Want happier employees? Start with a 32-hour workweek – and 4 weeks vacation.
Want happier employees? Start with a 32-hour workweek – and 4 weeks vacation. | Your Turn
Want happier employees?
No. American corporations absolutely do not care about how happy their employees are. They only care about maximizing profits, and the best way to do that is to squeeze as much productivity out of their workers while also paying those workers as little as possible.
They know the workers aren't there to find fucking happiness. Few are so privileged. Most people go to work not because it makes them happy, but because they need the god damn money, to keep a roof over their head and to put food on the dinner table, and as everything gets more expensive, the workers need more and more money, to stave off homelessness and destitution. Happiness, Jesus Christ. What a luxury!
The purpose of capitalism isn't to make people happy. It's to make profit for owners. That's it.
It's not even about max productivity, as it's well established over long run you get better productivity in many jobs working 4 days and better vacation etc, the suffering is literally the point for many of these fucks. Whether they admit this outright or not
It's hard to explain, but I have a hard time believing it's just sadism. Maybe it has to do with the productivity gains from a four day work week taking time to realize. Like you said, over the long run you get better productivity, but maybe the corporations are just more interested in short term profits.
Want happier employees?
No, not really.
The owner class
that's a bit unrealistic. The expected answer is "will this make line go up?"
Nah. It's "will this make line go up by next quarter?"
Short term profits are the only profits that matter to high frequency stock traders.
Lol. This country just voted to move in the opposite direction of this. We voted for less worker rights. Less power for the average person.
At this point, we'll need to start utilizing our 2nd amendment right if we want to get anything better than what we have. People died to give us the 40 hour work week. Looks like that's going to have to happen again for any further improvements.
Smarter countries did it without the bloodshed. America isn't that smart.
My dipshit coworkers think trump will actually be good for unions. Mfers.
I'd like to add that 32 hour weeks is pretty much purely something that works for white collar work. It's considerably harder to implement in blue collar settings.
Not true. The electricians in my area work 7 hour days and the sheet metal workers get every other Friday off.
The mental gymnastics required to believe that hurt my brain.
Is the reason it wont work in blue collar settings that it'll inflate prices of stuff too high? Possible making the country fall back in a global stance on pricing on exports, etc (not competitive)?
Only other reason I can see is if they need people at the workplace 24/7, but they usually hire more people to make that schedule work (which in return ig increases prices of whatever they are producing).
four weeks? hell no, i'd walk from any interview that attempted to strip two weeks of vacation from me.
Exactly. The "wild fantasies" of Americans seem to be "below average" European.
Cuz we get so much less
32hr workweek as a transition period down to 24 or even 20. 4 weeks PTO for new hires or something, add 2 weeks per year up to like 8 or 10, or even 12?
Fuck capitalism.
That's how I sounded like before I got married and became a father. Now I want to be CFO instead. Funny how that goes.
Bless capitalism
You know, you could just talk with your wife and/or find something more worthwhile to do than putting in the maximum physically possible hours at work.
Or just get a divorce, because that's faster and cheaper than avoiding your family until your wife divorces you and your kids resent you, and has the same end result.
And also pay us a fucking livable wage that's been adjusted for inflation and productivity gains over the years for fucks sake.
How are you alive without having livable wages
Now don't get me wrong, you should aim at a wage as high as possible and use whatever to achieve that.
But livable wage? Are you a peasant or something? You already are being kept alive.
Want happier employees?
"No."
"If the have time to be happy, they have time to be more productive! Increase the targets and quotas!"
Only 4 weeks? In much of Europe, 5-6 weeks is the norm.
It's 7 days in Singapore 🫠
But most white collar jobs here are around 18-21 days.
Lmao they don't want happier employees they want more money
Wait,you guys don't get that? Shit I'm.here in Northern Ireland and that would be less than standard. That's what we give teenagers,hell,most teens would not take that deal. When did America start treating the worker so bad? Like 1865?
