At our company-wide get together last December we decided that 2008 was going to be a year of workplace experiments. Among other things, we discussed how we could make 37signals one of the best places in the world to work, learn, and generally be happy.
Here’s are a few of the things we’ve implemented so far:
Shorter work weeks
Last summer we experimented with 4-day work weeks. People should enjoy the weather in the summer. We found that just about the same amount of work gets done in four days vs. five days.
So if that’s the case we could either push everyone to work harder during those five days or we could just skip one of those days. We decided to skip one of those days.
So recently we’ve instituted a four-day work week as standard. We take Fridays off. We’re around for emergencies, and we still do customer service/support on Fridays, but other than that work is not required on Fridays.
Three-day weekends mean people come back extra refreshed on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people come back happier on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people actually work harder and more efficiently during the four-day work week.
Funding people’s passions
We decided that 37signals would help people pay for their passions, interests, or other curiosities. We want our people to experience new things, discover new hobbies, and generally be interesting people.
For example, Mark has recently taken up flight lessons. 37signals is helping him pay for those. If someone wants to take cooking lessons, we’ll help pay for those. If someone wants to take a woodworking class, we’ll help pay for that.
Part of the deal is that if 37signals helps you pay, you have to share what you’ve learned with everyone. Not just everyone at 37signals, but everyone who reads our blog. So expect to see some blog posts about these experiences.
Discretionary spending accounts
We’re in the process of giving everyone at 37signals a credit card. If you want a book or some software or you want to go to a conference, it’s on us. We just ask people to be reasonable with their spending.
If there’s a problem, we’ll let the person know. We’d rather trust people to make reasonable spending decisions than assume people will abuse the privilege by default.
We’ll post updates if we have them
The ideas above are active experiments. We’ll report back if we learn anything – good or bad – about what we’re doing and how it’s working.
Justin Gasper
on 05 Mar 08It’s refreshing to read this after escaping the corporate workplace to do consulting work out of my house. If there were more companies with ideas like this that include a great deal of trust in its employees, I probably wouldn’t be self-employed. I hope your employees appreciate this sort of thinking as much as I think they do.
David Andersen
on 05 Mar 08Why not just pay a higher salary instead of ‘funding passions’?
The 4-day work week is a nice touch, but if you’re going to put your trust in your employees, why not lay out what they need to accomplish by when and let them decide when and how to do it? Are you paying for time or output?
JF
on 05 Mar 08The 4-day work week is a nice touch, but if you’re going to put your trust in your employees, why not lay out what they need to accomplish by when and let them decide when and how to do it? Are you paying for time or output?
We’re interested in the work getting done, not in the time people put in, but, as often is the case, people tend to work together to get things done.
So semi-standardizing the work week allows for a lot more overlap with people’s time and availability. And it reminds us to not work all the time.
That being said, people work at different times. For example, Jeff and Jeremy’s are more late nighters than some other people. As long as there’s enough overlap during the day we’re all happy and everything gets done.
And, of course most of our customers work normal hours so being around for them on their terms is important.
Why not just pay a higher salary instead of ‘funding passions’?
First, this isn’t really about the money. It’s about encouragement.
We want to encourage and motivate people to find something interesting to explore. Most people can spring for their own photography classes, but how many people actually do it on their own? Most don’t but many would if they had a bit more encouragement and support.
Adam
on 05 Mar 08What are the goals driving the workplace experiments?
Reduce turnover? (not likely…) Improve satisfaction? More productivity? Introduce more creativity into your work? Become a thought leader in this space?
This question is maybe more pertinent to “funding passions”, but applicable to the others as well.
Ryan
on 05 Mar 08I would LOVE to work for you or a company like yours. I can only imagine the agility and creativity that would come out of me with that kind of empowerment and recognition from a small company rather than a corporate, snail-like behemoth.
sandofsky
on 05 Mar 08As far as funding passions, I’m sure there are tax benefits from having your employer pay.
Dennis
on 05 Mar 08Man. If only you guys needed someone with an average background in I.T., photography, and pop culture knowledge then I could totally be enjoying these benefits. :-|
M
on 05 Mar 08any motivation here by May’s Comments?
Ugur Gundogmus
on 05 Mar 08Kudos to you! You are creating a great company.
David Andersen
on 05 Mar 08I can only imagine the agility and creativity that would come out of me with that kind of empowerment and recognition from a small company rather than a corporate, snail-like behemoth.
Ryan – don’t blame your environment for a lack of personal anything. It’s all up to you.
Martin Messier
on 05 Mar 08Hi Jason, Congratulations on your workplace experiments! I heard on one of your interviews that you admire Ricardo Semler’s take on organizations, and that it comes down to treating your crew like adults.
I couldn’t agree more. Us business owners have a “penchant” for distrust, fear and hypocrisy when it comes to out employees. These feelings, of course, co-existing with our incoherent demands that they trust us, give their best to the business and stop complaining.
The Get Real philosophy you espouse and the overall philosophy with which you design your apps at 37Signals translates equally well in the workplace: create a framework that provides a certain degree of leverage but allow people to solve their own problems using creativity.
Kudos to you for your audacity and I look forward to reading more on your experiments!
All the best from Brazil,
Martin
Scott
on 05 Mar 08What happened to? Embrace Constraints or Constraints Breed Breakthrough Creativity
Mark
on 05 Mar 08I’d be interested in knowing how you track some of these things, specifically the 4-day work week.
For the most part, you’re a virtual company with diverse working hours. You’ve posted in the past that your generally against meetings and embrace working in the ‘uninterrupted zone’.
So if you’ve got 90% or better of your company working from their homes, there’s no discussions scheduled in your chat room, or someone chooses not to chat in order to stay focused—how do you know they’re indeed working and not out playing tiddlywinks somewhere on their designated “work” day / hours?
I’m sure you trust them and they deliver their milestones in a timely manner, but if that’s the case, why even the need to institute such a policy to begin with?
Tomas
on 05 Mar 08You guys are an inspiration and I think you are making big progress towards changing the norm. Over the past number of years your writing has changed my perspective on business and how best to run one.
Passion is what matters, and its what drives change. Thank you.
Scott
on 05 Mar 08posted too soon.
Don’t get me wrong or anything. I think it’s great what you implemented, and I understand it is an “experiment”, but you’ve been a champion of constraints (small teams, short iterations) and do more with less. So, it’s no surprise for the 4 day work week (living within constraints), but limit-less credit card is removing constraints.
Other Scott
on 05 Mar 08I think this is about the coolest, kindest, not about work thing I’ve ever heard. I mean, how cool is that – the company you work for is “encouraging” you to do something you’re passionate about. We need more of that in this world, I can tell you that.
Bravo for you guys. This just sounds too damn fun to not do. This was an excellent read!!
dan
on 05 Mar 08Very… very… cool.
Chad Crowell
on 05 Mar 08Re: Constraints- I don’t think 37S has ever said that a philosophy they apply to software, programming and design has to apply to all things 37S. They are allowed to apply a different philosophy to something completely unrelated to programming, like, employee credit cards.
Steve
on 05 Mar 08Reminds of a chapter I read in the book ‘Why Buddishm?’ by Vicki MacKenzie. There’s a link to this chapter which can be reached by clicking my name :)
Fascinating stuff.
Devan
on 05 Mar 08Well done! We implemented a 4 day work week here at my company last year, and it has worked wonders. Profitability and workplace happiness has gone up, and stress has gone down – way down.
We found that quality of work, and general output went up, and we have never – EVER had to pull up anybody for taking advantage of this, or slacking off in any way.
