Indeed, I'd value a day off in the week more than just fewer hours per work day. In fact, personally, I'd work longer hours on the days I do work in order to compensate--that's how much I'd value a four day work week.
At least in the US, having, say, a Friday off means you can easily run to the bank or do other personal business that is much easier to do during the week than the weekend.
One company I worked had 9-hour workdays, and then every other Friday we had off. It was pretty nice, but it was also before kids came into the picture. Now a 6-hour workday sounds amazing.
Yes, our wok started off with very flexible holidays and working hours. i was quite happy to put in a couple of hours extra per week to get things finished.
Bureaucracy has kicked in, and now the flexible working hours are less flexible as are the holidays. If someone insists that I be in by an exact time, I'll make sure I leave exactly 8 hour later these days.
The California state government has been running this experiment for a while (sort of). They require all their workers to take a day off out of each 10 work days (so a 5 day week and then a 4 day).
However, they don't get to choose the day. It is assigned to them. The state is doing it to cut down on traffic and commuting, as well as facilities costs.
However, so far they say they haven't lost any productivity by doing this program. Of course:
1) They want it to work because the taxpayers are watching
2) A lot of folks work from home on their "day off"
My point is these are all tough experiments to run due to human nature and not wanting to be perceived as working less than your peers.
> The California state government has been running this experiment for a while (sort of).
No, they haven't.
> They require all their workers to take a day off out of each 10 work days (so a 5 day week and then a 4 day).
No, they don't. Some California state workers have the option to take a "9/8/80" schedule (an 80-hour, two-week schedule with 8 nine-hour workdays and 1 eight-hour workday, and 1 weekday off) or a "4/10/40" schedule (a 40-hour, one-week schedule with 4 ten-hour workdays and one weekday off). [1] But these, like the baseline 5-days @ 8 hours/day schedule, are all 40-hour/week (averaged over each two-week period, in the case of 9/8/80) schedules, not reduced schedules like a 4-day, 8-hour/day schedule.
Additionally, most permanent full-time state workers have the option of an additional leave day per month with a 5-percent reduction in pay. [2]
And, recently, there were several years where most employees experienced furloughs varying between 1 to 3 days per month with accompanying pay reductions as part of a cost 'cutting' (large, cost deferring) measure. [3]
