I think better work environments and enjoying ones job are significant too,, but this sounds like a company that is onto something...


http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/18/3428463/treehouse-four-day-workweek/


The 70 people who work at Treehouse, an online education company that teaches people about technology, only work four days a week at the same full salary as other tech workers. Yet the company’s revenue has grown 120 percent, it generates more than $10 million a year in sales, and it responds to more than 70,000 customers, according to a post in Quartz by CEO Ryan Carson.

Carson has been working four-day weeks since 2006, when he founded his first company with his wife, he told ThinkProgress. He quit his job to start it, only to find that they both put in seven days a week. “I remember distinctly my wife and I were on the couch one evening,” he recalled, “and she said something like, ‘What are we doing? I thought that starting a company means you have more time and more control, but it seems like we have less time and less control and we’re more stressed out.’” They decided to cut back by not working Fridays, and after they hired their first employee, “we decided to officially enact [a four-day week] and we never looked back.”

Carson has since started three other companies at which he’s instituted this rule, Treehouse being the latest. While it’s hard to quantify, he believes his company benefits from better output and morale. “The quality of the work, I believe, is higher,” he said. “Thirty-two hours of higher quality work is better than 40 hours of lower quality work.” The impact on his employees’ outlook is also “massive,” he said. “I find I just can’t wait to get back to work” after the weekend, and he suspects the same is true for others. On Mondays, “everyone’s invigorated and excited.” He recounted a time when a developer told him that his hope was to work at the company for 20 years. In the Quartz article, he noted that a team member gets recruitment emails from Facebook, but that his response is always, “Do you work a four-day week yet?”

And recruiting people in the first place is also easier thanks to the shorter week. “We regularly have new employees choose Treehouse over Facebook, Twitter and other top-tier tech companies,” he writes. And the company is able to still pull in high sales and even $13 million in venture capital thanks to instituting higher efficiency, by, for example, strictly limiting the use of email.

Carson believes plenty of other companies could follow his example. “We have 70,000 customers, and I think if we can do it… couldn’t more people do that?” he said. Some businesses will still need to be open on Fridays, but he suggests “rolling employment,” where some people work Monday through Thursday while others work Tuesday through Friday. “Is it possible for everybody? No,” he concedes. “But I bet some huge percentage of companies can do it that just aren’t.”

There are some drawbacks. Not working on Friday, he said, means no day of slowdown before the weekend. “It’s kind of like 100 miles per hour until Thursday at 6 p.m.” And he acknowledges that less work may get done with one day off.

But there is some social science to back up the practice of limiting how much people put in at work each week. Research has found that putting in long hours, or more than 60 hours a week, produces a small productivity boost at first. But after three or four weeks of working at that level, it will actually decline. Other studies have similarly found that long hours produce a short term bump but have negative ramifications over the long run. This plays out on the global stage: countries where workers put in less time tend to be the most productive. For example, Greek workers put in 2,000 hours a year, on average, while German workers put in about 1,400, yet German productivity is about 70 percent higher.

The dominant work culture in the United States is one of overwork, though. We rank at number 11 out of 33 developed countries in how many hours we work each week. For professionals, nearly everyone is working more than 50 hours a week and nearly half are putting in more than 65.

Carson isn’t the only one experimenting with shorter hours. Municipal workers in Sweden’s second-largest city will soon work six-hour days to see whether it boosts efficiency and reduces costs if they need fewer sick days. Six of the ten most competitive countries, including Germany, have banned working more than 48 hours a week.

And just why would one doubt the topic posted here, wanting more for less.

And of course the servants would want to have more while giving less. And I could even support the less part if it were related to the stealing but it doesn't, does it.

But what logically follows at the servant level would be needing more servants to keep up which translates to a higher level of theft. Always entitled to get more at the expense of others, the entitlement slaves motto.

employers pay for PRODUCTIVITY

bottom line

Research has found that putting in long hours, or more than 60 hours a week, produces a small productivity boost at first. But after three or four weeks of working at that level, it will actually decline. Other studies have similarly found that long hours produce a short term bump but have negative ramifications over the long run. This plays out on the global stage: countries where workers put in less time tend to be the most productive.

if it happens to be more productive in a work period that doesn't exhaust or discourage,,,,its a win win

even if it doesn't fit into the preferred slave away for basics mentality that people have been indoctrinated into,,,

Really and just how would you come about such knowledge, the long list of businesses owned? Or would it be the magnificent profits earned for paying more while getting less?

