[aargee]

Originally Posted by Samurai

You can have your 5 day week, as long as all the assigned 8-day work is completed

+1

On a 4 work day week, companies should also be flexible enough to accommodate if an employee is willing to work on 5th day. Should not put him through saying they need approval from ministry to work on 5th day

[SmartCat]

If somebody is having a 'burnout' because of 5-day work week, it means there is something wrong with the work environment - most likely a bad boss, but there could be other reasons too. Making it a 4-day work week or 3-day work week will not solve the problem.

If somebody is always looking forward to Friday evening and always dreading Mondays, it is time to switch companies or perhaps even change their career.

[ajmat]

An "X" day week makes not sense when you leave home at 7 am for a 45 min commute. Spend the day in mindless meetings and customers with crazy expectations. Leave at 4 for a 90 min commute. Then again from 8PM -11PM on conference calls. One puts in hours but the quality does not always comes through especially towards the evening.

A good organisation needs to ensure quality "blocks" of time which are limited per day for proper intensive work. Start with managing the actual day before one talks about the number of days/week.

[tilt]

An old quote (origin unknown but attributed to many people) comes to mind - “No one ever said on their deathbed ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.’ ”

Actually this thread here peripherally relates to another thread here about what happiness is and how to achieve it or something to that effect.

People get into the rat-race because of their notions of happiness and how to achieve it; and get stuck there because of the same.

I would even go as far as to say that it is we people who are the enablers of companies/corporations etc. exploiting us by making fewer people work harder and longer hours in order to do the work of more people.

I have posited what I believe to be the problem; but do I have a feasible solution? Unfortunately none other than an idealistic utopian one.

Well, actually, I have been fortunate enough to have never having to work anything more than 5 days a week with a maximum of 40 hours in that week - and my career has been only in IT/IS consulting all over the world including India.

Cheers

[neeravnaik]

Why Not! I would definitely opt for 4 day week if I was in a position to do that. Work and productivity is great but that is not what you take away in life. We don't realize but we give far too much of our lives to work.



An interesting question to consider would be what will be your choice for the 3rd day off.

A Friday or Monday for that long weekend so you can get a good switch off from work and plan that regular traveling you always wanted to. Or a Mid week break so that you always 1 day away from a holiday

[DigitalOne]

Another appropriate maxim is

Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. A proverb coined by the twentieth-century British scholar C. Northcote Parkinson, known as Parkinson's Law. It points out that people usually take all the time allotted (and frequently more) to accomplish any task

In my experience in a middle-level management position in a S/W product development MNC, I can affirm that a 4-day week (4 * 9 = 36 hours) is sufficient for the work we do.

[am1m]

Huh?!

Most of my company (and I suspect most of the Bangalore IT industry, except the startups I guess) are already on a 4-day week (or even 3!) If you include commute times and all those useless 'meetings' spent listening to some disembodied voice over the phone in the evenings, then I guess it's more. But from a pure sit-down-and-get-some-actual-work-done perspective I reckon we've been on a 4-day week for some time now. Almost everyone takes an extended lunch on Fridays. Those traveling over the weekend 'work' from home. Those who use the office cabs leave at 3:30 to beat the ridiculous traffic on the ORR. Which means stuff stops happening at about 3.

Wondering how much longer this state of affairs will continue.

[V12Doc]

Personally I am a workaholic, I dont like weekends because every thing is closed. I think a greater balance could be striked if we have a task based work days, This wouldn't work for everyone ( Emergency, Monitoring areas) but most of the stuff can be figured out in a task based work day. You are given tasks for the week If you do it early you get more time off, you do it late you get less time off, this would be motivational and comfortable at the same time

[shivasi]

From an Indian IT perspective, you also need to consider that most companies bill clients on the hours put in by employees. So most Indian IT companies have a 45 hr week. So more hours equal more money in the bank.
Now can employees work for 9-9.5 hrs per day? Never. So how do they manage this? By spending more time in cafeteria or browsing the internet. This has now become part of our system. We are also more social with our colleagues unlike other countries.
My current organization is relaxed about the hours people put it. It has made me more responsible. I now follow the Dutch model, take 30 mins for lunch, coffee at my desk and leave early. But it hasn't prevented from being asked sometimes if I am leaving early for which I just smile and say YES.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by shivasi

I now follow the Dutch model, take 30 mins for lunch, coffee at my desk and leave early. .

