Dell trials 4-day workweek, massive UK pilot of shortened week begins

Dell employees in the Netherlands will be able to work four days a week from this month, a director of Dell Technologies Netherlands has confirmed to The Register. The news comes just before the biggest ever 4-day working week trial begins in the UK. Isabel Moll, newly appointed vice president and general manager at Dell …

[red19]

Ofc more hard cash in my pocket helps. But for me the flexibility of remote working and flexi hours are more important.

Also not commuting means more time to do things and reduced environmental impact.

As for going into the office, +1 for the common sense approach.... Ask can I do X from home? If yes, stay at home. Else office.

Meetings are not an in the office task. As more often than not you end up traveling to join a Teams meeting.

As for a reduced working week, that seems like a good idea; With the assumption that you are (as a company) big enough to spread your people out to cover your needs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Autonomy? Surely they made up what people thought they wanted to hear? Or was that just their prevous managment team?

[Anonymous Coward]

There s no way to buy more time

After having tried it for some time now, remote work is surely top of the list. Particularly if remote work is "no questions asked", currently it seems that a lot of non-100% software development remote work somehow implies "from within the same country".

I am not entirely sure I'd appreciate a 4-day work week over a 5-day work week with, say, 6-hour working days (https://www.dailyscandinavian.com/6-hour-workdays-in-sweden-boost-productivity-energy-and-happiness/); however, within reason, I am pretty sure I would gladly accept a decrease in salary for these benefits.

Moreover, as red19 pointed out:

"Also not commuting means more time to do things and reduced environmental impact."

But no-commuting also means one could optimize things so as to not have to have a car at all, and that means huge savings and more peace of mind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

The company I work for is UK-based, and remote work has to be in the same country for tax reasons, apparently. If you want to live and remote-work in another country, then you have to be employed and paid in that country, so we have been told. This would cause complications. So they've made things simpler by banning it.

(They may be right. It doesn't apply to me, as I don't have any right to live and work in other countries. So I haven't done any serious research.)

[Korev]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

My work is based in Basel on the border with France and Germany so we have lots of people coming over the border every day. My Company's policy of work "remotely if you want" can't apply to those coming over the border each day for social security reasons[0] so there is a bit of a two tier system here (which some people really resent).

[0] Each person coming over the border needs to basically come to work for four days a week

[jmch]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

My Swiss roles have always allowed remote in Switzerland only. My understanding has always been that it's related to Swiss data protection laws, which are more strict than EU ones (for financial sector at least)

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

I hadn't realised the EU "freedom of movement" was restricted in that way. In this day and age of computers for calculating wages and taxes, it really shouldn't be an issue. Of course, there's no EU-wide income tax system or tax allowances. On the other hand, I suppose the USA has had this problem and dealt with it years ago with various city, state and federal tax systems all wanting their "proper" share of the employees taxes, especially in State border areas and WFH happening.

[doublelayer]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

"In this day and age of computers for calculating wages and taxes, it really shouldn't be an issue."

That's not the only issue. Sure, the people who make the software that does that charge a lot for multiple countries and businesses don't really want to pay if they don't have to, but they also have additional regulatory requirements that get in the way. If you only employ people in one country, even if they're citizens of another, then you have to be familiar with and follow the one country's labor laws. If you employ people in multiple countries, then you have to deal with regulations in all of them, which undoubtedly includes additional paperwork and probably includes situations where some employees get one situation and some get a different one even though they work on the same things and close together geographically. Everything from worker's insurance to vacation policies has some legal restriction, and that's a lot of overhead. This is easier for countries that already employ people in that country, but for smaller places that don't, it's not work they're likely to want.

[phuzz]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

I hadn't realised the EU "freedom of movement" was restricted in that way

Switzerland aren't in the EU.

(the OP didn't make it clear, but Basel is in Switzerland, near the Swiss border with France and Germany)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

you have to be employed and paid in that country

I know it gets very complicated, we've had issues with travelling sales managers where it was found we'd have to set up a business in the country just to employ the one person if they lived there, or contract through an agency (at a price).

With less direct contact needed it's easier to avoid the situation and employ locally.

[AndrueC]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

Many years ago I worked as part of a trans-Atlantic software development team. We were employed by their UK division for HR purposes but because they didn't do any other software development in the UK our manager was in the US. Worked out well for us because our US manager was always careful to avoid getting involved in anything HR-related and our UK 'bosses' were careful to avoid getting at cross-purposes with the US side.

