Four-Day Workweek Pilot Project Abandoned at Hungarian Telecom Company (bloomberg.com) 57
Magyar Telekom is returning to a standard work schedule after a four-day workweek didn't meet expectations in a pilot project. From a report: Regular operations will return at the end of February after a one-and-a-half-year trial period, during which 300 of its almost 5,000 employees worked only four days a week for the same pay, the Hungarian unit of Deutsche Telekom AG said in an emailed release late Tuesday.
Test pool out of sync (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait (Score:5, Interesting)
I have family there and they've been working 4 day work weeks since before 2009. I feel like they're trying to create a false narrative that it doesn't work to keep more people from demanding it.
Re:Wait (Score:5, Informative)
I have family there and they've been working 4 day work weeks since before 2009. I feel like they're trying to create a false narrative that it doesn't work to keep more people from demanding it.
This article [dteurope.com] seems to confirm your statement.
It is a pity TFS links to another Bloomberg paywalled article, offering very little information itself.
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“The four-day model cannot be uniformly applied to all employees, and most of them could not work efficiently in this model due to the nature of their work or their living situation,”
I'm not so self-centered that I believe other people need to suffer along with me, but I work in one of those customer facing jobs that requires me to be there to do my work. My only actual issue with the people pushing the reduced work week is that they often overlook, or at least don't discuss, those positions. The only real way to equalize it for the
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I worked customer service for a company in the 90s that implemented 4 day work weeks, company wide.
It was just divided teams with overlapping schedules. Most departments worked M-F, so teams were split into M-Th, and T-F. Production and Shipping were 6 days a week, so they split to M-Th and W-S. All meetings were handled mid-week when we overlapped.
Back then it was experimental, and pushed by the state as a commuter traffic abatement plan. The company got a tax credit for not having employees commuting
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We worked 4 x 10 hour days.
In the case of this story, it wasn't 4x10. From what I saw, it was an actual reduction in overall hours at 4 x 8.5. That is why I based what I said on reduced hours. The only way to cover 40hrs of staffing need, is to have people there for 40hrs. If you cut back to a 34hr week per person, that still leaves 6hrs that need to be covered.
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Agreed. My point was that 4 day workweeks is not a new idea. We have found ways to make it work for decades -even tho the company in the article referenced above failed.
In your case, the company is already scheduling multiple people on overlapping schedules to cover 24 x 7. It is the same type of thing. Adjusting peoples schedules to cover the needed work shifts while providing them with multiple days off.
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We have found ways to make it work for decades -even tho the company in the article referenced above failed.
That's just it. You seem to be ignoring the constraints of the example. The only way to reduce the hours of employees, when there is minimum staffing, is to hire other employees to then work those hours. I'm not saying that isn't a valid solution, but most companies aren't going to consider it a valid solution.
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This company has a 0-24h phone customer service, but to reach a human being you first have to talk to a f*ing AI called Wanda who barely understands anything.
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We do the alternating Fridays off schedule. We call it 9/80 - still 80 hours work, but every other Friday off for the whole staff.
Pretty clever actually how it's done - labor laws specify a 40 hour work week, but they don't define what a 'week' is exactly (just a 7 day period). So, the clever part is you declare the week starts and ends in the middle of the workshift on Fridays. So the Friday hours get split between two weeks. Needs a little a tweaking though - 9 hour days on Mon-Thurs (36 plus half a F
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I used to be great at 10 hour work days. Nowadays, I am pretty similair to you. That said, a 7 day 5-6 hour work week sounds horrible.
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Many Chinese do 666 -
6am to 6pm 6 days a week.
Standard in many industries.
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Sure, but be honest, would you rather work 4x10 or 5x8 hours?
I mean, when I'm working from home, I don't care too much, but 4x10 has fewer wasted hours commuting than 5x8, so 4x10 it is.
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Sure, but be honest, would you rather work 4x10 or 5x8 hours?
None of the above. 4x8 is acceptable, though. This needs to be done on a national basis, as piecemeal experiments will not work for most companies. Just like most nations adopted a 5x8 schedule, which works mostly because everyone in each nation adopts it together, a shorter work week will be successful only if it becomes the new national standard.