America was built on treating the worker badly. Most of the first people that came here were either slaves or indentured servants. Chinese people got exploited to build the railroads, and then banned from being citizens in the country. Now we have prison slavery and wage servitude. There are a million and one examples, but exploiting the worker is as American as apple pie.
The only thing that has ever really improved in American labor is actual safety standards for work environments, equipment, etc. We do a great job of prioritizing that. But actual workers are viewed as expendable, and many of the largest employers are just meat grinders even if they offer half-decent benefits. Walmart is a good example of that
"But worker rights that is socialism! Socialism is evil because the soviets say they are that!"
Yea everyone knows how that great socialist state of ireland
32h work week?
4 weeks is still not on par with other civilised countries. Living here in the UK now, 5 weeks is standard. When I was in the Netherlands I was getting six.
Know what really hurts?
Running into foreigners in your own city who tell you about how they're on a multi-week vacation to America and they'll probably do it again to another country again next year. I've had that happen multiple times while out at bars in my city.
Meanwhile, I've barely crossed state lines in my entire adulthood because it's hard to even get a 3-4 day extended weekend.
America sucks y'all.
Join a union. I work part time in America. After just one year of working I had 3 weeks of vacation. After 3 I now have 4 weeks and am taking my 2nd international trip of the year and 3rd vacation trip of the year.
Or better yet, unionize your own workplace with vacations as the primary demand
I just want to say that I work for an amazing boss in the UK as a software developer and a few months ago we all got pay rises and a reduction in hours. We now work 33 hours a week instead of 37.5. We get 4 weeks holiday and an extra day added after each year of work up to a total of 25 days (five weeks).
We can be sick without being moaned at and they truly do put us first and the work second. I’ve had a lot of jobs before I sorted my life out (like 50+) and I swear I have PTSD from the old ones in that I can’t believe how nice my boss is as every other have been for corpos who somehow manage to get some other poor idiot to treat you like shit whilst paying you minimum wage and expecting maximum effort.
You can see that having 50 jobs meant I was not really one to take the bullshit and I would just lose the job for giving them my thoughts.
Incredibly relatable.
Eh... They'd prefer to double down on the happiness beatings.
Your premise is flawed in the first sentence - "Want happier employees?" No American employer cares about that in the least. Being happy at being allowed to keep their job and keep showing up to collect your meager pay is about all you can expect.
came in to comment effectively this., but you phrased it better than I would have.
"But happy employees naturally work harder" yeah, but so do desperate employees, and that also satisfies corpo desire for abusable slaves.
Best I can do is a free slice of pizza for Employee Appreciation Day
You get pizza!? I get a very heartfelt email from our company president
Do companies want happier employees?
If they ever figure out that happier employees are more productive therefore giving the co more money, but for that you need to look past the next quarter
Productivity is irrelevant for many places, suffering is literally the point
Start paying people enough that they can actually live instead of struggling just to keep their heads above water.
But companies don’t want happier employees. With that title this article will never break out of the echo chamber and reach employers.
I worked for an employee owned manufacturing company for near ten years. The philosophy of our company was, "the essence of life is relationships".
The founder of the company was the only religious person I knew who actually followed it's teachings, he sold his stock to the company for less than it was worth until we were 100% employee owned. The stock price then shot up from $200 a share to $6k a share in ten years.
The company understood the importance of working ideas from the bottom up, (involving the lowest ranking employees just as much as the highest ranking). We understood the importance of company culture, and even had teams of people to make sure the needs of our employees were being met.
We had a supervisor who by all accounts was a fine supervisor on paper, however he rubbed every single employee the wrong way, he was a cunt if i may. With the support of all of us, we were able to, I don't want to say get rid of him, it sounds cold, but his name came up on our (truly anonymous) survey one year the company asked him to resign, and he did.
