Work hard, play hard: Micrsoft reports 40% increased productivity after decreased workding days

[Taf the Ghost]

41 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Actually I know a few Japanese and have worked with them before.   

 

Lets assume you are right and it is a management issue and not a overloaded worker issue.  By taking one day a week of production from the entire labor force in order to address a management issue is somewhat disproportionate.  Especially in a country that prides itself of the companies success. 

But they also don't want to take the blame for not having changed things when there's strong institutional inertia. Which is why the 3-day weekends was clever. No one had to take responsibility for implementing the changes & enforcing them. "Saving face" isn't as important as some make it out to be in Japan, but it does matter in key situations.  This entire situation points to there being other motives to what they were up to. Also, it was August in Tokyo. I'm sure they saved a small fortune in energy bills that month.

 

But, and this is probably key, if the 3-day weekends was that consistently productivity increasing, they'd keep doing it. It's likely they happened to do it during a large spike in sales during the month that has nothing to do with the workers. Otherwise, they'd be rushing to run this type of schedule.

[CarlBar]

On 11/4/2019 at 7:10 PM, Shirley Dulcey said:

 

Second, some of the improvement was surely caused by the Hawthorne Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect  That is a well known phenomenon where making people part of a research study causes a temporary improvement in performance.

 

 

Please read this. Please: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/30/nonsense-lives-on-in-the-citations

[DeScruff]

You could have all the evidence in the world showing a 4 day workweek is better in every single way for everybody.

And you would probably still have a hard time convincing your boss to implement it. Because they cant get over the "it's 1 less day!" hump.

[steelo]

So, I assume the 4 work days will have longer hours to make up for the extra day off? A 4 day work week sounds wonderful, but few can afford to work 32 hours versus 40+ hours...we're talking about a cut of hundreds of dollars on each paycheck for most people.

 

It's kind of a sad state of affairs when you think about it. I believe I read another story a while back essentially stating that Americans work harder than the slaves of our past. My wife and I both work full time and we work hard. We take 1 vacation a year and essentially work like good little corporate machines the rest of the time. I will say this...it aggravates me when people tell me that I'm a 'greedy' American for taking my wife out to a nice steak dinner.

 

https://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity-vacation/

 

[kpluck]

Quote

Microsoft Japan's 3-day weekend trial resulted in an incredible 39.9 percent increase in productivity. This was partially attributed to the shortened work week meaning employees had to be more economical and efficient with their time. In particular, many meetings were shortened, cut, or conducted remotely so as to eliminate the commute.

Which is why these results will not be obtained if done in the United States. The Japanese workforce is very different than the American workforce.

 

-kp

[Bombastinator]

On 11/4/2019 at 4:35 AM, Trik'Stari said:

I'd be fine with this so long as my pay was increased to offset the lost hours.

 

I can't see this catching on in the states. At least not with businesses that are open 7 days a week.

It sounds real possible to me that it could be heavily influenced by what type of work is being done.  I have found effective 4 day work weeks to already be extremely common in the US at upper pay levels.  Try getting something answered on a Monday or a Friday.  There’s always someone “out for the day”

[GoodBytes]

7 minutes ago, steelo said:

So, I assume the 4 work days will have longer hours to make up for the extra day off? A 4 day work week sounds wonderful, but few can afford to work 32 hours versus 40+ hours...we're talking about a cut of hundreds of dollars on each paycheck for most people.

 

It's kind of a sad state of affairs when you think about it. I believe I read another story a while back essentially stating that Americans work harder than slaves in our past.

 

https://20somethingfinance.com/american-hours-worked-productivity-vacation/

 

White-collar jobs are paid yearly, not hourly. This model only applies to those who are paid yearly. In other words, to put is simply, this is for job that the company doesn't care what you do, where you are, when you start or finish work, but it must be done on time. While it sounds great, the downside is that it means that the concept of overtime doesn't exists for those in this field. That is why in the gaming world, you have so many people facing burnouts, because they sleep at their job for months on end, and get little sleep as they work and work and work to meet a poorly defined deadline for the scope of the project, and no they aren't paid a penny more for this.

