then told them he'd only accept the offer if it was 4 days instead of 5 at the same salary. They accepted without any pushback. He totally loves his 3-day weekends.
My company has pretty flexible PTO (though most of the work is client driven so our deadlines are pretty firm). My partner and I are expecting a baby in January, and my partner has one day off of work per week (they work 10's at a hospital). I basically just _told_ my boss that I'm dropping to 32 hours to accommodate for my family's needs, and he more or less accepted it. It helps that I'm a staff engineer and I've always gotten my work in on time, and after a couple weeks of adjustment I'm right back up to my normal productivity.
So, I guess what I have to say is:
- have a good reason (and your own mental health/WLB is a good enough reason, but you need to have one for people to take you seriously)
- show you're capable of getting the work done
- accept that not everyone will be accommodating, and figure out how valuable this accommodation is for you.
I did a 4 day week experiment couple years back. I used the leave time to book every Friday through upcoming four months. I loved the experiment a lot. It's not only an extra day you get (50% increase in free time) but also an extra night (100% increase!). Saturdays sometimes felt like "Sundays" and it was good to remind myself there's a whole extra day to live life.
When I asked to make 4-day week a thing, at least for me, the request was rejected. The reasoning had to do with "synergy" in a team and lack of much overlap in a remote team. Example I was given: if everyone started taking 4-day weeks it might be that Bob has Mondays off, Kate is off on Wednesday, and I would be out on Friday. Fair enough.
We are trialing a longer (2-3 moths at a time)time offs. Hopefully the experiment sticks. Having loads of free time is the best!
> When I asked to make 4-day week a thing, at least for me, the request was rejected. The reasoning had to do with "synergy" in a team and lack of much overlap in a remote team. Example I was given: if everyone started taking 4-day weeks it might be that Bob has Mondays off, Kate is off on Wednesday, and I would be out on Friday. Fair enough.
Alternative framing: encourages good communication and high bus factor.
Yes, went from 40 to 32 about a year ago. One of the best decisions I've ever made.
I'm about 15 years into my career, with about 5 years as senior tech guy at my current company. I have a great relationship with leadership. Another tech guy was already working 4 days (I think it was part of his initial negotiation), so I asked if I could too. I got the OK and took the pay cut.
At 5 days a week, I felt close to burnout for years (the work is interesting and challenging, and therefore tiring). Now work feels sustainable, life is so much better, and I have energy for personal projects. It also helps that the company is already fully remote so I can work from anywhere.
I wouldn't want to do 3 days a week -- projects would drag on 30% longer and I think I'd really feel that hit to my velocity. 4 is the sweet spot for me.
Yup, in switzerland. The work-life balance is amazing. I asked for it when negotiating the job offer, employer had to accept since there were no other candidates and I was a perfect fit.
Tired of being the most knowledgeable person in the room though, so accepted a full-time position in the US I will change to soon.
Many employers are looking for the hours to be filled, without necessarily specifying that each employee works the whole hours. That is especially the case for enterprises that work 7 days a week or (say) 12 hours a day.
In those cases, you either negotiate upfront before you start that you are only available for 3, 4 or five days a week or whatever number you want. Or you state at some point that you want to reduce your hours to whatever figure suits you, in which case there is an opening for another person to fill those now-unstaffed hours.
If the employer is only open for business 40 hours (5 x 8 hours) a week, then there is a situation which is more difficult to vary. But it's still doable to have two or more people sharing that single position: that's called "job-sharing".
This perspective looks at programming like factory work: output == hours worked * some factor.
But in reality, most employers in tech that have allowed some or all employees to reduce their hours have found no productivity loss, or in some cases productivity gains. That's why often employers are OK with leaving the salary the same when moving to 4-day weeks.
My company basically affords us the freedom to choose how much or how little we work. The ideal target we discuss is 3-day work weeks. Surprisingly, this still affords each of us around 70th percentile salary.
Grated, we're not a "product company" and instead work essentially as hired IT mercenaries, i.e. contract work, but it's a pretty sweet gig.
The job kind of found me. I posted my CV to some online forums (include here) and mailing lists, and a few random small companies contacted me over the course of about a year.
We actually keep our ears to the ground for interesting individuals, so if you're interested, feel free to shoot me an email: local-part: wilson, domain: rainlab.co.jp. We're fully remote, so timezone concerns aside, physical location is mostly irrelevant.
Everybody is talking about living at the beach in this thread and nobody's talking about surfing! That's the whole point of the beach for me... I moved to the beach and got a telework agreement so I can surf any day I want to. It's amazing.
I have worked a 4 day week for a year and a half and it is indeed as glorious as people make out IF you retain control of that day off. If it turns out that people expect you to do chores for them, it feels like you're just working for no pay.
Earlier this summer, my employer switched the entire company from a 5x8 to a 4x10 schedule. We're still working 40 hours per week, but the three-day weekends and the avoided commute definitely outweigh the earlier mornings.
I am working 19 hours at the moment due to sickness. However, some people have negotiated 32 without being sick, both before joining and during employment. This is outside the US.
