Let's agree on something. The 9 to 5 must... die?

Makes me think of the the Tao of Programming #6.4:

A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several resigned on the spot. So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The programmers, now satisfied, began to come in at noon and work to the wee hours of the morning.

For all the claims startups make about being innovative, I find that innovation ends where workplace and organizational design begin.

Companies go out of their way to market a carefully crafted set of low-cost perks in the name of work-life balance that are often just things that you need to get work done, or make you a more informed, productive worker.

The thing is, there are so many benefits that come with remote, asnyc, and four day work week that provide huge gains in recruiting, reducing overhead costs, employee happiness, productivity, efficiency, loyalty... But I think most companies fear "letting go" and worry that there will be a loss of productivity, control, or they'll fall behind their competitors who are "working harder"

And yes, there are issues with synchronizing work schedules, meetings, dependencies. A lot of these are "design details" that might require some imagination and planning. And yes, there are those workers that must be physically present, at a fixed schedule for various reasons. If we're willing to let go of the traditional working constraints, we give ourselves room to experiment, be creative, and figure this out for the benefit of everyone involved.

Imagine not able to find a nurse or doctor because 9 to 5 died.

I feel like it depends what job you have.

You can find advantages in working on a 9 to 5 schedule when you're job is quantity-based (repetitive task or physical work such as in factories, building sites, ...), and contrariwise, find no plusses in working on this rhythm since you're job only depends on the completions of specific tasks (office work) where when you're done, you're done.

It's just easier to do whatever you have done before instead of changing. The educational system also fits the 9-5 schedule: clock in, learn clock-out, stop learning.

One way to start the change is to add your workstyle (working hours) in your email/slack profile Then people know when you are available.

Naturally, there are several industries where the idea doesn't work. However, there is certainly a subset of companies where a non-standard work schedule can be advantageous. I think there are a few things holding them back.

1. What is a day's work?
   It is easy to see that someone has been sitting at their desk all day. It is much more difficult to tell if they actually put in a full day's worth of work.

2. It's different
   A lot of companies will punish mistakes more than they reward success. This results in more conservative actions. While some companies have shifted, the 9-5 is still the conservative choice.

3. Small group of unwilling employees
   With other barriers already in place, it makes it much more difficult to make a decision if there are some employees who are openly against a decision. It makes it easier to keep things the same instead of risking upsetting the culture of a department or company.

This is by no means a comprehensive list.

Yes definitely, but it is difficult to replace for most companies given that people need to communicate both with colleagues and customers when all are available and pay is directly related to the amount of hours, not the amount of results or a similar metric. However, @SimonHoiberg has great success for his saas feedhive.io with a flexible work arrangement that does not include fixed working hours and meetings instead communication is mostly only done via slack chat. Correct me if I am wrong @SimonHoiberg.

I fully agree that work schedules should be more flexible throughout the day - and remote workspaces prove this. That being said, even with flexible schedules I think large companies will be more efficient (and their employees will be too) within a loose 9-5 framework.

I think what could be very compelling in the future is the ability to keep 9-5, maybe even 9-6, but shorten the work week to 4 days instead of 5. There's a lot of good research to show this would be super viable!

Totally agreed @ebbacronqvist

Definitely within corporate culture, there is still an issue with requiring to have people chained to a desk for certain hours. That needs to stop IMO, although it does work for some people because like you said our societal norm is THAT OF A 9-5 and everything is built around that, daycare etc.,

It’s good to see many large companies that have been bold and allowed remote work to stay, offering hybrid set ups.

Totally flexible hours/4 day work week for example is an interesting one. A CEO of a company I’m a shareholder is reluctant to move to a 4 day work week because their clients (the recruitment industry) largely operated on a 5 day working week (presumably because their clients also operate on a 5 day working week).

Furthermore, they also are citing that to maintain company culture they need the office with “mandatory days” for everyone to be in (which is BS IMO).

I think like anything, once the big players do it, and make the changes by being bold, and putting leaders in place that understand you don’t necessarily need strict working hours/times/locations then we will see a change. At the moment I think we’re stuck in step change until that phases out.