 

[steelo]

14 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

White-collar jobs are paid yearly, not hourly. This model only applies to those who are paid yearly. IN other words, to put is simply, this is for job that the company doesn't care what you do, where you are, when you start or finish work, but it must be done on time.

Honestly, I don't see this catching on...ever in the states. It's a shame but over the years I've come to realize we Americans are programmed from the moment we stepped into grade school to be 'good corporate slaves'

 

I, like most people where I work are salaried...we are lucky to see under 55 hours a week and I'm usually working Monday through Saturday . This has been the case with every salaried position (I work in IT/healthcare)

 

One reason why I really don't like the idea of the 4 day work week for white collar workers is it REALLY creates a divide between the blue collar/white collar employees. White collar workers have time to spend with their families, etc while blue collar workers are essentially slaving away 40+ hours/week to be able to pay the rent this month.

[DrMacintosh]

On 11/4/2019 at 4:01 AM, huilun02 said:

This reeks of being a PR move

Ahh yes, the elusive PR move which in this case would be aiming to give workers more time to spend with their families? 

[steelo]

5 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Ahh yes, the elusive PR move which in this case would be aiming to give workers more time to spend with their families? 

For some...but once again, blue collar (hourly) workers will get the shaft.

[GoodBytes]

5 minutes ago, steelo said:

Honestly, I don't see this catching on...ever in the states. It's a shame but over the years I've come to realize we Americans are programmed from the moment we stepped into grade school to be 'good corporate slaves'

 

I, like most people where I work are salaried...we are luck to see under 55 hours a week. This has been the case with every salaried position (I work in IT/healthcare)

In the US companies follows other companies that they look up to. If Microsoft does it (for example, and is actually does affect productivity positively in the long term), you can bet Apple, Google will do it... if not, they may lose employees to work to the the competitors and bleed talent.  Other companies that sees the big companies do it, and wants to be like them, they will do it. Of course, not every company will do so. But that is up to the person to choose which work place best suit their needs and life style. We are not all the same.

[steelo]

I don't know about others, but vacation (PTO) time is almost as important to me as my salary. Correct me if I'm wrong but countries like Great Britian mandate something like a month of PTO time by law. Here in America, there are no such laws and most American workers are lucky to get 1-2 weeks a year off to take a vacation...

[cj09beira]

1 hour ago, steelo said:

I don't know about others, but vacation (PTO) time is almost as important to me as my salary. Correct me if I'm wrong but countries like Great Britian mandate something like a month of PTO time by law. Here in America, there are no such laws and most American workers are lucky to get 1-2 weeks a year off to take a vacation...

if its the same as here in portugal yes we have a full month's worth by the end of the year, though to be honest here things are really bad, most people now dont hire people long term as the amount of "Rights" workers have is so large companies cant afford it, so they fall back to i believe 4 month contracts which have very little rights, over regulation is a big problem here

[Real_PhillBert]

My office works half day Fridays, (honestly most people are gone by 10:30-11) and it really is a lot better than a full Friday.  

 

However my work day M-Th is 10.5-11 hours. 

[mcbaes72]

At my previous job, I worked (4) 10-hr days and had Friday off. It was great for a while, but eventually I got a little burnt out. It got more tolerable when I switched my day off to Wednesday. That way, I worked two long days, a break mid-week, then worked two more days until the weekend. 

[Doobeedoo]

It's like hot water was discovered. 

[Drak3]

On 11/7/2019 at 9:25 AM, steelo said:

Here in America, there are no such laws

And there shouldn't be. A company shouldn't have to pay you for time you're not being productive for them.

[Taf the Ghost]

On 11/7/2019 at 7:38 AM, Sypran said:

You could have all the evidence in the world showing a 4 day workweek is better in every single way for everybody.

And you would probably still have a hard time convincing your boss to implement it. Because they cant get over the "it's 1 less day!" hump.

Not really. A number of fields use 3 or 4 work-day schedules. It's really just a question of what works in each field, as if it works "best" in a field, it only takes one company getting a large edge for everyone else to follow. 

[Taf the Ghost]

On 11/7/2019 at 1:23 PM, mcbaes72 said:

At my previous job, I worked (4) 10-hr days and had Friday off. It was great for a while, but eventually I got a little burnt out. It got more tolerable when I switched my day off to Wednesday. That way, I worked two long days, a break mid-week, then worked two more days until the weekend. 

