[garden_hermit]

I think the idea is that a 4-day workweek would come along with a broader cultural shift.

Imagine a world where Saturday was a workday, it shouldn't be hard as this was the case for many only a few generations ago.

We could say that it is expected that you will not only work 48hrs/6 days a week, but probably 70, 80, 90 hours likely 7 days a week!

Fortunately, a cultural shift occurred along the way, and the work week is now commonly accepted to be 5 days. Expectations of clients, managers, and employees are based around this standard.

So why can't the standard change again? Why couldn't a broad cultural shift occur in which expectations are better managed towards the productivity of a 4-day work week?

[rusty__]

Do you think there would be a perception that I (a client) paying 100% rate for a project where people only 80% switched on will lead to a feeling that I'm only getting 80% "quality" or 80% of what it could be. (I work in a creative industry).

[shard]

Employees working 80% does not mean that the company output has to be reduced to 80%. With the salary reduction, for every 4 employees there would be roughly enough cost reduction to hire another employee, bringing the output to approximately what it was before.

[billytetrud]

More hours don't translate directly to higher quality or higher output in creative fields. You might actually produce higher quality stuff if you work less. This is pretty well documented at this point

[b3morales]

The understanding of what a 100% rate meant would (have to) be different.