One thing though – we tend to stagger the days off for each employee. Some like the Monday or Friday in order to have a long weekend, Me? I like Wednesdays off as I enjoy breaking up my work week into smaller chunks.
This year, we have just started the ‘funding the passions’ bit, and personally, I am halfway through an Italian cooking course which is helping me to ‘switch off’ from the day to (4) day rigours of the IT world and make me a more rounded person (pun intended!).
Excellent to see 37S implementing such practices – Hope to see this sort of thing becoming a worldwide trend.
Ricky Irvine
on 05 Mar 08I want to work for your company. Bless you.
MI
on 05 Mar 08Mark: With a team as small as ours, there are always things overflowing off of our todo lists, so it’s easy to lose perspective and spend more time working than is healthy. The four day work weeks are a way to remind us all to take a step back and enjoy life.
Scott: It’s not about haiving a limitless credit card, it’s about freedom to explore. If I see a new technology book on Amazon that looks intriguing, I don’t have to consider the cost as part of my personal budget, and I don’t have to explicitly get permission, I just order it. 37signals benefits either directly by some new knowledge that I gain, or indirectly from the way whatever I read has expanded my point of view.
Chris Bowler
on 05 Mar 08Got any openings?
Brooks Jordan
on 05 Mar 08You guys are always a little ahead of the curve, making it easier on everyone else. Thanks.
Michael Rakowski
on 05 Mar 08Man… that rules. Also, making people teach you what they learned is a good trade for funding their passions. I’d take that trade.
Anonymous Coward
on 05 Mar 08JF wrote, “As long as there’s enough overlap during the day we’re all happy and everything gets done.”
Have you evolved the theory that alone time of “REM work” should have more overlap with other workers schedule so you contact your team?
J Lane
on 05 Mar 08@David A. “don’t blame your environment for a lack of personal anything. It’s all up to you.”
Only in the sense that you can quit a job at any time. Trust me, some environments can mess you up and have a serious negative effect on their employees.
4 day work weeks sound like they’re working out great for a lot of places. Carsonified went this route a while ago, and they speak highly of it. I might have to give it a try in my company of 1.
So, does “customer support always available” mean that poor Sarah’s chained to her desk while the rest of you are out enjoying your passions? ;-)
JF
on 05 Mar 08J Lane: We’re looking for another support person to help out so we can stagger days on/off. This will allow everyone to enjoy the shorter work week. Until then we have to truck on with full work weeks for support.
Tim Trueman
on 05 Mar 08I’m curious how many hours a day on average you guys work during the four days
J Lane
on 05 Mar 08@JF: I guess that answers everyone’s comments about if you’re hiring too.
All kidding aside, I’ve always thought 37signals sounded like a great place to work, and you all are continuing to push the limits through your willingness to experiment. That’s huge. There’s so many places that aren’t even willing to try something out for fear that it might not work.
Adam
on 05 Mar 08@David A. and @J Lane, not to cut in on your conversation, but if we can agree that policies like those proposed above by 37Signals foster a productive, enjoyable atmosphere to work, then we should be able to agree that policies can have the opposite effect.
Yes, an overwhelmingly positive attitude can overcome all, but decisions like those that 37Signals are making have real consequences and they want to find out what those consequences are.
condor
on 05 Mar 08Way to try new things, thats the only way to find out what will be successful. Also props for actively thinking (and doing) about the work environment.
carlivar
on 05 Mar 08Not all big companies are clueless about this stuff. Back in ‘99 I interviewed with Exodus (the old co-lo folks, later Cable & Wireless, now Savvis I guess). I was pleased to discover they had 4 day work weeks. It was 10 hour days though, so you still worked 40 hours/week (this was a network engineer position). That was fine by me though. People often work 10 hour days in 5 day work weeks!
Also I think I would take Wednesdays off too, or stagger them around randomly. Might even be interesting to work Saturdays once in a while… commute would be a lot better! Waffle breakfast incentive on Saturdays?
Denis
on 05 Mar 08Awesome. I want to join 37Signals team ;-)
Rajarajan
on 05 Mar 08Great idea folks…..
Toji Leon
on 05 Mar 08Congratulations. I believe, these kind of experiments indicate a higher energy level.
Jason, I hope that you know about Hawthorne effect too.
Tim Connor
on 05 Mar 08Man, now I almost wish I had applied when you were hiring (I would have, but I just started a new job and am still happy there). ;) This sounds awesome all around, and if nothing else a good way to self-select for the people you want. Keep us updated.
Dan Kjaergaard
on 05 Mar 08I don’t think a 4-day work week alone is more effective, I think the change in patterns makes it more effective.
One thing I remember from the school books was an experiment in a factory. First they turned up the light = productivity went up. Later they turned down the light = productivity went up again.
A few years back they experimented in Sweden with 3 workdays and then 3 holidays (repeat). The amount of sick days decreased drastically.
David
on 05 Mar 08Jason,
When you moved to a 4 day workweek, did you move to longer days?
Thanks,
David
Luke
on 05 Mar 084-day weeks aren’t just for the nimble placed leading edge companies either. If you really put your mind to it, you can position a 4-day week with the corporate giants too.
I’ve worked 4-day weeks (32 hours) at two giants now. Obviously I get paid a touch less, but I’ve often been able to offset the drop in hours with a pay rise.
If you’re a slave to the fixed salary it won’t work, but if you’re interested in a balanced life, one in which your mind and creativity can flourish – a 4-day week is an amazing thing.
I can hand on my heart say: I get exactly the same productivity out of 4-days as I do 5. My ability to problem solve and maintain quality business relationships is significantly enhanced by the head space 4-days brings.
Wim Leers
on 05 Mar 08It’s very cool that you guys actually do this to see if it works, rather than discussing it and never letting it actually happen… that really is a token of trust in both your business and employees.
Keep on innovating! :)
Neil Wilson
on 05 Mar 08Guys,
Good look with the experiments. Make sure you let us know what works and, importantly, what doesn’t.
NeilW
J. Gilkison
on 05 Mar 08Where you sleeping through the first bubble?
All of this was tried and retread by every agency under the sun. Razorfish has masseuses for crying out loud. Almost every other agency paid for self improvement classes.
Good luck on the 4 day thing, that’ll last about 3 months.
I like the discretionary spending though.
Wolf
on 05 Mar 08You can do all this stuff, no problem – there is only one requirement: the people in your team need to be sensible and passionate about what they do.
If you have the wrong kind of ‘personalities’ in your team a strategy like this is bound to fail. For some, work is just work they have to do. For others, work is an integral part of their lives; equally important as their private hobby life and private relationships.
Eduardo Sasso
on 05 Mar 08Credit cards for each employee? this seems paradise for me!
I really admire you guys
4 days work + credit card – am i dreaming?
Red Davis
on 05 Mar 08@J.Gilkison: Carsonified has a four day work week. Seems to be working for them. Link
mj
on 05 Mar 08The important things here is not what you’ve done but the fact you’re talking about it.
As for why not just pay a higher salary?
TAX
With a 4 day working week, you’ve just given people a 20% pay hike. Plus the rest.
Super Mike
on 05 Mar 08I agree with the 4-day work week. I’m a successful PHP Freelancer and I’ve often thought about what I might end up doing in the future if I were to start hiring employees. One of the reasons I became a freelancer was so that I could get a better work/life balance, and to me if companies would just stick to what they say they will do with 40 hours of work a week and no more, it would be a huge advantage for people. Saying that, however, I think 4 day work weeks are great for the Summer.
As for the funding passions thing, I think that’s off the mark, however. I don’t see where that’s going. In a company big enough, it’s not possible to continue this, and I doubt very much that others will be passionate about reading or hearing about other’s funded passion experience.
clifyt
on 05 Mar 08I’ve been trying for a 4 day work-week for a while without my boss knowing!