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Re: Wait (Score:1)
I work from home, I work like 12 sets of 2 to 4 hours per week. If I had to commute, I would be less productive, but given you donâ(TM)t live in hellholes like LA and NYC, most peopleâ(TM)s commutes are rather pleasant and short.
I don't think that's how it works (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: I don't think that's how it works (Score:2)
You think Hungary has no lakes or rivers? Jetski's work in all kinds of water, not just ocean water...
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I know Hungary. Your jetski would be in Romania before you're done unpacking it.
What didn't work? (Score:4, Interesting)
Going on the assumption they are an outlier, plenty of times people confused disorganization for being busy. Being kind, Project Management is basically the fools game of trying to lie to yourself that you understand the state of something, never defined properly. That's why almost all projects are late, over budget, confusing, poorly document, or suffer from any other number of major flaws. A good way to tell if you PM strategy doomed, do you care about the charts or the data that makes up the charts? I've had someone tell me the charts don't look "right", so it's hard to explain them, but the work under pinning those charts was excellent. That same person also wanted me to change how I work, so the charts looked better. That person is one of the most disorganized, scatted, and rushed people I've ever met.
Assuming Magyar Telekom has bad PM strategies, it's possible, if not likely, the four-day work week failed because of the PM flaw, not the logic of less work time = higher productively (*).
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It's more likely bloomberg is just lying [dteurope.com]. However much you hate journalists, it isn't enough.
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I know every non-management person hates management, and every low level manager hates the higher level manager, while the higher level manager thinks people below are not good at their job... but that's not necessarily the reason. I think 4 days work weeks work well in s
And yet... (Score:4, Informative)
...hospitals have somehow managed to figure out how to make 3-day weeks work for their nursing staff in true life-and-death situations.
Re: And yet... (Score:2)
And nurses are complaining and quoting due to burn out in those 12 hour shifts. It is great for continuation of care not to have to swap out someone every few hours, but it is really bad for employee health, mistakes grow towards the end of the shift and nurses are becoming a sparse commodity leading to the outliers that are capable of it able to command $100/h and more.
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Yeah and aren't they working 12 hour shifts?
This is the narrative we want. (Score:5, Insightful)
A single failed experiment on four day work weeks will absolutely get published all over America. We need to be reminded constantly that we need to spend *MORE* of our time at work in order to be "productive." Productivity, of course, being directly linked to providing profit for those who already have plenty.
I can't wait for AI and other forms of automation to make us still more productive so that we can get back to having people work ever more hours to support the oligarchy! HAIL THE ALMIGHTY PROFIT! Fuck living a life while you can. Work is what life is for. Work harder! Work faster! WORK LONGER!
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Fuck living a life while you can. Work is what life is for. Work harder! Work faster! WORK LONGER!
youre probably the same person that cries when their uber-eats is 5 minutes late, figure that one out
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Fuck living a life while you can. Work is what life is for. Work harder! Work faster! WORK LONGER!
youre probably the same person that cries when their uber-eats is 5 minutes late, figure that one out
All a matter of perspective. The people I know who are all about making certain they do not work an extra minute don't seem to be living their best life. Some of my age haven't really gotten started in life even after I've retired. I suppose they enjoyed their attitude a long time ago, but now they are looking forward to a retirement on social security.
Now, I'm an inveterate planner, and not afraid to work harder or faster. But there is that perspective thing.
I retired at 55. And yes, I worked pretty h
Re: This is the narrative we want. (Score:2)
I retired at 55. And yes, I worked pretty hard, and extra hours as needed. Saved a lot too. But there is something the people who don't want to do any extra don't get. They are still working, which is something they hate. Using the guideline of a full time job, and the average full timer woking an average 1936 hours a year, and with 67 being the retirement age for people born when I was - they get to work 23,232 hours more than I do.
Which is it? Did you put in extra hours while you were working or not? You claim to have worked extra hours - And yes, I worked pretty hard, and extra hours as needed - but then you said others are working 12 years (23,232 hours) longer than you...
You worked more hours than they did during the time your shorter career and theirs overlapped, reducing the delta/diff between you and them.