Think carefully about WHO you ask. Some people just like to say no. You might want to think about whether it is HR, your immediate boss or another boss to ask first. I have worked at places where the "NO" person can be bypassed and might give you the wrong impression that something is impossible. As kids know "NO" can often be a short-circuit response to avoid a commitment, and avoid time thinking about the thing.
I'm a long term employee of a large software company. When I had kids I asked to go down to 4 days so they wouldn't be in childcare for the whole week. Now the kids are all in school but I've kept the 4 day week as I'm much happier this way. A few years ago a colleague asked to go to 4 days (with no kids) and was rejected, so I doubt I'll ever give it up, otherwise I'll never get it back, and I don't know how I'd ever find another job that would support this style of work, so I guess it has worked in my employer's favour.
Not 32 hours specifically. Mine started with a volunteer commitment when I started a new job. That was fine, because I was starting and they wanted trial period, and part-time was ok.
Also, the best commute time (pre-Rona) put me in my seat 0700-0800. And the best return train had me leave at 1750. This basically gave me four tens.
And pre-Rona my firm had a culture of work from home when you need to, wish, catch up.
Put all this together and people accepted my four day schedule, and work got done.
Plus, we’re a small company with a working owner. There is no BS attendance requirement—just productivity.
Negotiated it to 32h due to COVID pandemic; there wasn't enough work for 40h, so I floated the idea, boss was OK with it. Never going back to 40h though, 3 days off in a row is pretty spiffy :D
I have - in my country as a parent of a child up to 4 years old you can demand part time work and your employer can't refuse it. I chose Wendesday, and it was wonderful. Monday and Tuesday were wonderful and efficient, there was no Monday blues or anything like that. Thursday and Friday were even better. I felt like I was living, and my work is and interesting addition to my life, not the other way round. An extremely positive experience. And nobody complained - I got excellent yearly reviews as well.
I used to, an internal recruiter contacted me on LinkedIn. Actually I answered quickly because the job was really interesting and the interview was the other day I think. The overall processes went over a few weeks though but eventually I asked if it's okay with the contract that I still have a freelance job on the side. HR said I could be working part-time until I'm done (or the whole time) They asked what I'll be doing the whole time and I said just going for hobby projects
I eork a "9/80" schedule, which ammounts to working 9 hours M-Th and alternating between an 8 hour day on Friday and having a Friday off. So I have a 3 day weekend every other weekend.
In my company, it's something that every "creative" employee has the option to do. It's based on the idea that we're billed out to clients hourly and all of our work should be scheduled a bit in advance. Fridays are staggered though, so there should always be some availability.
I don’t currently work 4 day work weeks. However, when I worked at Lockheed Martin, they had flexible work schedules. You could work the standard 40 hour work week, 9-80’s (work 9 hours with every other Friday off), or 4-10’s. Friday was a day you knew not to schedule meetings because there was a good likelihood people would be out of the office. I miss having this flexible working benefit. To me it costs employers almost nothing to support, but can make a huge impact to their employees.
I was working classic full time 40h/week, then took a parental leave for my first newborn that allowed to work 80% (so 32h/week).
Based on the law here, the employer could have denied the 80% but I could have asked 6m totally off and they couldn't have said no. Anyway, they accepted the 80%. This lasted for 20months. I then asked to have another one for my second kid, as no issue arose during the first one and I was productive, it was granted.
Finally, I negotiated to remain at 80% permanently.
I work for a small fulfillment business. When I found out I was pregnant with my second baby I told them I was either giving 8 months notice or I could work remote 4 days a week. After they hired someone to cover my maternity leave, they offered me full salary to stay on because I was that valuable to them. Even after training someone else for 6 months, she still couldn't keep up with the work I was pushing out.
I'm currently working a 3 day week (24 hours - mon, tue, wed) as a software developer.
At first I went down to 32 hours at my old job, but then got an oppurtunity at another company and this was my demand. Sure, I make less money but I definitely got enough to get by and then some.
It fits well with my current project since we have a few other people working as consultants for a few days each week (They have other projects as well).
It's something relatively common in some European countries. I did it at the very beginning of my career. I just asked, and most companies were fine with it.
I understand the appeal (particularly for people with kids) but nowadays I'm pretty anxious about the future and I'm not sure I'll be able to earn the same salary in 2 years, let alone 10 years when ageism will hit. I'd rather save when I can.
Here in Europe (Austria) - it is very common to simply state during employment interviews that you wish to work 30-hour weeks. Its just a part of the negotiation stage and the company can take it or leave it - no questions asked.
If you're already signed up for a 40-hour week, well then this is a renegotiation - and you also have to be prepared to take it, or leave it.
My company switched to 4x8 and it's been great. I personally feel like I'm getting more work done.
I believe one of the reasons they did this was to prevent people from leaving the company and it's certainly worked for me. I don't see myself wanting to change companies as long as I stay in my current country (Canada). Even for double my salary I think I wouldn't move.
Yes, sort of. My company, a web agency with offices in DC and Seattle, does a 9:80. a 9hr days M-Th and then get every other Fri off. It's optional because not everyone wants to work longer days.
We first started a few years ago with a "no meetings" friday rule, which was very successful. We expanded to the 9:80 program two years ago and it has also been successful.