Actually I still work 5 days, but much reduced hours…working for a university, we are encouraged to sample the classes—we get one and a half classes free every semester. I’ve scheduled mine right in the middle of the day so that on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, I’m not around. I was able to get another degree in an area completely different than my undergrad (and compliments it in an unconventional way).
Now if anyone actually knew I was gone almost a day a week, they’d probably flip…then again, I was at a sporting event the other day (a ‘real’ scheduled day off) and when my assistants needed my help to serve a student, they sent the info over to my iPhone and I had all I needed to get them taken care of…and when I told the student to call my on my cell because I was out for said event, they were shocked because I had ALL their info needed.
Passion for what you do doesn’t need hours or even an office. The people that I see do the least amount of work are there every single day trying to look important.
Anyhoo…
tom
on 05 Mar 08It’s enlightenment and for that reason alone it deserves encouragement and applause.
You do this when you’re a very young and lean organisation, I would expect this to be different when you grow into a larger entity.
However, you show respect for and trust in your work force. They’d have to be 7 kinds of stupid not to appreciate the opportunities this environment offers them and they will be well aware that it may be the only time in their lives they will ever get this level of freedom in their working lives.
To have this insight and to actually implement it is a great comment on the leadership of the company.
This is how people should be allowed to work the world over. Maybe your example will inspire others.
Ben
on 05 Mar 08Any jobs going ;)
David L Kinney
on 05 Mar 08Good luck to Mark in his flying lessons! As a fellow aviator who wrapped up private pilot lessons in 2006, I hope to hear more about his experience as it progresses.
Jerry
on 05 Mar 08Nice, but will you eventually expand into Europe anyway?
I would (if commute is short) rather work 6-day weeks, and get longer vacations.
Sharing hobbies may be difficult for those who download porn, or have Social Anxiety Disorder, etc.
coldclimate
on 05 Mar 08I’m reading Shift Happens at the moment. Seth Godin would be proud of you guys.
Mike
on 05 Mar 08@J. Gilkison: Good luck on the 4 day thing, that’ll last about 3 months.
Sounds like you’re still trapped in the 5 day commute, no flexibility employer. Places like that are the employers that will find themselves stuck. Employees now demand flexibility (my very large and successful employer calls in “career cutomization”). I wouldn’t say 37s is exactly revolutionary in the steps they are taking (nearly everyone at my company has a CC and they just gave us 4 extra days off permanently) but I applaud their efforts to retain talent and encourage their employees to grow.
Emanuel
on 05 Mar 08Which are the 4 days of the week that you work (or the 3 days that you take off) ?
In Israel its good weather at least 10 months per year so I could really get used to this kind of schedule ;)
Farhan Lalji
on 05 Mar 08Love this Jason. Hopefully others follow suit.
As a private company who did you have to clear the concepts with? Do you guys have a board that had to approve this decision? Can people work on Fridays and take every 6th week off?
Pam
on 05 Mar 08I believe if you invest in your employees that you will get more back than what you invested.
Some people are commenting on increasing the employees’ salaries instead of paying for their interest classes; however, it is not all about money. It is about a company showing it is interested in its employees and willing to make changes to show the employees that the company cares about them and values their contributions.
JF
on 05 Mar 08As a private company who did you have to clear the concepts with? Do you guys have a board that had to approve this decision? Can people work on Fridays and take every 6th week off?
We don’t have to clear it with anyone and we don’t have a board. We make the decision and we go with it.
Can people work on Fridays and take every 6th week off?
Sure, why not. If someone would rather do that all they have to do is ask.
Don Schenck
on 05 Mar 08Some people aren’t “getting it”.
You don’t have to lengthen the workday in order to have a four-day week. People who are passionate about their vocation never “work”, so time doesn’t become an issue.
To wit: I can garden all day without looking at the clock.
I’m proud of you, Jason. You’re doing The Right Thing without regard for what others think—the true mark of a successful person.
I’ll have a cigar and scotch and toast you this weekend.
Tim
on 05 Mar 08@JF
Who do they have to ask? You? DHH? Bezos?
Justin Reese
on 05 Mar 08It’s odd how many people think that if something won’t work for a massive corporation, it won’t work for 37signals. And really sad how many 37signals-sized companies fall under the same delusion.
JF
on 05 Mar 08Who do they have to ask? You? DHH ? Bezos?
Myself or DHH. Jeff doesn’t have anything to do with decisions like this. But, if we asked him, I’m sure he’d belt out a huge laugh and say “I love it!”
Tom
on 05 Mar 08Did you guys just read Yvon Choinard’s Let My People Go Surfing or something!? Seems like you got inspired by something good.
I’m happy to see you taking this step toward a more balanced life/work relationship. It’s inspirational.
Oh, just as long as you still have time to improve your apps!!
Jonathan Jiang
on 05 Mar 08Since your getting a lot of traffic now from reddit and other user pushed news sites, I hope more managers and owners of IT businesses will start to wrap the concepts and ideas you mention here.
Even if your company is not receptive to feedback from its workforce, don’t hesitate to shoot a few emails or speak to your superior about a 4 day week :)
Peter Cooper
on 05 Mar 08I mean this in the nicest possible way, but.. thanks for making half of your readers jealous and for destroying what little morale existed in the American workplace :)
Anson
on 05 Mar 08Sounds fantastic. Congratulations on having the courage to experiment!
Doug Neiner
on 05 Mar 08I am excited to see many of the ideas I have for my little graphic design business (taking on the first full-time employee in April) being echoed by such a well-known and respected company. I want to help my employees reach their goals… every decision that affects them needs to be win-win. Great job guys! Keep it up… I am running Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack and Campfire, btw.
JF
on 05 Mar 08I am running Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack and Campfire
We love you the most.
Evan
on 05 Mar 08It must be nice to have like ten employees
Jeff LaMarche
on 05 Mar 08This is such a smart approach. I worked in software development at a company in California in the late nineties that had very loose, trusting, and employee-focused culture. Then, in ‘99 a new “professional” CEO was brought in to take over from the company founder. The new CEO in turn brought in a new CFO who saw the world only in terms of this quarter’s bottom line, and a more corporate mindset took over every aspect of life. I can personally attest to drastic losses in morale, productivity, and overall product quality. Customers noticed, both the decline in quality, and those who dealt with support noticed the decline on morale.
And boy, it was a rapid decline. A few years later I left to strike out as an independent. And I wasn’t the only one to leave, but I can guarantee you that had they kept running the company the way it was run when I started, I would probably never have left. I honestly looked forward to going to work every day, I enjoyed the work, the people and the environment. I would stay sometimes until late at night even without a pressing deadline, or come on Saturday if I had no plans, just because I liked it, and might get a chance to meet somebody I wouldn’t normally have run into during office hours.
My pay did not decrease under the new regime, in fact I got some substantial raises and some hefty bonuses under the new management. But, they pushed everybody to be in their office during “regular” hours. They also pushed a more rigid dress code even on employees who never had any customer contact.
Well, they got “more regular hours” alright: Fewer and fewer people could be found staying late without being asked to. Fewew and fewer people came in on the weekends. People were more stressed, got less work done, and seemed to have less time outside work despite all that, and perhaps they did, because the “more regular hours” put us all on the freeways during rush hour.
Plus, word got out. Geeks talk with other geeks. It didn’t take long for it to spread that the place was no longer the great place to work it had been, and it became harder to attract good new talent, when previously the problem had been in sorting through the hundreds of resumes that would come in each day.