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I retired at 55. And yes, I worked pretty hard, and extra hours as needed. Saved a lot too. But there is something the people who don't want to do any extra don't get. They are still working, which is something they hate. Using the guideline of a full time job, and the average full timer woking an average 1936 hours a year, and with 67 being the retirement age for people born when I was - they get to work 23,232 hours more than I do.
Which is it? Did you put in extra hours while you were working or not? You claim to have worked extra hours - And yes, I worked pretty hard, and extra hours as needed - but then you said others are working 12 years (23,232 hours) longer than you...
You worked more hours than they did during the time your shorter career and theirs overlapped, reducing the delta/diff between you and them.
I in no way shape or form worked 12 years worth of extra hours during my tenure. Just because I put in the time needed to do an excellent job does not mean that I put in the same number of hours that they have to work in the extra 12 years.
I put in the 40 hours per week. They put the 40 hours per week.
I put in extra time as needed which at times had me working extra hours They did not.
Look at it this way - in 30 years, a person working the 1932 hours per year would have worked 58080 hours.
Rememb
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Op here. I worked my ass off from the time I was seven, when I got my first real "job" being out in the fields and/or working the calving barns on the dairy all day. I'm always told you work hard and there are rewards, but at fifty, I'm seeing very little of those rewards. There's always another hoop to jump through to satisfy everyone else, and nobody, not a single god damned person, gives a fuck about your mental well-being. And if you dare to broach the subject and mention that you may need a moment to c
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Op here. I worked my ass off from the time I was seven, when I got my first real "job" being out in the fields and/or working the calving barns on the dairy all day. I'm always told you work hard and there are rewards, but at fifty, I'm seeing very little of those rewards. There's always another hoop to jump through to satisfy everyone else, and nobody, not a single god damned person, gives a fuck about your mental well-being. And if you dare to broach the subject and mention that you may need a moment to collect your breath, you're told you just need to double-down and work harder. It's all a pointless treadmill towards death. Work, work hard, work longer, work more. Emotional stability? That's for people with more money than you. Mental well-being? Again. You don't have the value to justify it. And all the while there's somebody hovering over your shoulder telling you you aren't good enough to justify even the salary you get.
I worked all the extra minutes for thirty some years before realizing it makes ZERO difference in my quality of life, other than making sure I have no downtime. And I'm not a person that does well with no downtime. But this is America, so I should probably just shut up and work harder/longer.
Life is a marathon, not a sprint. And you are correct, no one cares about you or me. And for certain, not all outcomes are the same. Some are born "successful" ie of wealthy parents. Some work hard and fail. Some get really lucky - but not many. All paths may be different.
I came from poverty, was supposed to at best, get a job in the mines. At best. More likely predestined to be a n'er do well. I decided that the best revenge upon my family and locals for their prejudice was to become successful. Can
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At one time working 7 days a week was common. The 5 day work week took a literal rebellion with deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Let's make the four day week happen.
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The country I'm currently in switched from 48 to 40 hour standard work weeks in 1975. Since 1975, productivity went up by 100% to 2000%, depending on the field you're working in. More of course in fields where computers would revolutionize the work. So the output of every worker doubled or increased up to twenty times in the meantime.
If you now hope to see wages come even close to doubling (inflation adjusted) dream on. They barely stayed the same.
So how exactly would the industry want to justify refusing t
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That has what exactly to do with the time people work?
Because it's not the same number of people doing more work. It's fewer people doing the same work.
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If you now hope to see wages come even close to doubling (inflation adjusted) dream on. They barely stayed the same.
i dont think thats how it works exactly. everyone else also saw the same jump in productivity
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Yes, and now you have the power of 10 1970s supercomputers in your pocket, more information than any library at your fingertips, your car is significantly more efficient, people die less often across the globe.
If you want to talk about redistribution of wealth, in 1970 about 40% of the world population lived in abject poverty (living on less than $1/day), today that is less than 1%, because the Western efficiencies in productivity funded their development.
The money didn't pool anywhere in a magic cloud whil
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I fully agree with him and haven't ordered food to be delivered since sometime in the late 90s. What's your point?
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im not sure what youre point is tho
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That I have no expectations of what and how and when Uber Eats does anything.