Anyway a couple of times we went over there for an annual engineers' summit. On the first visit we had a couple of spare afternoons so asked if we could use empty cubicles to do some work. After an hour our manager came back and asked us to stop. Apparently there was some concern over the legality of us working while over there because we were only there using the standard visa waiver scheme.

I've never really got to the bottom of that. It does seem like that visa specifically excludes doing work (other than presentations) and yet it seems a bit silly that we weren't allowed to remote into our normal computers and do a few hour's work.

Then again this was a very large multinational who had been the subject of serious litigation for other things over the years so perhaps their legal team were running scared.

[GlenP]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

We didn't have any issues when working on a global ERP deployment in Detroit, until we'd been to visit Canada. On returning to the US the immigration officer really didn't want to let us back in, eventually he asked who paid our wages and on getting the answer that it was the European companies he gave up. That seemed to be the crucial element then and the corporate had been advised what we were doing was OK as we were representing Europe on the project.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

>It does seem like that visa specifically excludes doing work

It gets complicated. You can go to the USA to sell / install / service /train people on your foreign kit

You can't do any work or receive training.

Once had to get a special ticket for a conference I was speaking at, stating I was banned from attending any of the training sessions.

One got stopped when I was heading to our US office for a week - asked if I would be doing any work while I was there. Told INS there was a corporate re-org and we were going to spend a week being Powerpointed at - and I could guarantee nobody in the company was going to get any work done that week.

They waved me through with a smirk

[NeilPost]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

Excludes you from doing generic Work in the US that could compete with US workers for the same generic employment.

It does not stop you doing your *existing* British domiciled work, - even for US clients - just from there.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

>It does not stop you doing your *existing* British domiciled work, - even for US clients - just from there.

You have to be careful, you can work for NeilPost's independent traders (New York-Paris-Peckham) while at DisneyLand, but you can't go into the New York office and claim you are doing your London work

[Mog_X]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

Our company has the same restrictions for the same reason, although I think data protection also comes into play as well.

One of the teams I work with recently employed someone - all the interviews were remote and we had the new laptop shipped to a London address.

A week or so later, InfoSec flagged up that this laptop was connecting from Cyprus. The new employee admitted that they had the kit shipped out to them and they had never stepped foot in the UK, so they were immediately terminated.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

That sounds like a major failure on the part of HR. One of their primary roles is make sure the person the company is employing is who they say they are, live where they claim and have a "Right To Work" in the UK.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

Yes, and without trying to drag in the 'B' word, it is a consequence of Brexit; there are also complex differences between doing business (e.g. business meetings, etc) and doing work (which you could charge out or be paid for), the latter being verboten or more accurately requiring a complex work visa application. It's given us headaches as we have a German office and are occasionally obliged to work there for legal reasons to do with our industry, whilst now also not being allowed to work there for new stupid reasons.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

Move to Kaliningrad and tell the German authorities you consider it to be German.

See if anybody wants to make an official ruling against you !

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

>I am not entirely sure I'd appreciate a 4-day work week over a 5-day work week with, say, 6-hour working days

If you have a 2 hour each way commute here on the west coast.

> however, within reason, I am pretty sure I would gladly accept a decrease in salary for these benefits.

I requested to work 4 day/week for 80% salary and work said no, because we have too many big projects and it's impossible to find staff. So I'm leaving at the end of June (end Q2, tax reason) - they just don't know yet !

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

>If you have a 2 hour each way commute here on the west coast.

Well... in that case I guess the decision kinda makes itself.

>I requested to work 4 day/week for 80% salary and work said no, because we have too many big projects and it's impossible to find staff. So I'm leaving at the end of June (end Q2, tax reason) - they just don't know yet !

I am also familiar with that level of strategic thinking: "Let's not make a small concession and lose it all instead." Best of luck and let's see if In July they'll come up with a damage-control counter offer

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

"[...] let's see if In July they'll come up with a damage-control counter offer"

It has always been my guiding principle that such offers may be tempting - but the employer's ethics are not to be trusted.

An invaluable colleague was very considerate and gave the company advance warning that he would be retiring slightly early in 12 months' time - as his wife's chronic illness was getting worse. HR then cancelled his pending 10% pay rise - which would normally have boosted his company pension.