Part of the reason for the burnout is the most humans are good for about 7 hours of "work-level" productivity per day. You can do 10 hour days, but stacking them over-extends your energy on all 4 days which isn't made up for by an extra day off. Your timing & cadence never settle when you're working a 4x10, and recovery rates don't stack in a way that makes +1 day off overcome the net loss you're under. The Wednesday move was a good choice. 

[Taf the Ghost]

On 11/7/2019 at 9:37 AM, cj09beira said:

if its the same as here in portugal yes we have a full month's worth by the end of the year, though to be honest here things are really bad, most people now dont hire people long term as the amount of "Rights" workers have is so large companies cant afford it, so they fall back to i believe 4 month contracts which have very little rights, over regulation is a big problem here

Rules have very real costs. Compliance has a lot of costs. The "drawbridge effect" is normally how we see it, where the ones that have fairly secure position grant themselves more & more benefits at the expense of anyone else that might come later. For a lot of European countries, the rules are now so expensive that the entire system will need to collapse before there'll be any return to a workable state that doesn't strangle economic growth like it does right now. The result is only the highest of value type of positions are actually available, since those are the only ones actually worthwhile to hire. 

 

Ends up creating something like a Full Time Job-based lower-level aristocratic system, while also killing off any investment or training people into positions. If you aren't the "complete package" to start, you can't get the jobs. Only way to get the skill sets? Already have a position. And people wonder why there is severe political turmoil across the Western countries? People don't like being sold out so a small clique can pat themselves on the back about how great they are. History of the last 400 years says that's going to end pretty poorly for those currently on top.

[thorhammerz]

3 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

For a lot of European countries, the rules are now so expensive that the entire system will need to collapse before there'll be any return to a workable state that doesn't strangle economic growth like it does right now

I wonder whether it might happen before or after (the developed parts of) Europe gets out of its demographic basket-case status - I don't imagine the retirement homes will be particularly thrilled about front row seats to a rehash of the 18th/19th century revolutions rather than the latest soccer game (desperate Russian border grabs and German re-militarization issues notwithstanding).

Quote

History of the last 400 years says that's going to end pretty poorly for those currently on top.

 

Liberté! Egalité! .... Employabilité?!

[EpycZen]

But as a student myself, taking a leave for wednesday, saturday and sunday(M-T-H-Th-F-H-H) really improved my concentration and my alertness. Work or study for two days and take a leave. I tried that and it was really really helpful with managing stress and keeping up with the studies(India is the #1 sleep-deprived country because of schools and offices extending working hours to seemingly increase productivity but that doesn't happen). Having a 3-day continuous holiday can benefit some people but then we would lose that focus on the work. Yet, neither the education system nor the companies don't accept that no matter what.

[Taf the Ghost]

11 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

I wonder whether it might happen before or after (the developed parts of) Europe gets out of its demographic basket-case status - I don't imagine the retirement homes will be particularly thrilled about front row seats to a rehash of the 18th/19th century revolutions rather than the latest soccer game (desperate Russian border grabs and German re-militarization issues notwithstanding).

 

Liberté! Egalité! .... Employabilité?!

We joke a little, but that last phrase is pretty accurate to current French domestic politics. Or, frankly, most politics across the industrialized world. The post-WW2 generation invested very little into their own countries (and invented the Jet Set lifestyle and the Free Rider approach), and what we see is simply the faultlines that created. 

 

Also, economic politics set in stone during booms end very poorly for everyone when you have to come back to reality. 

[Crowbar]

lol @ millennials crying about having to work a 40 hour week.

[mcbaes72]

18 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Part of the reason for the burnout is the most humans are good for about 7 hours of "work-level" productivity per day. You can do 10 hour days, but stacking them over-extends your energy on all 4 days which isn't made up for by an extra day off. Your timing & cadence never settle when you're working a 4x10, and recovery rates don't stack in a way that makes +1 day off overcome the net loss you're under. The Wednesday move was a good choice. 

Agreed. Add three hours round trip commute per day and can see why I couldn't handle it for too long. Switching day off to Wednesday instead really helped me catch up on sleep and focus more at work.