The owner passed away in 2018, and shit got squirrely from there, i left during the pandemic. CEO and highest ranking positions then changed hands to folks not there at the founding of the company, I felt the culture shifting and left due to personal reasons. The stock has since tanked.
I dont understand why these companies don't see the importance of uplifting their workforce.
I'll never find and employer like that again i think. It was a magical decade. Of course my stock is tanked now, im to be cashed out this year.
The ladder has been pulled right before my time my whole life so this osnt new. I went from having enough for a down payment on a house, and now i wont even beable to afford a car lmao.
I've seen this happen to multiple people. Join a startup with good perks, listen to the siren song of "the stock price will go up!" while the owners are out getting offers for their shares, then the owners sell out or the company tanks and you're left with nothing despite having millions just a couple years ago on paper.
The key is to sell out once you have enough that it makes enough to impact your life. 500k or more is enough to escape poverty for almost anybody for life.
Even if you just sold it as it vested you would probably be better off.
Wow that's absolutely fucked. But at least you had some nice years. Sorry to hear that about the stock.
I would literally take a life for that work balance.
40-50hrs a week isn't a life worth living
Ikr. I can't even find time to go to gym cuz of commute. That alone just drains whatever energy I had left from the day and so I just scrap by with the few things I can do later in the evening. Sucks man.
The next ad you see: "The only device that lets you work-out, on your way-out, to work!"
A sad world indeed.
Unfortunately the leading point of view from employers
Is that if an employee is happy with their job... THEY ARE NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH.
They feel that ONLY those who hate their jobs .. are efficient
Also worth mentioning from the article,
I work fully in the office. But I think remote work is better for work-life balance. I don't have the option to work remote
Well, why not? Covid showed how great this can work .. but so many companies went back to 20th century norms as soon as the pandemic ended
My experience is that in person and remote favors different sorts of tasks. For me I have both so I think hybrid is the most 'productive', though I'm much happier with the 'remote'.
So on pure productivity, I could see some roles favor in-person.
But if you want to more cheaply recruit and retain, favoring remote is certainly going to help.
I really want a new normal of shorter hours, though that might be a trickier discussion so long as we have very highly utilized labor pool.
Maybe he is a hardware toucher
Want higher productivity? ...
FTFY
i dont WANT happier employees i want MONEY!
Don't forget the healthy dose of salary and humane treatment.
Okay i agree now what
No matter how valid the premise is, that headline kills this article. It should say, "Want More Productivity? Start with yada yada..."
Pay enough for them to afford two kids, a house and a car without dual-income and don't have them work so many hours they can't enjoy them.
That goal is too modest. We shouldn't settle until Keynes prediction of a 15-hour workweek is fulfilled.
I deeply wish this would happen, but know it would never happen in my lifetime in my country.
I've been working full time, sometimes overtime, for almost five years out of college. I want to practice piano more. I'd love to volunteer. I want to go outside more. I've always wanted to spend a month backpacking in the Pacific Northwest. It's been my lifelong dream to write a book.
I'm so exhausted after work every single day that I can only get myself to play piano for a half an hour, and then play video games or read until I pass out before my bedtime.
32 hour workweeks AND lower the overtime threshold to match. And that's just using my office job as a basis.
The threshold from part-time to full-time will also need to be lowered accordingly for grocery store/fast food type jobs.
Only 4 weeks? For an entire year? That's brutal.
4 weeks vacation is too small.
Make it 8. Rest is fine.
This is just my personal opinion and I know the hyper liberal lemmy will hate it but based on the current economic structure, a 4 day work week and extra vacation weeks would probably cost me more money than just working.
While I’m at work I eat less food, use less utilities and stuff like that. Being home more causes me to spend money that I don’t have. I’m already living paycheck to paycheck working 5 days and barely eating. Having to eat 2-3 meals an extra day per week would be too expensive. An extra day off would just make me get a second job.
We need to pay people a liveable wage before we can talk about more pto.
Sad to know you have such a case. But yes, this has to be addressed alongside.