I've worked in various startups, scaleups, corporate and agency roles over the past decade (both remote and in person) and there was only one company I've ever worked for that was strict about the 9-5 thing. I suspect I've just been a bit lucky, and I also wouldn't stay at a company that was really obsessed with clocking in and out at exact times, but honestly a lot of my friends have the same experience. I'm not really sure the 9-5 exists for a lot of people anymore (long before the pandemic).

It's likely cultural too, like I've only worked in tech in the UK and Netherlands, and I appreciate things will be wildly different in different places.

I think it's also what works for the individual. I think back to my days in as close to the "corporate" world as I ever got, and I remember not physically or mentally being able to sit still and focus through the hours that I was required to sit there and work. Nowadays, on my own businesses, I'll sit and do focus work in batches, get up and take long breaks... go sit and read in between and come back and do some more work. I can't imagine trying to go back an work for someone and translating this work lifestyle I'm now used to to conform to those standards anymore, it just wouldn't work (for me).

Entrepreneurs/online business owners sometimes get a bad rap... I've had friends off-handedly comment that they couldn't do what I do because they'd miss working with other people, that they couldn't discipline themselves to work, lots of things... but I think it just comes down to simply choosing what works for you. And if what companies require from you (time and conformity-wise) doesn't work for you, then find one that does, or create one for yourself. :)

I've yet to come across a startup that expects their employees to work for 9-5 everyday, without flexibility. AT the startup I work at, our policy is that you can work at any time you want as long as you stick to deadlines for the most part.

Most companies I know already have very flexible working hours. If you work with clients and have to be available during service hours, it is difficult to change your working hours, of course.

If I could chose, I would instead get rid of 9 to 5 and switch from 5 days working week to 4 days working week.

Yes! Totally support! In my company we work on a totally flexible schedule! As long as people are working on the goals we set then they have total freedom on work schedules! I hope more companies can follow!

Btw, we launched on Product Hunt (if you can upvote it there that'd be awesome) https://lnkd.in/e7NjKMEJ thank you!

I do agree, I think it kills productivity more than it increasing it. I think 6 hours a day is enough but these should be pure work and nothing more, and this model works best WFH.

I really appreciate your thoughts on this. I feel there's a huge gap between how employers and employees see the organization's policies. Only if both parties were on the same page, it would have been really a win-win situation. Employers and employees would have appreciated each other, agreed on the same points and supported each other's goals. This sounds pretty rare, no?
Nonetheless, many companies have successfully implemented flexible work policies.

I'm not sure I agree with you. I think the 9 to 5 is a pretty good system, and it has its benefits.

For example, when you have a job that requires you to be in the office from 9 AM until 5 PM, it means that your boss knows exactly when they can expect you to be there. And if they don't see you at those times, they know where to find you (or at least where not to find you). When everyone follows these rules, it's easier for people who are running businesses or organizations (like companies) to manage their employees and make sure everything gets done on time.

Well… there are definitely some problems with this kind of schedule. But I would argue that these problems aren't really due to the fact that we work 9-5; rather, they're due to more

I totally agree with you @ebbacronqvist

If you can get your work done, efficiently and on time, you should have the flexibility and freedom to do it on your own schedule.

At oVice (ovice.in), we provide access to virtual spaces for our users where they can customize it and make it their own! You can turn it into a virtual office, host events, study space, etc.

Our goal is to really optimize the remote work experience by giving our users the ability to interact with their peers in real time. This helps promote productivity and collaboration and I feel it can really help you stay focused, on your own time, no matter where you are in the world!

Check us out at https://tour-en.ovice.in/ to take a look around and see how it works. :)

Interesting, There are many cases however where you need to interact with other co-workers otherwise you're stuck. if the overlapping work window is too narrow, that can be a problem...

Yes and No :)

As there are certainly some fields to which 9 to 5 has never applied and never will, there are also people who need that kind of set & fixed schedule in their lives.

How well the 9 to 5 schedule suits you can depend on a lot of things: industry, position, where you are in the world, whether you have kids/family or no, your chronotype, whether you're a creator or a manager, etc.