>Anyone working 4 day week here, as an employee?
I do, working at Atom bank in the UK. We switched to a a 4 day week 4 8.5 hours at the end of Covid. It works great - I am also working from home. It is noticiably more focused during the 4 days. Eg not doing meetings unless you need to.
I was lucky and I started on a 37.5 5 7.5 hours a day in the office.
I’m a contractor working 4 days per week for a well known YC startup. I indie hack on Fridays and weekends.
I found the job on Twitter, almost by mistake. The 4-day workweek was a non-negotiable for me because the indie hacking part is so much fun, and it’s making me around $60-70k/year, and I’d very much like to keep on developing the business.
Dream life! How did you go about negotiating 4-day week at a startup? From experience sturtups have been a "6 days in a 5-day week grind". Seeing a 4-day week is refreshing!
I just made it clear from the beginning that that was what I was looking for. They had no issue with it.
It does feel like 5 days in a 4-day grind sometimes, but at least I get the time to indie hack.
I used to work 4 days a week for some years. Used to hate Mondays, then I loved Mondays, and hated Tuesdays instead. Worked fine until the company changed direction and the work got too stressful, so I ended up quitting and retiring. It was an easy negotiation, we already had one guy taking every Wednesday off.
But seriously: Most tech companies only care if you're doing a fair amount of work for what they're paying you. If you have the skills to do more work than others on the team in 4 hours per day instead of 8 hours a day, no healthy company is going to complain.
US Military. I have a pile of leave that accumulates at a reasonable rate. When I'm not deployed or TDY (Where leave continues to accumulate), I take almost every Friday or Monday off. When you mix in the federal holidays, it's sustainable.
My gig has been doing 4-day x 8hour work weeks since long before I started. We have Wednesdays off which is a bit unusual but means I never work more than two days in a row (unless I want to swap a Wednesday for a Friday). It's pretty great.
I started out at 5. Left the company and stayed in touch with the CEO. The CEO asked me if I was interested in returning and I agreed with the stipulation I could work 4 days a week, so I could work 1 day a week on my side project.
7 person company doing CMS customization and operations for large gov, edu, and ngo clients.
I started as a contractor at that schedule, and when my boss wanted to "put a ring on it" they didn't want to up my pay by 30%. If you account for that time, I am in the top 10% of earners for my stack according to stack overflow.
That process took a long time and a willingness to work for "less", as well as a lot of uncertainty and a willingness to do a lot of shit work that should be "not my problem".
Also, after having worked with the same business for the last 7 years, there are some things that I feel I could improve:
- I'm the old guy who is supposed to know fix the hard issues and if I can't figure it out then it probably isn't getting fixed
- I haven't gotten reasonable raises but I don't want to start my own business or take a full-time position (though I have gotten some okay bonuses)
- I'm working mostly with WordPress, which has a number of infuriating flaws and while I've gotten better at identifying, preventing, and remediating them it's still a crappy stack
- I've had to learn a lot of infrastructure stuff I don't particularly care about
But I do have health insurance, and have been working a relaxed schedule remotely the entire time. I've spent a lot of time practicing various musical instruments while ruminating on my work. And we're usually pretty easy-going about moving hours around if (for instance) the snow is really good and I want to get out and ski.
Also, I get the idea that everyone in my business has gone through some serious depressive or other personal issues (based on their periodic lack of availability) over the time we've been working together... I know that when my second marriage was breaking up there were multi-day periods where I was literally phoning it in for several months. I consider the fact that we're all still working and getting a lot of useful, remunerative things done to be one fact that keeps me working this business instead of, like, taking up electrical contracting (that is, finding another trade) where I think I could have more control over my working conditions.
I also have enough extra time that I can work side gigs, mostly involved with performing music in a variety of capacities. I happily engineered a concert last night and played a trio gig at a beautiful winery today.
I feel incredibly fortunate, even though I could probably triple my annual income if I were motivated.
The company just started doing it after the pandemic hit. They mostly did it to support the mental health of engineering, but has now become a perk to try to entice talent.
When joining my current company I said in the negotiation phase that I'd like to do a 4 day week in exchange for 80% of the offered salary. They agreed.
I was at a very good job. My ultimate goal is to just go to the beach and not work at all. I realized that’s too big of a leap, so I set a shorter term more realistic goal of working 4 days a week.
My employer at the time rejected the idea, so instead of ignoring recruiters like usual, I answered them. If a job wasn’t immoral, the interview process wasn’t arduous, and I felt I could do the job, I went through with interviews in good faith.
Every time I did this, I got to the offer phase. With nothing to lose, at that moment I asked to work four days a week. I didn’t demand it. I just asked for it. I think I even said the exact words “I know you’ll probably say no to this, but I want to work four days a week.”
One place made an offer that wasn’t better enough compared to my existing job. I didn’t accept and moved on.
Eventually a place made an offer I couldn’t refuse. I have been here almost two months. Have yet to work on a Friday. I’m actually working harder than ever on Monday through Thursday. I am motivated to make this last, because honestly it is just as fantastic as I imagined. My life is so good right now despite the world being terrible.
My new salary is higher as well.