A 5 day workweek crammed into 4 days. This changes effectively nothing, except maybe save costs on one round trip to your office and back.
For the people working at home, it literally does not make a difference.
Edit: to the people nitpicking about my hyperbolic use of “literally”, the difference we should be fighting for is as u/braang says: “the real future is max 4 days/week max 6 hours/day. we should be fighting for this.”
Back in my days working at a helpdesk, our employers had the same idea. Until I brought up “maaltijdcheques”. We’d only get 4 because we were working 4 days instead of 5.
I politely declined their offer and continued to work 5 day, 8 hours.
I was already working 4/5th… But 30 hrs.
It’s totally irrelevant as we’re not talking about reducing working hours here.
Not applicable to me. I don’t imagine doing 50-60 hours in 4 days.
the real future is max 4 days/week max 6 hours/day.
we should be fighting for this.
Meanwhile my sector is still using 6-day work weeks with no plans to go down to 5-day. FML
The biggest problem I have is that I think you’ll always be running behind.
For example you work your 38-40 hours from monday until thursday and are off on friday. But other people aren’t… So when you get to work on monday you have a full day of emails to plow through on top of your other work…
It’s of course different for every job but it’s something that would hold me back.
I’m up for this, but apparently because I work 39 hours this needs to be negotiated into a cao by our union first?
They (sort of) don’t mention 2 important points:
1. The Belgian law does not allow for more than 9.5 work hours a day (including lunch break), which means any job with more than 38 hours a week will be tricky to convert (without reducing hours and pay).
2. All employers can refuse, but have to justify this refusal in a formal letter to the authorities if asked.
Proposed it to my boss. He told me to shut up or I’d be fired.
Time isn’t equal or interchangeable. Working 4 days would mean less time connecting with family and relaxation, more expensive childcare and less eco/maaltijdcheques. Lose/lose.
Do they also reset vacation days which are now the equivalent of 8 working hours? So less vacation days since you need to ‘cover’ more hours per day?
It’s a first step, still a long way to go.
As long as this is optional why not. I have small kids now so it’s not fir me but in my 20s when I was single with no kids I’ld probably take the opportunity
Is it permitted to do 4 1/2 days ? Ie still full time hours…or is it a binary choice of 4 or 5 days.
16 comments
Can we call it what it is?
A 5 day workweek crammed into 4 days. This changes effectively nothing, except maybe save costs on one round trip to your office and back.
For the people working at home, it literally does not make a difference.
Edit: to the people nitpicking about my hyperbolic use of “literally”, the difference we should be fighting for is as u/braang says: “the real future is max 4 days/week max 6 hours/day. we should be fighting for this.”
Back in my days working at a helpdesk, our employers had the same idea. Until I brought up “maaltijdcheques”. We’d only get 4 because we were working 4 days instead of 5.
I politely declined their offer and continued to work 5 day, 8 hours.
I was already working 4/5th… But 30 hrs.
It’s totally irrelevant as we’re not talking about reducing working hours here.
Not applicable to me. I don’t imagine doing 50-60 hours in 4 days.
the real future is max 4 days/week max 6 hours/day.
we should be fighting for this.
Meanwhile my sector is still using 6-day work weeks with no plans to go down to 5-day. FML
The biggest problem I have is that I think you’ll always be running behind.
For example you work your 38-40 hours from monday until thursday and are off on friday. But other people aren’t… So when you get to work on monday you have a full day of emails to plow through on top of your other work…
It’s of course different for every job but it’s something that would hold me back.
I’m up for this, but apparently because I work 39 hours this needs to be negotiated into a cao by our union first?
They (sort of) don’t mention 2 important points:
1. The Belgian law does not allow for more than 9.5 work hours a day (including lunch break), which means any job with more than 38 hours a week will be tricky to convert (without reducing hours and pay).
2. All employers can refuse, but have to justify this refusal in a formal letter to the authorities if asked.
Proposed it to my boss. He told me to shut up or I’d be fired.
Time isn’t equal or interchangeable. Working 4 days would mean less time connecting with family and relaxation, more expensive childcare and less eco/maaltijdcheques. Lose/lose.
Do they also reset vacation days which are now the equivalent of 8 working hours? So less vacation days since you need to ‘cover’ more hours per day?
It’s a first step, still a long way to go.
As long as this is optional why not. I have small kids now so it’s not fir me but in my 20s when I was single with no kids I’ld probably take the opportunity
Is it permitted to do 4 1/2 days ? Ie still full time hours…or is it a binary choice of 4 or 5 days.