I'm a member of the product team at Treehouse, and was employee #3. We don't go around talking about the 4 day work week because it's something that we think is a great gimmick that we were fortunate enough to be able to pull off because we hit the VC lottery. It's something at the core of who we are as a company and something we've seen help us compete - not only in hiring but also in productivity. We see a huge benefit in rest, fresh thinking, and a healthy balance between our work and the rest of our lives. The 4 day work week builds that into who we are. It's not the only way to achieve those goals, but one of the primary ways we pull it off.
We've been working the 4-day work week far longer than we've had VC money. Our first investment came in the fall of 2011, long after we existed as a company, and we were profitable prior to raising VC.
So how do you address the points made in the GP post? Specifically, attacks, hardware failures, other issues that immediately impact customers? I assume that you don't wait until monday to address a failure that occurs thursday night, right?
When it comes to keeping the service running, there's always one person on call. We're really flexible on our team about hours, so if you need to do something on Saturday night you can cut out a little early a different day - honestly if you feel done for the day you can be done any day, but most of us are super driven and don't want to stop working when it's time. Despite the general 9-6 guideline we're not super formal about our hours.
Our support team also works a bit on the weekend (around 3 hours per day), and that's something we're working on fixing by adding to the team.
I work between 32 and 35 hours each week. I think about Treehouse a ton more (if I'm not asleep I've probably thought about Treehouse in the past couple of minutes), and answer email from time to time, but I don't know anyone who doesn't do that, and I usually get mean looks from my wife when I spend much time outside of my normal work hours answering email or playing around with code.
In general I don't think people on our team work more than 32-35 hours or so. One exception is our support team, and that's something we're working on remedying.
I think it's great that you guys are trying out new ways to work. I'm an entrepreneur myself, and while I don't have employees yet I'm open to new business models. I wish more companies, funded or not, would be more daring.
Comments
I'm a member of the product team at Treehouse, and was employee #3. We don't go around talking about the 4 day work week because it's something that we think is a great gimmick that we were fortunate enough to be able to pull off because we hit the VC lottery. It's something at the core of who we are as a company and something we've seen help us compete - not only in hiring but also in productivity. We see a huge benefit in rest, fresh thinking, and a healthy balance between our work and the rest of our lives. The 4 day work week builds that into who we are. It's not the only way to achieve those goals, but one of the primary ways we pull it off.
We've been working the 4-day work week far longer than we've had VC money. Our first investment came in the fall of 2011, long after we existed as a company, and we were profitable prior to raising VC.
So how do you address the points made in the GP post? Specifically, attacks, hardware failures, other issues that immediately impact customers? I assume that you don't wait until monday to address a failure that occurs thursday night, right?
When it comes to keeping the service running, there's always one person on call. We're really flexible on our team about hours, so if you need to do something on Saturday night you can cut out a little early a different day - honestly if you feel done for the day you can be done any day, but most of us are super driven and don't want to stop working when it's time. Despite the general 9-6 guideline we're not super formal about our hours.
Our support team also works a bit on the weekend (around 3 hours per day), and that's something we're working on fixing by adding to the team.
Are you saying that in general people work more than 32 hours a week? What is the average number of hours you work each week?
I work between 32 and 35 hours each week. I think about Treehouse a ton more (if I'm not asleep I've probably thought about Treehouse in the past couple of minutes), and answer email from time to time, but I don't know anyone who doesn't do that, and I usually get mean looks from my wife when I spend much time outside of my normal work hours answering email or playing around with code.
In general I don't think people on our team work more than 32-35 hours or so. One exception is our support team, and that's something we're working on remedying.
I think it's great that you guys are trying out new ways to work. I'm an entrepreneur myself, and while I don't have employees yet I'm open to new business models. I wish more companies, funded or not, would be more daring.