I worked for a company when I was up in McKinney that did 3/13s. One shift worked M,Tu,W, the other shift worked Th,F,S We were a warehouse and our production was directly measured by how many items we listed on ebay during the day, so If your goal was to test and list 100 items... depending on what product we were testing that day you could easily get done by late afternoon and just mess around the rest of the time. 4 days off every week was amazing. The work wasn't that bad either. 6 AM until 7 PM. The first 8-9 hours went by pretty quickly. Around 4:00 things got a little slow... but at that point you'd made it far enough. I loved it.
Engineering. Right now it's design for an oil sands project. I should add that I get put on 5-10's pretty often, but the 4.5 day schedule is great when I'm on it.
Why not just find a way to drop the least efficient worker? Being at work more often does not mean you are a bigger asset to your company.
I've spent alot time pondering this over the years. My conclusions, ramblings and rants: 1. The blue collar ethic of "working until you drop" still pervades many workplaces due to the blue collar mentality of management. That's the way they were taught and that's the only way they know. But it doesn't work well in a position where the main tool is your brain. You can use your muscles to shovel dirt for 12 hrs, but in a position where you have to think all day, your brain is going to start ebbing after 8 hrs or so. 2. It's a waste of your life to spend it working tons of overtime unless: a. you absolutely have to(sometimes crunch time demands a bit of extra effort....just don't make a habit of it.) b. your doing something you really enjoy c. your the boss and it's not gonna get done unless you do it. 3. Fark overtime and crappy work schedules...go spend time with your family. You'll be much happier and more productive in the end. 4. I couldn't say it better. This should be branded on every managers forehead. Give your people the freedom they need to merge their life with work. You will have a happier, more loyal and more productive crew. The only time I've ever seen this produce issues is with inexperienced immature workers that can't manage themselves or just lazy ass people. 5. Work smart, not hard.
I'm only speculating based on the limited information we have. As I posted earlier, I suspect there is more to it than simply taking accrued vacation. Also, in my post I said if you have 6 EQUALLY qualified people, you need some sort of criteria to get rid of one of them. If I am a boss and I have 6 people that are equal in every sense of the job and I have to lay off one, I will keep the 5 that work the most.
Yeah, I don't know if there was more to it or not, but my friend was only told the attendance part. Anyway, in the field they are in it's hard to quantify who is the "most efficient" worker. There was no clear cut "this person needs to be fired because they suck at their job" candidate for the layoff, so they picked the person who had taken the most days off work and the person who had been a part of the group the shortest amount of time. I don't think either stipulation is outlandish.
In my hypothetical world, in a scenario where 6 people are "equal in every sense of the job" and one has to go, I would keep the 5 people who work the most. In your hypothetical world, you can keep whoever you want.
4/10s for the win. The university I work at discussed this as an alternative when gas prices soared last year but now it has been put on the back burner. I hope they discuss it further sometime.
Last in first out is pretty common. Don't know what kind of flex they had on day's off -- but I think the manager's a fool if he based it on earned vacation -- I've found those who cannot take vacation are often the least organized. But if there was a group of 6, and one stood out as most time off, I'm guessing there was more then your base vacation. Still sucks for your friend. Layoffs always do.
In my hypothetical world, I'm keeping the one with the biggest boobs. Assuming, of course, it's a female.
Are you being purposely obtuse? As I stated in my hypothetical world the 6 workers are EQUAL IN EVERY SENSE OF THE JOB. They make widgets for a living. They each produce 100 widgets a day. Each widget is flawless. Employees A, B, C, D, and E work 50 weeks a year and never take sick time. Employee F works 49 weeks a year. With the recent downturn in the economy, I have to lay one off. I choose to lay off worker F due to the fact that Worker F works 1 less week a year than every one else.
I like my job... it is tough during the summer, when I'm on-call from July 4 to mid-October and don't see the family for weeks at a time... but the rest of the year, I can take as much leave as I have accrued and I have a very flexible schedule. I get 8 hours of leave and 4 hours of sick leave every 2 weeks. As of today, I have 240 hours of leave and an additional 190 hours of use or lose leave racked up... that's over two months if I wanted. (Plus 1100 hours of sick leave... if something went terribly wrong, I could combine everything and take 38+ weeks of paid leave.) I typically take most of December off and during ski season/Spring, I'll usually take 1/2 day or more off every two weeks. With the kids out of school on Friday, we're going to try and squeeze in a vacation here shortly before fire season begins in earnest.
I read an article (i dnt remember where) that in Europe you HAVE TO take your vacation. i believe its the law. they get between 4-6 weeks of vacation. In this article it stated that in Europe, employees are more productive and all around just happier because they get the necessary time off they need to relax. it said that the US are just plain workaholics. We're stuck with more pissy and less productive ppl LOL. ________________________________ my job is fairly simple. Honestly, the most hours i spend doing actual work is probably just 1-2 hours. Only because i never have anything to do. which is why im always on the internet hehe. It gets really boring after awhile. I have to always think of things to look up. I'm actually thinking of just taking online classes LOL.
Kind of hard to assess a "real world" concept for a situation we have extremely limited information on. In the real world, just like my hypothetical world, I would still lay off the person who was at work the least, if all of the employees were equal in their abilities and their production output and their seniority. If they were not equal, I would lay off the person who was the least productive regardless of how many hours they worked.
hah, i was just talking with a buddy a few days ago about how much better life would be if every week was 4 work days, weekend 3.