The departmental manager thought this the right thing to do. My colleague then handed in his one month notice. The departmental manager then offered a tiny one-off bonus payment for 12 month's hence. On condition that my colleague was deemed to have been working cooperatively during that time.

My usually mild-mannered colleague was spitting blood - and left ASAP.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: There s no way to buy more time

"let's see if In July they'll come up with a damage-control counter offer"

If it;s already a 2 hour each way commute, it'd make sense to maybe do a longer day 4 days per week.

Although I was a little concerned at the articles reference to a 40 hour week. I've not had a contracted 40 week for about 40 years. It dropped from 40 to 39 in the first couple years of my working life and has been 37.5 for at least the last 25 years. In one of my early jobs, a 4 day working week of 2x9 + 2x9.5hrs was negotiated with an "interesting" shift pattern based on 4 days out of 6 such that every 5-6 weeks the days off would be Fri, Sat, Sun of one week and Mon, Tues, Sun of the next, almost like having a week off every 6 weeks. Something weird with overtime rates crept in too such that if asked to work on days off (never a Sunday), day 1 was paid at double time and day 2 at time and half, which was nice, since about 4 out of 6 shift patterns included Saturday working which was paid at time and half anyway. I never did find out if the union made a great deal or if the Local Council were just crap at negotiating. No strikes, work to rule or other staff action involved.

[Tom 38]

Can I do 5x10 and have 25% more money please.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

So you want to do overtime for the same rate as your normal hours?

[doublelayer]

They might be paid with a salary. In that case, quite frequently the system is that the employer asks you to work more and you don't get paid any better. At that point, even getting paid at a proportional rate seems like an advantage.

[John Brown (no body)]

Once upon a time, being a "salary guy" was a badge of honour to aimed for. You got well paid, while being expected to take on extra work/hours when needed for the benefit of company as a whole and therefore yourself. Over time, this is degenerated into what we have today. An expectation of putting in many extra hours purely as a matter of course, and the salary isn't that great anyway. In many cases, being a "salary guy" is the last thing anyone wants!

[doublelayer]

It can still be. It just means a different structure--if something breaks and you need to fix it now, for an hourly worker this may be an unpleasant task whose rewards will be delivered in cash, whereas for a salary worker it's just unpleasant. That is if you have a job that sticks to a normal level of effort when there isn't a crisis. There are many jobs like that, so it's not automatically a problem. The problem comes when a job decides not to go that way and assumes that workers on a salary can be abused for as much effort as can be burned out of them. That happens and a lot more often than it should, but it's not universal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, for the heady days of commuting weekly to Limerick for Dell from England...... ;)

[GlenP]

Only Limerick? I used to commute to Detroit from the UK!

OK, only for a specific project for a few months but crossing the pond every week takes it out of you.

[Anonymous Coward]

I’ve done worse - weekly commute to Singapore

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

If you do it in the right direction you gain a day, so you can have 3day weekends every week !

[ICL1900-G3]

Limerick vs Detroit? I know which one I'd choose!

[Anonymous Coward]

4 days, nah not for me, happy with WFH though

I think 4-day week is pushing it a little, larger companies may have enough staff to cover Mon or Fri, or whatever, but most won't be able to do this.

To be honest personally I love WFH but 4 day week, I dunno. I find it hard enough to come back in Mon after a Friday off with just time-off-in-leiu or day's holiday to get some stuff done, you have the mandatory 150 emails to rake through ( usually down to 3 useful ones! ) and any meetings you missed and have to catch up on the notes.

I also like having 5 days to spread out my work on quieter weeks, you get time to get on and catch any of those noddy tasks you can do in 5 mins, rather than get called out which has happened on days off. I know a lot of this is just bad management and that sort of thing but 5 days works for me, I'd only 4 days if the whole company did that but being a financial company that would simply not be possible.

[Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells]

Re: 4 days, nah not for me, happy with WFH though

I don't think it's viable but it's great that a study is seeing if it is.

It may well be that the productivity drop is small because less days means more focus. Or it won't.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: 4 days, nah not for me, happy with WFH though

I find I have a lot more focus if I'm working 4 days.

It means I have what needs doing on each day plotted, while if you are working a 'full' week, Friday seems so far off that you aren't really in the zone til Wednesday

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: 4 days, nah not for me, happy with WFH though

Here in Calgary, Canadaland, the Oil & Gas & related industries had it worked out with a hourly spread so that every other Friday you had off.

Made for a much easier commute every Friday (Icon) on the C-Train or drive in.