But back to reality, not entitlement reality. Productivity increases only come about in two ways, either by working and being responsible for one's self or by having more people than positions, the productive ones work and the others try to figure out a way to procure a statist to achieve what they never could on their own.

yes, I see

one anonymous mingler deflnitely should be trusted to know more than those dreaded researchers and 'statists' who are paid to review such things




so, by all means, be the 'enlightened' citizen who decides to pay 10 dollars for the burger you can get for 1.50 somewhere else

and work for 40 hours at a minimum wage job (7.25 hourly wage) to earn the same 300 dollars another job will pay you for working 25 hours at a higher wage (15..oo hourly wage)....

wouldn't want to EVER CHOOSE to get 'more for less'

those of us who happen to VALUE our own resources of time and effort will continue to decide the most EQUITABLE tradeoffs....

The one thing they have going for them.

They get out of having to pay Owebummercare.

IF that is true

they get to have 'more for less' too,,, hun?

It would go without saying, a tech company hires educated people on a part-time basis.

Just like Walmart. Only short sheeting educated folk.

Who copied who?

EDUCATED PEOPLE, choosing to make the same pay and have more time to enjoy it

and giving productivity in return

whoever copied whom,, everyone seems to be winning,,,

People who work for a salary aren't necessarily making physical, tangible products that are mass produced and in high demand.

For example, a company that mass produces automobiles may need its hourly employees to work 5 days per week in order to produce enough autos to meet demand.

In contrast, that company mentioned in the OP (Treehouse) provides a service that can be provided within a 4-day period.

So, what length of work week is needed depends on what a company is selling.

Doesn't seem so does it, seeing that is.

And just what researchers would you be referring to, the ones not mentioned in the article. Or was it you clicked on the "Other" link that leads to a short discussion of the flawed BRT report that led to this conclusion:



Or was it the "study" link that was followed, an even bigger joke. To start:



Amazing isn't it at somehow 40 hours seem to be some magic optimum formula. So with all this research, now the studies of the part 150 years (according to the author of this fictitious article) are no longer valid, it should have been only 4 days and 32 hours after all, total and pure idiocy. But what I did find interesting is the basis of the research:



So switching to 10 hour work days increased production, but to what extent? And from 1848 to 1890 just how much had that production fallen off? And what was the increased production from now switching to 8 hours? But still, that wasn't the real surprise:



Can you imagine, part of the "New Deal", the socializing of America and of course we can all see where the "dreams" of Henry Ford has gotten us, almost the lost of a whole industry. Sound research.

But what nobody ever mentions are the very early experiments conducted by the early settlers. They were chartered by these rich elitist in England to come to the "new country" and where not to "own" anything but to work for each other for the common good, well they almost starved. Then they were allowed to work for themselves and keep the fruits of their labors. And there was abundance because each worked long and hard, for themselves and their families.

But even more telling is the tremendous increase of productivity and the vast extension to long hours when all the jobs are exported. so I would dare to state that in and of itself shoots vast holes in all that research.

And as for the other assumptions, those would be based on idiots, not enlightened souls. And $15 an hour, that is what I pay other to handle menial tasks that aren't worth my effort. For skilled individuals, I pay substantially more, to be free to pursue my interest. But then if it's something I really want to do, I would work for a $1 and then there are other things I wouldn't do for a mass fortune or even the ending of my life.

So as to "value", that would be a concept ill understood on your part as there is doubt of your understanding of the $1 or not ever.

BS, just whom is winning what? Educated, no just indoctrinated to be good little sheeple. But where they be sheep, there are wolves and they are a hungry lot.

Really, is this a new theory of economics? Must be from that fabulous think house there in Georgetown.

And Treehouse, another internet joke based on that illustrious economic principle that suckers are a dime a dozen and a new one is born every second. Something like Twitter thinking it is worth billions, and it is to the speculators that are betting they can ditch to worthless crap to the idiot masses before it comes crashing down like the last internet bubble.