Trying to put everyone into the 9-to-5 box clearly is not the best idea, but the same applies to saying that it has to die for everyone else :)

9-5 has been "dead" with modern companies (particularly tech) for over a decade in my experiences. However, the pandemic forced/accelerated so many of us to challenge all our old assumptions of work and life which is a significant reason for the "great resignation" and the revival / traction of the 4-day workweek.

I could go on for ions on this topic, but I'll leave with just one other point. Flexible work, choice and output over input, is still a "office" context. Nurses, teachers, assembly line workers, infrastructure...are not roles that can just choose where, when, how to work.

So I'm always mindful of that many of us are privileged to have the opportunity to throw away the Industrial Age mindset, but not all can. yet.

I dunno, I think these pushes to sorta "deregulate" our standards (get rid of 9-to-5, stop counting vacation days, work from anywhere) start out good but then end up being misery for the workers. "Unlimited vacation days" are never used, work from anywhere/work anytime ends up meaning "work on vacation" and "be available at midnight."

Maybe part of the problem is just that quick-shot ideas need to be more developed and we need to be thinking about "what are all the ways this good thing can be exploited so we can make sure those things don't happen?" before we just plop them down as the next big thing?

It's all about protecting your "productivity quadrant": draw a XY with async/sync on one axis and scheduled / non-sched on the other.

The sched-async quadrant is where your highest productivity (per time unit) is. Anything "attacking" that quadrant (tools, colleagues, meetings, etc) equals reversion to the 9-to-5 mean. Protect your time and focus and you'll escape the rat race for good.

The 9 to 5 will stay a standard for a long time at its not something that completely broken in itself and has been tested and tried across many sectors very making it harder to replace. But I agree that a flexible workplace is the way to the future and I am in awe to the possibilities that are available. Fully Remote, Hybrid, Work From Home, Digital Nomad, 4 day week or mix what you like. So many options to choose from and prepare oneself with what they have in mind based on what walk of like they are seen. The Future of work is entering interesting times 🚀

IMO, you either want to work 9 to 9, or don't work at this company. I don't want to spend my youth at company, where I'm waiting the end of the day.

Startups with intense sprints are far more interesting to me

when I first started working corporate job, 9-5 is actually 9am-10:30pm. 9-5 is actually to support other engineering teams ( I was BIOS engineer). I only get to work on features after they are done.

My next job is like 10-5 with 2-3hr breaks. But honestly, half of the issues I slept on it and figured out the next day.

When I was working as consulting, 9-whatever is to just gather information and have plans. I sleep on it. next day, I'll have actionable plans.

When I code on my own, the hours are all over the map.

A lot of the members of the WBE Space are working hard to leave their 9-5 jobs and focus full time on their projects. However, being an indie hacker often means that you switch a 9-5 for a 24/7...

Yeah I think it depends a lot on the job you have.

However, I do think it's only a matter of time before something changes in the U.S. Who knows how long though.

It's clear that measuring output objectively is very difficult. Proximity bias is definitely real and it seems like it'll be a challenge for many years to come.

This made me think about how dividing remote vs. in-person work can be. Not just for a company itself but for society. No doubt there is good and bad for both in-person and remote work. Hopefully our systems will improve over time.

Have a flexible schedule? Sure.
Let everybody work at whatever time they feel? Hell no.

Your team needs discipline and to be able to sync regularly. Without a common schedule for every team member, it ends up being hard to sync on a particular topic (e.g. "Can we talk about X?" "Sorry I am playing on my PlayStation right now, going to work at 7pm since this is when I am the most productive".

It's totally okay to be flexible (especially for parents) but there should be some general guidelines to follow.

A majority of people prefer consistency over flexibility. It lets them structure the rest of their priorities and responsibilities around the 9-5 schedule. It's simple and it works. I feel most of the readers and responses to this post would be the flexibility fist proponents.

I start my day at 5am. I get the most things done between 6am and 9am. At 9am all kinds of meetings take place and my productivity is pretty much ruined...

Everyone’s different! One benefit of the 9–5 is that everyone knows when you are working ; conversely, everyone knows when you’re unavailable. That said, I do enjoy the flexibility of freelancing.