So it is official now: Leaving the office early, but not before you had a nice long lunch break and spend hours drinking coffee at your desk is known as the Dutch model!!

Always said those Dutch are work-shy lot!.

Jeroen

[Red Liner]

When I lived in Scandinavia, this was my schedule:

5.00: Wake up
6.00: Make BF & Lunch
7.00: Leave for work
7.45-8.00: Work
11.00: Lunch
11.30: Work
16.00: Gym
17.00: Groceries
17.30: Dinner prep starts
18.30: Chill time
21.00: Bed

I could do this 5 days a week, and have the weekend to myself. 4 days a week will also work, gives a great extended week-end to work on your personal stuff which is so so important and neglected.

The issue is not 4 day week or 5 day week. The issue is what we do IN that day at work. I typically work very quickly and have the ability to wrap up a full day's work in a few hours.

Back in India, and my own staff balk at me when I bring up the subject of getting in at 8 am and leaving by 16.00 hours.

The thing is, if we work 4 days and get paid for 4 days, it will help restructure the costs of living in urban environments. Everyone will be forced to pare down their expenses, and prices will also drop. Inflation will drop big time. More people will travel and get into extra curricular stuff. Entrepreneurship might actually kick off in a big way, because everyone has extra time to do something different. Families will tend to be happier since everyone has more time together (since I expect schools to also fall back into a 4 day week - most needed!). Lock down the maximum number of hours an employee is allowed to work by law and fine the insitution that goes overboard.

I wonder which genius came up with this 7 day calendar week and 5 days of work and 2 days off thing. It's more cultural than scientific in any way, passed down through the ages.

In a non-urban setting, none of the above rules apply. Because every day is the same as the previous one. There are no sundays or mondays. Sometimes you even lose count of which day of the week it is. I wonder why that is.

[GeeTee TSI]

I feel even a 4 day working week will have limited impact if the said 4 days have an arduous commute, especially since the latter plays a big part in work-life balance.

Also to be wary of sneaky moves by companies to squeeze in close to 45 odd hours in those 4 days!

[gauravanekar]

From manuacturing perspective, 4 day or even 5 day work week is not feasible. Because a human cannot work productively for more than 8 hours a day consistently. Shorter "official" work day inevitably result in longer actual workday. Quality, Safety and productivity goes for a toss.

reduction in workday has to go hand in hand with reduction in workhours in a factory thereby not affecting the number of hours of work in a workday. Depending on the technology available and product changes if the work hours can be reduced the it is welcome.

[yoscenario2000]

Originally Posted by smartcat

If somebody is having a 'burnout' because of 5-day work week, it means there is something wrong with the work environment - most likely a bad boss, but there could be other reasons too. Making it a 4-day work week or 3-day work week will not solve the problem.

If somebody is always looking forward to Friday evening and always dreading Mondays, it is time to switch companies or perhaps even change their career.

This is exactly what I feel.

IMO, its not about the duration you spend on working but its about how you feel while doing it. In short, its about work environment, work culture & more importantly job satisfaction that makes huge difference in productivity of an individual.

As long as one is getting all these minimum requisites criteria at work, whether it is 4-day or 5-day working week. Doesn't matter.

[coolmind]

Originally Posted by vigsom

I've seen small entrepreneurs who work 6 and a half days a week and are still satisfied. Half a Sunday is all they need as a break.

There are others who only enjoy 5-7 days' break a year during the Gujju New Year.

It is not the number of hours but how productive and satisfying those hours are that make a difference.

In my view, a day that starts at 8 am and ends at 4 pm 5.5 days a week, without stressful deadlines would work best; in such a case, a Saturday holiday makes better sense than a Sunday. One day a month Work From Home would be an added sop.

So far as travel goes, taking early morning departures to attend business meetings makes stress shoot.

It just isn't worth carrying extra stress just for the sake of netting big cash at the end of the month.

Very well said.
Iam in 100% agreement with every word you said.
Iam working for a PSU with six days a week but while comes in comparision with an IT professional who has 5 days a week, feel less stressed. as rightly pointed out, it all comes down to the satisfaction one gets from the job.