[Juillen 1]

Re: 4 days, nah not for me, happy with WFH though

If you're longer in the tooth, like I am, then yep, research is on your side that you generally tire faster, so a shorter week is your productivity advantage. If you're a youngster (first decade or two of work), then the standard 35-40 hour week should be a pushover. Over 60 hours a week as bad though.

[Mike_R]

Re: 4 days, nah not for me, happy with WFH though

Longer in the tooth... yeah, that's me

In my eighth decade, WFH half-days, four days a week, helping to keep some 30-year-old servers running.

Probably be switched off (the servers, not me) in a few months (They tell me that every year.)

Seems like an excellent compromise, for which I am grateful, mainly brought about by the recent epidemic...

icon: meant to signify old age..

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember working 4-day (36 hour) weeks at Calcomp offices in LA at the end of the '70s - plus ca change (as they say in Essex).

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Never heard any of my former Essex outlaws say that.

Icon (Time to dust off Paris) - Essex girls.

[Ikoth]

WFH

I've been WFH since before it became trendy - for about 12 years in fact, and I never want to go back to office life.

I've managed this by taking jobs with companies that don't have a UK office. For a couple I've been a full employee with salary & benefits being handled by payroll agencies (with variable success). For the other I'm a freelancer and I take care of my own tax affairs.

I find I'm more productive WFH. I don't get embroiled in (as many) unnecessary meetings. Jumping on early calls with APAC based contacts, or late calls with those in Western US time-zones is easier without having to factor in the dreaded commute. In previous lives I worked in the centre of Manchester, which in ideal conditions, should take about 75 mins door-to-door. In the real world, I'd be looking at 2 hours each way, every damned day. I started leaving home earlier & earlier to get a head start on the traffic. Some days I was at my desk, 90 mins before start time, MaccieD breakfast in hand. Then I'd start looking at the clock from about 3pm, wondering how bad the traffic was going to be that night, what time I was likely to get home. - utterly soul destroying and my health suffered.

Now, I have time to relax in the mornings, I have a proper breakfast. Some days I'll walk the dogs at lunchtime. Some evenings I work late if calls or projects dictate, but I'm happier, healthier and more productive than I ever was working in a office.

[Peter D]

Re: WFH

The WFH revolution has allowed me to take on two full time contracts. I use the second one to put the max into my pension and £20k into an ISA and the rest into savings.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: WFH

£40k pension, £20k ISA, and savings, after tax? How much are you paid? Sounds like nearly as much as an MP with their second jobs.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: WFH

"In previous lives I worked in the centre of Manchester,"

I'm with you on that! My job sometimes takes me to Manchester. I'm far enough away that morning rush hour is over before I get there, but sometimes I hit the afternoon rush hour on the way out. What a pig! Even with the completion of the M60 ring road, there are still significant bottlenecks on that motorway in numerous places all around it.

[call-me-mark]

I tell you what I don't miss working from home: all the selfish [redacted]s who come into work with a cold and spread it round the whole office. If the powers that be are going to mandate going back to the office, then they also need to normalise staying at home when you're sick.

[Juillen 1]

The only reason most did that was due to HR and sickness policies.

I work in healthcare, and always kept looking incredulously at each tightening of sickness policy that came out of HR (more draconian measures for breaching certain metrics, up to and including dismissal).

In light of that, those who had a less than stellar immune system (particularly the front liners who really can't work remote), there was no option _but_ to turn up to work with the sniffles.. Anything that really didn't land you in bed with no option to move was a get up and get in illness.

Which, of course, as you mention, spread the disease around, knocking even more people off their perches and probably resulting in far more sickness hours overall than would have been suffered if the policies had been less drastic.

Interestingly, now that it's a "Stay away if you're sick, but get tested" approach due to COVID, sickness hours are down.

[John Brown (no body)]

I've not even had a cold for two years! Win-Win :-)

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

>I work in healthcare, and always kept looking incredulously at each tightening of sickness policy

I think that's what's known as organic market growth

[Sammy Smalls]

I'm not sure I understand how this is going to work.

The bit I'm struggling with is the 'no loss of pay' and 'not squeezing 5 days worth of work into 4 days'.

Either, of the original 5 days there is a 1 day of work that doesnt need to be done or, there really is 5 days worth of work and someone else is going to be hired to do it.