Many corporate types look at everything as a dollars-and-cents equation, but you can’t quantify employee happiness and morale and it would be difficult to measure the long-term benefits, even if they were inclined to look beyond the current fiscal quarter. But anyone who’s ever worked in this kind of environment can tell you the benefits of a happy workplace are huge, and far outweigh the savings from willy-nilly cutting of workplace perks like snacks, outings, education reimbursements, and the like.
I applaud you folks at 37Signals. It really sounds like you folks grok people and don’t try to reduce them to numbers. I would expect that your people will continue to be happy, and that you will have a new slew of geek talent busting down your door trying to get in.
Keep it up.
Ryan
on 05 Mar 08@David Anderson
It always amazes me when someone can negatively spin something that is purely positive.
Tim
on 05 Mar 08Just as a joke: I love the spin you could make as this relates to your company name.
37signals = 3 days off, 7 days a week signals
Kevin
on 05 Mar 08In an average day, how many man-hours does a 37signals employee typically work?
Tim
on 05 Mar 08I imagine Sarah works 0. But she probably works a complete day of “woman-hours” :)
JF
on 05 Mar 08In an average day, how many man-hours does a 37signals employee typically work
We hope not more than 8ish. Sometimes more is required. Sometimes less is required. Everything depends on what’s going on right now. So I’d say on balance our days are pretty average for the most part.
Further, since we all work on our own, our days are pretty spread out. We don’t work solid blocks of time. We’re not in an office 9-5. We’re at home, at the coffee shop, sometimes at the office, etc. So someone may put in a couple hours here, then take a few hours off, and then work again in the afternoon or maybe late night. Or maybe they just put in a couple hours total one day because they just aren’t into it. That’s fine too.
The general rule is as long as the work gets done the hours aren’t important. Unless people are putting in too many hours. Then we’d prefer they cut back.
We keep an eye on burnout and try to avoid it at all costs. If someone needs some extra time away, they’ve got it. There’s nothing - short of an emergency - that is worth burnout.
Giulio
on 05 Mar 08...uhm… where is the “Open positions” link? ;-)
Greetings from Italy!
Doug
on 05 Mar 08About four day weeks…. I worked at a mine as a college intern. (yes, mine, they dug stuff out of the ground) They did 4 ten hour days. It was set up so you worked Tuesday through Friday, then Monday to Thursday and had a four day weekend. Seems strange, but it was great! You had four days off, so you could do a mini-vacation. A day to travel, two days to actually be someplace and a day back. The mine was over an hour from Denver, so it really worked. On the four days most people were off, they did the heavy maintenance. The short weekend was for life maintenance, like laundry and cleaning. You might try that setup. It honestly worked.
KingTaco
on 05 Mar 08Oh dear sweet god. It’s like you actually care about your emplyees. I’m so used to being treated like replaceable meat that has to sacrifice to get anywhere in my business environment. Honestly my first reaction was that of “Too good to be true”/”must be a catch”. The greed and ignorance of the world seems to have caught up with me. By showing an understanding of your employees and a desire to work with that you’ve created something that I would liken to the shangri-lah of legend. I can only dream of what it would be like to be proud of working for a company instead of constantly questioning my reason for continuing to work there.
Dan Wallace
on 05 Mar 08Screw you guys. You just ruined my 2008. :P
Ian
on 05 Mar 08I’d be interested to know how you measure the performance of your employees. How do you know when someone is slacking? How do you communicate your performance expectations to your them?
Richard Johnson
on 05 Mar 08I think this flies in the face of all those that think a job is the purpose of their life, those type-A’s that don’t see outside of the box. Life is more than a job, more than a paycheck, and more than a nine-to-five. Life is about your family, your friends, and your passions. I think 37signals gets that. It’s a different philosophy, which I see permeating through through all aspects of their company.
Keep up the good work!
steve
on 05 Mar 08How much is the 4-day week and the “a few hours here, a few hours there” work approach is driven by the 37s subscription-based business model? If you were still doing client work, would you need project teams to spend longer contiguous blocks of time working together? Right now you have the luxury of many people paying you a few dollars a month versus a few people paying you many dollars a month.
Question 2 is how well this model scales to a 40-, 100-, 1,000-, or 100,000-person company. At a certain point it begins to break down—“the magic of 150” comes to mind.
JF
on 05 Mar 08I’d be interested to know how you measure the performance of your employees. How do you know when someone is slacking? How do you communicate your performance expectations to your them?
The work measures itself. Everyone knows if the work is getting done. If it’s not getting done we ask why. Sometimes it’s a lack of motivation so we find out more and address that. Sometimes the project is bigger than we thought so we find ways to cut back on scope. And sometimes stuff just takes longer. That’s fine, as long as we know why.
We don’t communicate performance expectations. Everyone knows what they are expected to deliver because they know what they are working on. Everyone can see what everyone else is working on so there are natural social motivations to get the work done in a timely manner.
And lastly, everyone wants to get the work done. No one likes slaving over a long project with no end in sight. We generally have short projects with smallish deliverables. That allows people to finish and move on to the next thing as quickly as possible. That keeps everyone interested in the work.
David Parker
on 05 Mar 08I believe that programmer/employee happiness is truly important in the workplace. Anything to encourage unity and happiness will definitely help the overall productivity later. Good job you guys!
Jonah
on 05 Mar 08What this really boils down to is treating your employees like adults. It’s very easy for managers to create a lot of rules for their employees, expecting that everyone will follow them and that productivity will increase. In reality, employees will figure out the easiest way to get their job done. If their job just becomes punching the clock and filling out TPS reports, then that’s what they will spend their time doing.
If employees are told that the expectation is that they get their job done and given enough guidance (deadlines, tools, specifications, etc), then they will figure out a way to do that.
As for funding employee’s passion vs. giving them a raise, have you ever bought pizza for a lunch meeting? People will flock to the meeting even though the pizza they are eating is worth <$2. They could buy their own lunch and have some time away from work, but there is something about that little “free” incentive that people love.
Overall, this is about giving your employees ownership of their tasks, time and financing. If they can’t be responsible with it, then they wouldn’t be your employees.
Curtis Unger
on 05 Mar 08I whole-heartedly applaud your efforts!
This is truley an inspiring idea, and I hope it get’s picked up as the norm.
Jeremy D Pavleck
on 05 Mar 08Holy cow, are you guys looking for someone to help build a monitoring solution for your application and systems? Cause, um, I know a guy….
Ben
on 05 Mar 08I like the ideas, but have had issues (especially at startups) with significant gaps in what people think of as reasonable-like a guy who thought it was reasonable to use his work cell phone as his only phone-and then had more then $3000 in additional charges for a couple of consecutive months before we found it and adjusted. Not the end of the world, but in a cash-tight operation, these kinds of surprises can be tough to manage. Same issues with hotels and meals….
Sean
on 05 Mar 08@MI:
DUDE…MARK! You’ve gotta look into flying gliders (soaring)!
I got my [single engine] pilot’s license back in 2006, and last summer I got into gliders.
It rapidly tunes your core flying skills forcing you to be as efficient as possible since you have to leverage thermal air currents and efficient control inputs to stay aloft (you can stay up for hours!). Talk about embracing constraints ;) Its cheaper, greener, and its definitely more of a sport. Also, the people involved usually have a ton of experience, give free instruction, and have an unquenchable passion for flying.
I wrote an article about it here!
Fred
on 05 Mar 08Umm, now I know why you are incapable of responding to support emails. Good luck with that. Maybe there’s a reason other companies aren’t quite like this.