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Your view of the issue is rather skewed. They actually profit more from the shorter work week, and you and I both know that there's plenty of evidence for this. The problem is that the people making decisions have been doing it since a time when we didn't get so much done in so short a time. They're accustomed to the longer work week, and don't trust the idea that a person can be more productive in fewer hours. It's the same line of reasoning that requires a person who's more productive at home, to return t
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Your view of the issue is rather skewed. They actually profit more from the shorter work week, and you and I both know that there's plenty of evidence for this. The problem is that the people making decisions have been doing it since a time when we didn't get so much done in so short a time. They're accustomed to the longer work week, and don't trust the idea that a person can be more productive in fewer hours. It's the same line of reasoning that requires a person who's more productive at home, to return to the office. It's not the Profit that's the issue here, it's the perception of control.
The real problem is that they currently see "control" and "profit" as complete equivalents. Anything that gives them more control should automagically lead to greater profits, and no amount of logic, facts, or data will disabuse them of that delusion.
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Your view of the issue is rather skewed. They actually profit more from the shorter work week, and you and I both know that there's plenty of evidence for this. The problem is that the people making decisions have been doing it since a time when we didn't get so much done in so short a time. They're accustomed to the longer work week, and don't trust the idea that a person can be more productive in fewer hours. It's the same line of reasoning that requires a person who's more productive at home, to return to the office. It's not the Profit that's the issue here, it's the perception of control.
Just think how productive we'll be when we get that down to 0 hours - we might hit infinity, and beyond! But what about the jobs that cannot be shoehorned into 32 hours? You have shift work, and things that require round the clock processes. In my field, experiments often take the amount of time they take, and will we need to have two lead researchers? My typical workweek involved testing - which took as long as it took, preparing a paper or report, then meetings and discussions. Deadlines were usually tig
Re: This is the narrative we want. (Score:2)
The math is very simple:
If you re-arrange but keep the same number of work hours, that's a wash - it benefits neither the employer or employee financially.
If you reduce hours but keep pay the same, that's an effective pay raise.
If you reduce hours and reduce wages a corresponding amount, you've reduced cost for employer and increased the worker's free time.
The fallacy in this discussion is that salaried workers can be reduced to 'per widget' pay schemes, and that doesn't map for many occupations (for exampl
4x 10 hrs, 9x 80hrs, 5x 40 hrs (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a government job where everyone was allowed to choose their schedule.
4 days a week, 10 hours a day
9 days per 2 weeks, 80 hours for those 2 weeks
Standard 5 hour days, 4x hours a week.
I tried the 4x10. Sounded cool, but that many hours mandatory was burn out big time. Those last 2-3 hours were brutal and not worth a 4 day week.
I switched to the 9/80 schedule. I was already staying late on occasion so I was really working about the same as 5x40 and got an extra 2 days/month back. That was really nice.
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I think I could be just as productive doing a 6x5 week (30 hours) as I am doing 8x5 (40 hours). On a 9/80, even that extra hour was painful, I end up working from home in the evening often anyway - then on the Friday off people would page me. I just went back to the 8x5 but I'm sure to leave on time everyday.
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This was government. Although I wasn't union, we did have a sizable number of unionized workers so they applied union policies to all of us. 30 hours wasn't a union option therefore no one else can have that or anything else not in the union contract. No room for discussion.
I got into it with my boss about eating at my desk vs leaving the facility to eat for my mandatory minimum 30 minutes. I was dressed down and told in no uncertain terms I was not allowed to eat at my desk and -must- leave the buildin
Re: 4x 10 hrs, 9x 80hrs, 5x 40 hrs (Score:2)
I really disliked eating at my desk when I had an office job, I really valued my time out of the office.
When I had a retail job, I chose not to eat in the break room - I opted to not only step out of the store for lunch, but also take an extra 30 unpaid minutes to have a clean break from my work.
That's what I did, I don't think that was such a radical thing, and to be clear, I much preferred eating with co-workers to eating alone, it was about decompressing...
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Agreed, leaving for lunch is imperative.
Obvious conclusion... (Score:2)
If 4 is worse than 5. Let's try 6!
4 day work week (Score:2)
When it doesn't work: "bah, you're just greedy and forcing it not to work."