In either case, someone will end up being hired, increasing costs. Prices go up, inflation goes up and we end up taking a paycut through the backdoor.

I know there are efficiency gains to be had, but I cant see how this particular circle ends up square.

[G R Goslin]

Re: I'm not sure I understand how this is going to work.

It's a rather unfortunate fact, that living costs and taxes function on a seven day week basis. Earnings, as the generation of wealth, on the other hand operate on a daily, hourly basis. When I was much younger, seven day weeks, on the factory floor, tended to be the norm to generate a reasonable family income. If it had, oddly, not been, legally possible to work on Saturday afternoon, it would truly, have been a seven day working week. Since none of this foolishness affects our far, and near east competitors, our costs will rise and even more of the wealth generation will move overseas

[doublelayer]

Re: I'm not sure I understand how this is going to work.

The theory is that, when you drop from five to four days, two things happen. First, workers get more rest and are therefore more alert and productive when they're working. Second, because there's less time to waste, the people who make long, unnecessary meetings see those meetings take up even more of a limited resource and trim them back. If you actually got both those to happen, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw productivity increase. However, everyone understands how meetings can impair productivity* and we still have a lot of them, so I am not as confident that the second one will happen.

*Yes, the organizers of meetings do understand that meetings can be a problem. It's just that the meetings they personally decided to organize are critical ones that can't be moved. They're perfectly willing to ascribe the problems to other people's meetings.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: I'm not sure I understand how this is going to work.

>Either, of the original 5 days there is a 1 day of work that doesnt need to be done

Ever been in an office job ?

[I don't know, stop asking me.]

I don't get why this is news. Dell is about the last company in the Netherlands allowing 32-hour working weeks. Especially in IT, this is pretty standard and has been for at least the last decade or so.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Is Dell in NL an 'IT' company or is it just sales/service for shipments in Europe?

There is a lot of difference between SAP needing to got to 4day because otherwise programmers will leave, and a call center+warehouse operation staffing more shifts

[Juillen 1]

Depends on the stage of life..

When I was "Young and Hungry", the cold, hard cash was what made the difference. That gave me flexibility in other areas to do things like get a house, travel a bit and get all the certifications that made sure I was worth hiring (especially when I ran my own company).

Now I'm a lot longer in the tooth, and keeping up that pace is not so easy. So a bit of a "power down" would be nice, and more hours free would be the big enticement. Interestingly, there's research around that points out that once you get past 40 or so, then a 25 hour work week becomes the "sweet spot" of productivity.

Before then, the recommendation is that you don't routinely work more than 60 hours a week, as that's bad for your health (which I can testify to, being in my 50s these days, and doing over that for 2 years during COVID times).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Depends on the stage of life..

Routinely working more than 40 is bad for my health, and productivity. 60 hours, no chance I could produce useful output. Something those who claim to work those sort of hours should just be honest to themselves about. If they are being useful over that timespan then they aren't actually doing much work in those hours.

[Mr Dogshit]

There is no such verb as "to trial"

Something is either "on trial" or it is "being tried"

[Annihilator]

Re: There is no such verb as "to trial"

All dictionaries seem to disagree with you.

[markr555]

Re: There is no such verb as "to trial"

That's bullshit, dogshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There is no such verb as "to trial"

If it's understandable, it's valid English.

You clearly understood what they meant, so it must be ok.

[jmch]

At this point in my life...

... The real difference maker is the possibility of 100% WFH. The resulting savings in time, commute and lunch costs, and sheer stress far outweigh any other factors.

Of course it helps that my productivity also improves and I have a certain flexibility in working hours. And I get to have more time with family and my 'real-life' friends rather than colleagues as surrogate 'friends' (though to be fair, a select few colleagues over the years have become actual friends)

[chivo243]

It will flop from a productivity standpoint

I worked in NL for 20+ years, everyone in the IT Office was full-time, and some other departments had a mish-mash of people working part-time one or two full-timers trying to stay afloat, these departments were continually behind schedule, overworked and always looking for a better solution instead of 'get 'er done' and catch up. Then one of them would become 'Overspannen' (burned out) and stop working, but keep drawing a modified salary, and nobody hired to fill in... add a few ladies going out on maternity leave (my experience is 50% don't return after the baby comes, I understand they want to be mom!) and it gets crazy... see where this is going?

[ICL1900-G3]

Work

Is not all it's cracked up to be.

[Stork]

Re: Work

It’s a four-letter word!