Scott G
on 05 Mar 08Monetary rewards damage social norms and can screw up motivation in the long run, though we do need to be paid. Currently reading “Predictably Irrational” which explores many of our unrecognized mental biases, including doing things for money versus for social reasons. Also check out Ricardo Semler’s books, and his HBS essays: “Managing without Managers” and “Why My Former Employees Still Work For Me”. They may give you some ideas on further experiments.
/s.
J-j
on 05 Mar 08@Fred – I’ve emailed 37s support many times and each one has been returned promptly.
JF
on 05 Mar 08Fred, we take customer support very seriously and people love our quick responses. I’m sorry you seem to have had a bad experience. Shoot me an email detailing the experience with specifics and I’ll look into it.
Charlton
on 05 Mar 08I think it’s grand that you are in a position to do this. It shows that you’re doing something right.
I’ve been in healthy and unhealthy work environments, and I’d like to echo the comments above that it’s not all about the individual worker. No amount of healthy and positive attitude can counter a workplace where due to malice or incompetence workers are set up to fail and failure is met with admonishments to try harder or be punished.
That said, I think you need to reach a certain level of success before you can do things like offer four-day work weeks: the income has to exceed the outgo, at a bare minimum. One of the things that’s kept me off of the startup track is that I can’t afford to spend a year with no income (yet) and so anything I do needs to pay for itself as quickly as possible, or be developed in my spare time. And this is where healthy and positive attitude matters: it’s hard to get motivated to work on a side project when it’s the same thing I just spent 8 hours a day on at work.
But you better believe that when I get my startup off the ground and profitable, four-day work weeks are going to be the norm as soon as they can be.
Dan Zambonini
on 05 Mar 08Thanks, as usual, for sharing your learning and experiences with us. It’s brave enough to implement these changes in the first place, without detailing them for public scrutiny.
As a co-founder of a web company that’s now 10 years old and employs 40 people, I have a few remarks to make that are hopefully at least semi-relevant!
Firstly, to the people questioning the reasons behind the changes, and digging for ulterior motives, the answer is pretty obvious: the more you give, the more you get back. It’s certainly been the case in our company, where we’ve been introducing everything we can to improve the working environment (flexi-time, multiple 22” monitors, free soda, free fruit, private medical, iphones, etc, etc). The happier people are, the more the achieve. Putting money back into people (and their environment) is an investment.
Secondly, there are (clearly) a lot of people who wish their current employers would adopt similar schemes. Unfortunately, every company is different, and I doubt many share the same market, size or success of 37s. For example, many companies (including our own) often charge by the day or hour; reducing to a 4-day week would then clearly have an impact on revenue. This is why we introduced flexi-time; it’s a fair way of ensuring people get paid for the work they do, people can work hours that suit them, and accrue plenty of extra days off each month.
Company-cards-for-every-employee doesn’t incur much overhead for a small-ish company, but I can’t imagine giving every one of our 40 people a credit card – this massively increases the risk of credit card theft or lost, which entails a level of unnecessary overhead and stress. I’d much rather the system we have in place, where we have a central person who everyone knows they can email/skype/chat with to buy any books they want, any training, any hardware or passes to conferences. They still have the freedom, but without the risk of theft or loss.
Finally, I think it’s also very different for a company of 37 signals nature – who I expect have a very, very high revenue/profit-per-employee – to introduce these kinds of benefits (including the 4 day week). Others may not be able to take the risk of such dramatic changes. However, I wholeheartedly applaud these measures – I truly believe that you only live once, and that work should be there to support what you want from life.
Congratulations, and keep up the good work.
Robin Barooah
on 05 Mar 08I experimented with a 4 day work week in 2000 when I was a contractor. I found that wednesday was the best day to take off – because I found I got too far away from the work if every weekend was a long one. It also meant that I was refreshed on thursday and friday.
I simply billed for less hours, but got the same amount of work done in a week and was much happier. My client barely noticed.
For the first month or two, I found myself unmotivated and frequently tired on the wednesday and it took me a while to let go of the guilt of not doing anything productive with the time. I had to consciously practice to allow myself to do whatever I wanted – nap, read a book – go for a walk, whatever.
Then one day, without really thinking about it, I found myself going out and meeting collaborators and starting to build new business.
Good luck with your experiments.
Kashif
on 05 Mar 084-day week is a brave experiment and I hope it is not hampering your work. In my opinion there is no harm in facilitating your employees as much as possible however there should be a line drawn between earning your dough and free lunch cause not everybody can afford to be Google :)
Anonymous Coward
on 05 Mar 08It’s disappointing to hear you’ve chosen not to share these perks with your customer support staff. There is no tougher job than having to appease customers all day long, and it can’t be a nice feeling for this person to know that while she’s working to keep customers happy the rest of you are indulging in your hobbies on what should be a work day.
Its my understanding that corporate America doles out perks to executives and higherups doing less work than their support counter parts while admins are stuck with low pay and no reward. Too bad you guys seem to continue this tradition.
Don Schenck
on 05 Mar 08@Anonymous Coward: I’m disappointed that 37 Signals doesn’t share these perks with their CUSTOMERS!
Yeah … there’s an idea! Let’s say your products only work on Tuesday through Friday! Excellent!
“Sorry boss … but the software’s not running today so I won’t be in!”
As my son would say, you call in “scared” ... as in “I’m afraid I can’t make it!”
JF
on 05 Mar 08AC, as I commented above, we’re looking for another person to help out with support so we can offer this to everyone.
Right now we only have one support person. We can’t take a work day off from support because our customers don’t take the day off.
So this isn’t a case of keeping anyone down, it’s a case of being practical and realistic right now. Once we have the other support person we can stagger the days off so support is always covered.
One thing I know: We won’t be hiring you. We don’t need your negative energy around here.
David Andersen
on 05 Mar 08@ Ryan -
It doesn’t amaze me when people fail to examine all consequences – good and bad – of an idea, especially one that appears to be a slice of nirvana. It’s sort of like Obamamania or the Beenie Baby craze.
That said, I don’t see anything wrong with what 37S is trying to do. It’s worth trying. My initial questions were just that – questions – trying to understand why they are doing this. It’s not exactly common practice.
My comment to you earlier was a criticism that you’re blaming your lack of creativity on your environment. Why are you letting that stop you?
@J Lane -
I know all about crappy work environments. I’ve worked in several – large and small. Those experiences are largely why I’m self-employed today. Nevertheless, no one should allow themselves to be trapped by someone else’s poor culture. Most of the time it’s not that hard to change jobs.
@JF -
Thanks for all the good answers to all the questions. I wish you guys the best of luck.
David Andersen
on 05 Mar 08@ Dan Z -
“Firstly, to the people questioning the reasons behind the changes, and digging for ulterior motives, the answer is pretty obvious: the more you give, the more you get back.”
I assume you’d agree Dan that there is a point of diminishing returns.
Matt S.
on 05 Mar 08Are you hiring? hahah
Mark
on 05 Mar 08I work for a nonprofit that provides friendship and companionship to those 60+. Among other things, we get people together for a good meal. The cooking lessons I’ve taken directly provide a benefit to our programs.
I’ve picked up photography and my pictures have improved to the point where they are commonly used in our fund raising and publicity materials.
My interest in things computer have gotten me comfortable enough with Mac, Win, and Linux that I can run our network and catalog large numbers of pictures without hiring an outside consultant.
In the service world, an organization’s only real assets are the skill sets of its employees. Anything you do to improve them is smart.
Tim
on 05 Mar 08So, you have replicated the consultant lifestyle in your workplace. From my perspective (as an independent programmer for the past 8 years) a sense of freedom and pleasure in work comes from being my own boss. Everything you describe (funding passion, freedom to choose when to work, etc) are pretty much a given for successful freelancers. Your workplace sounds perfect for people who want employment structure while enjoying some of the perks of the self employed.
