Especially in terms of resentment, it seems risky to conflate "remote" and "part time", especially without very clear boundaries. This is exactly the fear many managers have about remote work: that it gradually slides into part time work. It's not at all generally accepted that if you can do "a days work" in three hours, you get to take the rest of the day off.
If you want to decouple hours spent from your earnings without risking resentment, you need to find a way to bill firm fixed price for well-defined deliverables. This is very difficult and risky, to say the least (but very valuable if you can pull it off).
I don't agree with the assertion that a negotiated part time agreement with clearly defined boundaries ("John works Tuesdays, Thursday and Friday and isn't expected to be available on email or Slack, except under the same kinds of emergencies when we'd call people on weekends") necessarily created resentment outside of how other workplace status dynamics might create resentment -- meaning, something your boss should manage, and if they can't, that person shouldn't be your boss.
I would reword it as "the remote worker is getting more productive". As long as the measured outcome (which I recommend keeping track of) remains constant, invested hours don't matter that much.
Of course, if you repeatedly ask to the employer "is it OK to work less hours", he will hesitate. Just don't ask, while at the same time ensure you deliver constant meaningful work and document that activity.
Personally I'm serious about crafting meaningful git commits and logging my daily activity.
Also important to be willing to work a longer day when you've wasted time in improductive situations (e.g. discarded code, silly bug hunts). Employer shouldn't necessarily pay for our blunders (which is why sometimes daily rate is more 'honest' than hourly).
Also note that I specifically point that you cannot just sit 3 consecutive hours and disappear the rest of the day. I doubt many can do focused high-quality work without periods of rest. Also important to interact with the team.
> As long as the measured outcome (which I recommend keeping track of) remains constant, invested hours don't matter that much.
I don't think most employers would agree with that. If I'm a "normal" full-time, salaried employee, I'm expected to work 5 days a week, usually for at least 8 hours a day. If I'm able to become more efficient or automate parts of my job away, my employer would expect me to take on more work or responsibility, not work fewer hours a day. (You're free to argue that this isn't fair, but I'm just talking about reality here.)
If I were to work a reduced schedule of 3 or 4 days a week, the same thing would apply.
Of course, if the negotiation resulted in more of a contracting role, as in being paid for milestones and project delivery, then time-spent-in-chair shouldn't matter.
The grandparent post seemed to be talking of a sort of a hybrid of FTE/salaried and consulting, so perhaps your advice might apply to that sort of thing, but I don't think what you're saying would apply to a traditional salaried position, even after negotiating a reduced work-week.
I think it's pretty normal for remote employees (not contractors) to not be expected to work 8 solid hours per day at home.
Have specifically asked so in quite a few job interviews worldwide. Most common reply is literally "we don't care as you do what you have to do"
Most folks who have participated in remote workflows for long enough know that a lot of 'waste' is elliminated by working interruption- and meeting-free, so 8h/d becomes an exhausting workload.
If you want to decouple hours spent from your earnings without risking resentment, you need to find a way to bill firm fixed price for well-defined deliverables. This is very difficult and risky, to say the least (but very valuable if you can pull it off).
I don't agree with the assertion that a negotiated part time agreement with clearly defined boundaries ("John works Tuesdays, Thursday and Friday and isn't expected to be available on email or Slack, except under the same kinds of emergencies when we'd call people on weekends") necessarily created resentment outside of how other workplace status dynamics might create resentment -- meaning, something your boss should manage, and if they can't, that person shouldn't be your boss.