Half of workers feel pressured to work late. Here’s why they shouldn't
In spite of modern-day corporate messaging about getting behind employee work-life balance and mental health advocacy, more than half of employees still feel pressured into working late.
Last month’s Workforce Index by Slack, the workplace communications app, shows that two workers in five take on additional hours outside of the set eight-hour day, either by starting early or finishing late. And of those who do this regularly, an astonishing 54% do so because they feel pressured into it by various factors.
It’s not great news for harried workers, but the bad news for firms is that these employees are 20% less productive than the ones you can set your watch by being gone at 5pm. They also experience work-related stress that is more than twice that of their colleagues, and report 1.7 times lower job satisfaction––and they are twice as likely to report burnout.
With numbers like these (the Slack report queried more than 10,000 people globally), we can probably bid farewell to the link between hyperactivity and productivity. Going above and beyond with your time shouldn’t be a badge of honor, but a red flag that prompts your manager to touch base.
We’ve known for a while that burnout is a top risk for an always-on, always-connected workforce, but last year it peaked.
So what are 40 percent of us doing instead of logging off to be with family or invest time in hobbies? Usually, it’s playing catch up for time lost during the day in meetings and emails. “Not having enough time in the day” is a more common complaint the higher up a person is in their organization.
The solution? Aim for the Goldilocks Zone. This will vary from person to person, but a closer look at Slack’s data has thrown up an emerging formula to set workers up for daily productivity, without incurring task debt at the end of the day.
No matter their level of seniority, desk workers say the ideal amount of focus time is four hours a day. Two hours of meetings is the cut-off that makes most workers feel the need to shout stop, and everyone agrees that the afternoon slump is real and could be better used as break time.
In a Goldilocks scenario, managers would aim to respect these realities. Productivity isn’t linear.
And the thing about aiming for the Goldilocks set-up is that if your current role is no longer a productivity fit, it might be time to try something else that could prove to be “just right.”
Seeking a workplace that champions work-life harmony? The Hill Jobs has dozens of open roles with forward-thinking firms.
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