Rob H
on 05 Mar 08I commend this approach of “Getting Real in the Workplace” and trying different things to make work more enjoyable. Any company large or small could learn a few things by investing in their employees. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of you (company/business). So funding a persons hobby is a great way for people to expand their knowledge and grow as individuals.
The other key thing to point out is that you “trust” your employee’s to get their work done. That you don’t need to be chained to your desk for 8 hours a day to be productive, etc.
I hope one day all businesses big and small adopt this approach making the workplace more enjoyable.
R
Grant
on 05 Mar 08Thanks for sharing these ideas and your philosophy behind them. It’s fun to have positive examples of what can be done in a company with a little ingenuity.
Emre
on 05 Mar 08Overfunded! using your internal policies for PR. Next Google? No! I stop using your product
SH
on 05 Mar 08To quickly dispel any misconceptions about our working hours, let me go on the record as saying No, I don’t get Fridays off. You can see this as a very negative, evil “corporate America” thing, or you can look at it like I do: Holy cow, we have a lot of customers, and that is awesome.
When you’re doing customer support your days are already very long (try writing 200+ emails a day and tell me how quickly you fall asleep that night!). But when you’re working for a company you enjoy and respect and know your employers enjoy and respect you, it’s easy to feel a surge of willingness to take on those long hours. I don’t feel chained to my desk at all, and although our support volume can sometimes feel overwhelming I am thankful for the fact that I can answer those emails in my pajamas, while sitting on my couch listening to loud bluegrass music.
If I had to do this exact same job at a large, faceless, publicly traded corporation, I can guarantee I wouldn’t have lasted.
We officially answer support Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm CST. I typically work 730am-8pm, and on Saturdays and Sundays I dip in the inbox a couple times a day. No one tells me to. No one makes me punch a clock. I do it because I value this company and our products, and I want our customers to be happy. Right now, making sure our customers stay happy means I work a few extra hours each day and don’t get that one day off, but I’m ok with that. If I wasn’t ok with that, this wouldn’t be the right job for me.
The point is we have a lot of customers, and that number grows every single day. This is exciting for us all. We do what we can to keep those numbers thriving, and it means a little push and pull, a little sacrifice from everyone. My sacrifice means I don’t get to take flying lessons right now, but it’s ok because when my time comes to have that day off, Mark’s going to teach me everything he knows.
Justin Reese
on 05 Mar 08Emre, you need a talk show. Or at least your own SNL skit.
MI
on 05 Mar 08@SH: Lesson Number One: Don’t crash.
PabloC
on 05 Mar 08Would be great if you share your favorites books on Amazon, or more posts about recommended books that u use to learn and go forward.
Lukas
on 05 Mar 08Interesting experiments. Should try some of these.
Tommy
on 05 Mar 08Wonderful stuff Jason. I could talk about this for hours and hours. During most of the 90s I worked for a b2b high-tech ad agency. 40 folks. $60+ million in billings. Not only did we do many of the things you mentioned, but others.
Just a couple things:
1. Everybody in the place had an office with a door and window. Even the receptionist and interns. You were given a nice budget to spice up the room as you saw fit. The thinking was it was a high-pace, stressful job and at times everybody just needs to be able to close their doors and relax. Also less distractions in general. Plus in the middle of the cubical crazy, it was a nice touch.
2. Couldn’t agree more about the budget to purchase books, software products, you name it. We did that as well in spades. After you were done the materials had to go into our extensive library, or you could keep them in a bookshelf in your office. But there was a record of all the materials so if somebody else needed the materials they knew where to them.
3. The big one for us was conferences. We made our money on collateral, print ads, radio, trade shows, media placement, and PR. Just one example. We did some direct mail, but if a prospect came in and that was about all they wanted we’d refer to them to another agency. When a number of our largest clients wanted much more of their budget to go to direct mail we put together a team. A creative person, account service, media, and production. We sat down as a group and looked at all the DM conferences. Some we attended together and just went to different tracks. Others we went to by ourselves. But in the end the goal was for us to come back to agency about six months later with a detailed plan on how to be a more effective direct marketing agency, AND educate the entire place through a number of in-house classes and documents we produced. I can’t even begin to explain the ROI of those conferences.
4. Another conference thing, and each person, from top-to-bottom could (actually you had to) attend a set number each year depending on their level, was not to skimp on them. Of course the primary goal was to learn and brief the agency on your experience, but there was more. Most conferences are usually in “nice” places. So the agency would push you to take vacation days before or after the conference in the same city. They would pick up the airfare even if you return on a more expensive day. Pay 20% of hotel rooms on non-conference days and give you $35 in cash/day (keep in mind this was a decade ago). It was actually really nice.
Well that is all I got.
J Lane
on 05 Mar 08@SH And as a 37signals customer at varying times, you do an awesome job. I’ve had a few inquiries answered by Sarah and they’ve always been prompt, polite, and extremely helpful. You do a great job.
Another benefit (which I haven’t seen mentioned above) is that 37signals is the type of company that has it’s pick of pretty much anyone when it comes to hiring. “Using internal policies as PR” is nothing new. Go to any company’s web site and look for the “Benefits” or “What’s it like to work here” link.
J Gruszynski
on 05 Mar 08When I worked at Hewlett-Packard I had a similar company credit card with very similar rules – the only other specific “rule” was certain SIC codes for things like strip clubs and casinos were pre-blocked. They told you up front exactly which ones. The credit limit was $15K/month, $2K per transaction. And no, I never came close to hitting those (once I hit $3K in one month).
Each month you had to initial the bill and your manager had to initial the bill. Your manager had affirmative authorization on and you were told “you should assume you might need to justify any transaction” but the rules were pretty open-ended and it was easy to use it the “right way”. My job at the time required high creativity and labor leverage so it came in handy.
It made working some much easier and more productive. There wasn’t really any reason to abuse it because it enabled exactly the things I needed to do to do, to do well and that I enjoyed doing. It still ranks near the top of my “best jobs ever” list.
It was also a boon to HP: they ran the numbers and it cost somewhere between $800-$1500 in direct cost for every expense report processed above and beyond the dollar amount of the expense report which was the alternative method of accomplishing the same types of purchases! In other words, the break-even point for expense reports was well above the average dollar amount of expense reports. I’d bet that this is true for 90% of the Fortune 500.
So even with the potential for “lossage”, the expected costs (probability of loss x amount of loss) was far, far lower while at the same time it was a major productivity boost to remove barriers to getting work done in the simplest case and it boosted to creative productivity on top of that. Absolutely an awesome business decision to implement it though it riles control freaks and people haters in any company.
Don’t know if they still do this in the “New HP” – this was the “Old HP” where common sense was always the litmus test. Imagine: a company with 200K+ employees could do it. Good times.
Paul of Seattle
on 05 Mar 08So… You folks hiring? :)
Martin
on 05 Mar 08This is what’s possible when companies are more interested in an efficient and creative group of people rather than focusing on expansion only. As they say here in California, happy cows make great cheese.
Kudos
Lisa
on 05 Mar 08Soooo awesome. I’d work there! In fact… let me go check your guys’ job board…
John Herr
on 05 Mar 08The credit card and the paying for education, that’s actually pretty standard fare, or at least it used to be—at most your extending things just a bit (the trust issue on the card).
But the 4 day work week? Your rational doesn’t compute. I fail to see how you can work as much in 4 days as in 5. The only explanation for this is an already inefficient use of time. Because I’d say I’m productive at least 7 hours out of everyday. Even counting this on-hours comment post.
