I'd challenge with "so why don't you do 6 days work in 5 days?"
I can imagine a few good answers:
* We need to keep the team: A four day week is a major reason they don't get poached. It's a benevolent lock in. Almost nobody else does this. Just reducing team churn to practically zero probably pays for the extra day in of itself (recruiting is time consuming and expensive).
* We need to grow the team: We need to get more people in a very competitive hiring market. Having three days of your own each week is a major USP for the company. It lets us attract and recruit the best.
* In my experience productivity actually drops if a team works longer hours. I've had teams produce more after moved from about 50 hours coding to about 30 hours coding a week. People suck at estimating how productive they are.
I can imagine a few good answers:
* We need to keep the team: A four day week is a major reason they don't get poached. It's a benevolent lock in. Almost nobody else does this. Just reducing team churn to practically zero probably pays for the extra day in of itself (recruiting is time consuming and expensive).
* We need to grow the team: We need to get more people in a very competitive hiring market. Having three days of your own each week is a major USP for the company. It lets us attract and recruit the best.
* In my experience productivity actually drops if a team works longer hours. I've had teams produce more after moved from about 50 hours coding to about 30 hours coding a week. People suck at estimating how productive they are.