Now if your revenues are up to the point where you can keep growth going doing 4 days a week, fine. But I’d keep a close watch on that. I predict your growth will stagnate a bit - or rather, I bet it already has - but like I said, if your revenues are good, it’s good. I also predict that when/if you sell the company, this will end. So enjoy it now!
Not sayin’, just sayin.
Justin Reese
on 05 Mar 08@John: The rational is that ultimately, the 20% reduction in work time will be offset by a 25% increase in productivity. It may not come in the form of code - devs probably won’t start checking in 25% more code in the next month - but two years down the road when your seasoned, crackerjack employee gets an offer from another firm, you can bet the policy will pay off then.
Andrei
on 05 Mar 08Wow… what a refreshing post. You guys really have a hold on something, like a work philosophy that’s bound to make it’s way into the more “mainstream” workplaces, and I’m sure with time more and more companies will realize work is far from being a function of time and people.
I mean it seems that so few employers or companies value efficiency and implication over meaningless extra hours that are just time wasted, for both the employer and the employee, and in fact for the whole company.
Anyway, love your products, and love your philosophy, keep up the good work, and I’m sure you’re here to stay.
cheers
David Andersen
on 05 Mar 08@Justin Reese -
I have to agree. I think the #1 benefit of these ideas will be retention of stellar people. It’s very competitive out there for the best and brightest hackers and the difference between 90th percentile and 80th percentile can be staggering.
Chris
on 05 Mar 08A co-worker and I had been talking about a 4 day work week for the last few weeks and your post convinced me to go to the owner with the idea.
We’re gonna try it this summer!
jon
on 05 Mar 08The 4 day work week is an awesome idea. It does not seem fair to those who do Customer Service, as they still have to come in on Fridays. I have worked several Customer Service jobs, and I know if I worked for a company where everyone else was off starting their weekends on Fridays, and I was stuck dealing with angry customers, I would be extra-disgruntled.
I hope that if you worked Friday, you get Monday off, then vice-versa for the next week. If not, it really doesn’t seem fair and sounds like just the higher level employees are getting to enjoy their jobs more.
Peter
on 05 Mar 08I say go one step further – go to something like a 32-hour work week:
http://www.worklessparty.org/
Either drop salaries a bit, or just don’t let them rise with inflation for a couple of years. You’ll be surprised how many employees of 37 are like…..’Ok.’ This will be especially true once they start poppin out babies and realizing they don’t want junior to grow up in a Chicago riddled with smog and other cancer-causing agents.
For any pseudo-activists in the crowd, this is a very important book – says me. :)
Amazon book link.
I’ve no financial incentive nor any connection to the book.
But, I did just set my Facebook profile to show the ‘Work Less Party’.
:)
JF
on 05 Mar 08Jon, did you read the two responses I wrote on this already?
This is not a case the “higher level employees” getting this and the “other people” getting that.
We are looking for another customer support person so we can give everyone 4 day weeks. Until then we simply can not do that or our customers wouldn’t get support at all on Fridays. That is not an option.
So once we have the other customer support person in place, Sarah can have her Fridays off and the other person can have Mondays off (or whichever other day they choose as long as it’s not Friday). Then we’re covered every week day.
Once that’s in place we can give Sarah an extra week+ off down the road to make up for the Fridays now.
John Herr
on 05 Mar 08@David and @Justin
That makes a certain amount of sense, but when you’ve trained your crackerjack employees to be lifestyle hogs with a large knowledge-base you depend on, how is that a win?
What happens when another company dangles better percs in their face?
I’d rather have type-As who are borderline work-a-holics and who are so into the WORK that they WANT to work on Friday on my team. Maybe not as much fun, but the notion of work as fun is very 21st century, and IMO, doomed. How many absolutely hot startups does France produce, for instance? Either that, or work longer days on those 4 days.
Anyway, like I said, if you’ve got revenue, fine. If you’re trying to grow, this is a bad idea. It’s tough to argue with that, I think. I mean, reduce your time to market by 20%? That’s growth.
P.S. No French were harmed in the generation of this post.
David Andersen
on 05 Mar 08“What happens when another company dangles better percs in their face?”
In my experience, most people are more likely to value the bird they have in hand much more than the two in the bush. Especially when the bird they have has earned their trust and it sings a sweet song.
SH
on 05 Mar 08@jon, read my reply a little higher up the page for a further explanation of why this has nothing to do with have and havenots. No disgruntling around these parts.
David Andersen
on 05 Mar 08@ John Herr -
Every take a look at Small Giants?
james
on 05 Mar 08That’s what it’s all about, man. That’s what Jeff Bezos gave you that money for. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Jake
on 05 Mar 08Wow, this post has really brought out the haters. Some people are responding almost as if you’ve personally insulted them and their way of life.
For me, these posts are my favorite part of SvN. I learned about SEMCO & Semler from you guys, which opened up Jack Stack and other worlds that basically laid the blueprint for how I run my business. We already have an $2500/yr “enlightenment fund” and free-reign credit cards. But the 4-day work week – I’ve got to figure out a subversive way to generate some buy-in on that.
Nate Vogel
on 05 Mar 08How was/is “amount of work” gauged? I realize this has been discussed at great length elsewhere but I’m curious how 37S has “implemented” it.
Scott
on 06 Mar 08I’ve been wanting to get home all day so I could begin reading the comments on this particular post. All day I was thinking, man, I’ll bet a lot of people think this is a cool idea and some are probably going to be jealous.
I get home, sit in my chair, fire up terminal to start some coding project and then, before I get up to my ears in code, I open safari to read the comments that have accumulated over the course of today….
What did I see? A lot of negativity interspersed with a lot of “hey, this is cool”, or “man, I wish I had that arrangement”. Then it occurred to me that it’s all the same thing – just that people tend to show their true colors when they have the ability to do so anonomously on a message board. People who tend to be negative about something so utterly good natured and cool are in fact jealous – selfishly so… mores’ the pity. The people who see this for what it is, a really cool thing tend to understand how smart a business thing this can be – where everyone benefits. Imagine, if this were more at the forefront of people’s minds – finding situations where everyone benefits and it’s done is such an utterly cool and thoughtful way.
C’mon people – this isn’t rocket science – this is the way people should be with other people; working to find ways to do shit on your terms and in such a way to endear yourself to others. I doubt that was the motivation behind it but, I bet that’s an excellent by-product that has occurred as a result.
Fabulous!
Steve R.
on 06 Mar 08@ALL 37signals employees – it is an amazing and insane display you are putting on, fighting negativity and flames on your own board! Looking at how many times you have answered some of the same negative comments, it is obvious (if it wasn’t already) how passionately you all feel about your company. Now, take a breather and leave those who can’t be bothered to actually read all your comments to stew in their own negativity, before cognitive dissonance makes your heads explode. :)
Justin Reese
on 06 Mar 08@John Herr: I get your perspective, and if it works for you, awesome. Personally, I am a sort of type-A workaholic, and I wouldn’t work for you, because it sounds like you’d take advantage of that rather than help me achieve the balance I really want. (That sounds harsh, but I don’t mean to be rude. I’m just speaking plainly.)
Funny you should mention France, because living there for several months in 2006 formed a large part of my opinion about the work/life balance… and I’m convinced they have it far righter (hah) than we do.
Peter
on 06 Mar 08Funny you should mention France, because living there for several months in 2006 formed a large part of my opinion about the work/life balance… and I’m convinced they have it far righter (hah) than we do.
what’s the word for that? ...oh…burn.
ouch. i felt that all the way down here in Austin.
:)
Viva la France! Better worker productivity than the U.S.!
Berets up! Haters down! Sarkozy out!
Don’t look – another highly subversive islamocommunofacistospheric company is propagandizing the shorter work week! Betrayal!
First, take a nap. Zen…FIRE ZE MISSILES!
John Herr
on 06 Mar 08@Peter Yawn. The workforce in Europe in general is slowly migrating to longer work weeks so that they can compete with us. We’ve been killing them for years. Plus, I have been a “lifestyle” guy at a university, a freelancer doing my own thing and now work at a startup. So yeah, go slack. Really—please do work 3 days a week. We’ll eat your lunch and get fat.
Regarding your survey, these are people for whom a spam filter dramatically increases their productivity. Please. If you can’t spot spam in .5 seconds, you’ll never match our productivity when we turn it on full-burn.
And let’s see… IBM writing about a M$ survey on productivity. Oh yeah, that sounds pretty subversive. NOT
(and that’s a burn ;)
@Justin I’m not the boss, I’m an employee. What I’m saying is, I’d rather have bosses who get the competitive field, than who don’t. Who value my ability to be type-A, reward me (with cash), give me equity, and give me a reason to help develop a product that (hopefully) buries the competition. And believe me, I don’t get taken advantage of. I don’t do weekends, don’t do email off hours, and I get free hockey tickets ;) It’s a win-win for employee and employer.
@David That looks interesting. Choosing to be great, not big, is the heart of a startup. Choosing to be great also can include choosing to work harder AND smarter than your competition.
FWIW, you’re probably both correct on retention of crackerjacks. I’ve never been a boss, but I have resigned from good jobs with nothing lined up because the job became about lifestyle instead of doing great work.
Anyway, I do hope that Basecamp doesn’t suffer. Because I like it. And I like the blog ;)
A Siegel
on 06 Mar 081. Kudos to you—the company & employees for taking this sort of approach and making it work.
2. Does 37S have a philosophy about where it wants to see the world? For example, “Global Warming”? If so, perhaps you might want to move forward re ‘passions’ and consider helping the office green/energy efficient and expanding from the office/work into the home. Maybe ??? PS: Morale / Productivity in Green Buildings is higher. And, health of people living in green/energy efficient buildings is higher. Thus, this could have financial benefit back into the company.
Devan
on 06 Mar 08Whew! I really cannot believe the level of hostility in some of the comments. 37S are doing this as an experiment. As with all experiments, you have to test your hypothesis.
Ease up – accept what they are doing, and then look forward to their updates in the future on how it is going.
Leave off with the anger, attitude and negative energy already!
Justin Reese
on 06 Mar 08@John: If you find happiness and satisfaction in your schedule, more power to you. There’s room for all types in the world. I would not find long-term satisfaction in that lifestyle.
Four days working productively leaves three days open for the sort of hobbies that supplant the need for more income: gardening your own vegetables, doing work around the house you’d otherwise need to pay someone for, etc. If none of that appeals to you, then certainly, work the extra day and pay other people to provide those things. But I really like the lifestyle 37s promotes, and think it’s a better long-term investment.
othello
on 06 Mar 08Having a four day work week is a great idea. Aside from finishing a 1000 page book, everyone will be enjoying a longer hangover.
Here in the Philippines we have so many public holidays (vacation), perhaps we could all consolidate them and make November and December purely holiday months. Ain’t that grand?
stina
on 06 Mar 08Interesting concept. A four-day work week is indeed a nice idea. I love it.
In our company, however, I don’t think it would be applicable, us being a government corporation and all. Our clients expect us to be open Mondays thru Fridays.
I also don’t think our bosses would agree. Although I would love to have a 3-day weekend.
vincent Cassar
on 06 Mar 08In the last compnay I was managing, I reduced the work week to 3 days a week with slightly longer hours (1.5h extra per day) and we achieved pretty much as much work as in a standard 5 days week. I simply noticed that by the end of the 3 day people were getting far less productive. It makes you think …. I am strongly in favour of such working environment. Work is only one aspect of life – not everything in life !
Gilbert
on 06 Mar 08Would 37Signals like to hire co-ops from Waterloo?
Pete
on 06 Mar 08We made the same move last year but a little differently. We rotate our day off between Monday and Friday which allows us to have a four day weekend twice each month. Productivity has soared as well as morale! We’ve made other similar moves and the reward is definitely great.
Don Schenck
on 06 Mar 08I’m a self-employed developer, doing mostly .NET intranets for large companies. It’s nice, been doing it for over 10 years. Pay is good.
I’d like to build a company. That’s my goal.
In the meantime, I usually take Friday’s off during the summer. I lounge around my pool, smoke cigars, sip bourbon and think. Definitely helps my productivity and keeps me sane (uh … if you can call me that).
I can only imagine the good this would do on a larger scale.
JPB
on 06 Mar 08I understand you reasoning but its too idealistic and a luxury issue:
There was a time that a week had seven days. Then for religious reasons, Sunday (or other days) was free and rest. Then there was Saturday that the Unions demanded to be free. Then there was Jason that experiments with the 3th day off…. Who is next to believe you can produce the same in 4 days then 7? Why not 3 ?
If we wonder why China is booming and the dollar is half worth then 10 years ago….
It is not because China is working 4 days a week…..
Common wake up, its a luxury announcement.
If you go that way , Getting Real, becomes funny and I start to understand why you never promise or comment on new features death lines…... However, its your call and your decision, we live in a free world.
I don’ t believe this is a good advise idea for your (young) readers…
Steve R.
on 07 Mar 08If you really want to see what can, should and is accomplished in a given time frame – 5 day workweek, less or more – here’s a thought experiment: Imagine as an employer you had to pay an hourly wage to your white-collar employees, no ‘exempt’ status allowed. How much more would you focus on effective, efficient operations? The five day work week is not a luxury, but a convention, and not everyone needs to adhere to it – and I can’t think of a reason to decry that. Current employers waste plenty of their employees time, and the workers frequently return the favor – unless you work for 37signals or a similar company. Here’s to them!
Martin Kool
on 07 Mar 08I am curious to see if any employees might spend their day-off at the office doing work/fun-related research or pet-projects, instead of spending it at home.
I could imagine myself doing just that, because in general there are so many things I’d like to work on, and so little time, and the best environment (in regard to computers, books, pizzas, etc) is still our office.
Looking forward to see the results of your experiment.
L
on 08 Mar 08For the team I lead I worry more about getting developers to put in more time, not less. We never hassle people about their hours, however I’m sure we’re not maximizing productivity.
And in my previous startups I have always found that some people can’t handle the freedom and react by drifting. What you get then is the lousy job of firing people who might have been fine given more structure.
Michael
on 10 Mar 08It’s now the 5th month with 4-day work weeks. More smiles, less face time.
We are a consultancy and everything works fine. Here in Quebec, hiring good employees is the most daunting challenge that is coming for Web/IT companies. We can’t pay big salaries like big corporations, but we try to provide some perks like these. And it works to attract bright people.
It works fine for us, and no customers has been harmed in the process. As we work with Basecamp, it is easy to retrieve information about a project in case of a REAL emergency. But as i say often, we are not in cardiac surgery: real emergency are scarce.
Of course, i you are more interested in the process than the result, or about controlling people that you don’t really trust, that’s not for you. But as we only measure the output, we are happy with what we get.
Ralf
on 10 Mar 08Nice Ideas, any Results yet?
Lisa
on 11 Mar 08It’s a great idea and I hope the experiment is successful. I work 4 days a week for a small online media company. My output is the same – after all, a lot of time is spend waiting on other people! On the 5th day I am a self-employed family history researcher. It’s a superb arrangement.
This discussion is closed.