Study: RIP to the nine-to-five workday

For many employees, the workday stretches beyond a nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday schedule, according to a Microsoft report from last month, as the average employee gets 50 work messages outside of business hours. That’s on top of 29% of employees checking their emails after 10:00pm and 20% of employees reading emails on Saturday and Sunday. 

Working off-hours is nothing new for many corporate roles, according to Kim Seals, senior partner at consulting firm West Monroe, especially in industries like sales, accounting, or consulting where employees are often “rewarded” for working off-hours, she explained in a news release. 

But what’s evident in Microsoft’s findings, Seals commented, is that working off-hours has seeped into roles where it may not be required or rewarded to work late nights or early mornings. 

“What Covid did was really just normalize [working off-hours] for other jobs where that was not always the case,” she said. “When we went to these hybrid jobs or remote-first jobs, then the trade-off that folks expected was, ‘Look, if you’re at home and you have more flexibility, then you don’t need to be tied to a core set of working hours.’” 

RTO mandates might exacerbate this. Working outside normal hours can also be fueled by return-to-office mandates and fear from employees to appear more productive, Seals said. 

“[It’s a] concern that I have to be visible online for people to see that I am working, and I am productive,” she said. “Did that drive some folks to say, ‘Let me show them that I’m still willing to work different hours, so that I don’t lose my privilege, if you will, to work from home or to work remotely?’” 

Other employees might be working off-hours, Seals said, because they’re overwhelmed with meetings and in-person interactions in the office to complete tasks and working in the office means more time is spent commuting. 

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“If you put all that together, the commute, the caregiving, the meetings during the core working hours…the only time I have quiet time to actually answer emails and do the work is after dinner,” she said. “After all the other obligations are dealt with, now I have time to actually do my job.” 

What can HR do? People leaders can use screen time monitoring tools, Seals said, in the same way that people use screen time monitoring on their phones to track how long they’ve spent on certain apps or social media. If HR notices employees spending consecutive late nights or early mornings working, she said, then there’s an opportunity for them or their managers to flag it and have a check-in conversation. 

“We need to use the tech tools to flag for people leaders like, ‘Hey, Kim has been online four out of five nights this week. She’s been working eight to midnight in addition to her regular work schedule,” Seals said. “Give [their] manager some talking points to come to [them] and say, ‘Hey, Kim, I’ve noticed a lot of long nights like, what can we be doing? Can I help you prioritize? How can I help you set healthy boundaries?’” 

HR pros should be aware that working off-hours is primarily a concern when it’s in addition to the eight-hour workday, Seals said, but if employees are taking time during the workday to pick up kids from school or take a parent to a doctor’s appointment, then working late hours might be the time to catch up. 

“When you have that balance, and it’s not a true infinite workday where I don’t ever switch off, it’s not always a bad thing,” she said. “To give workers flexibility to say, ‘We’re not just going to tie you to a core set of hours of nine to five’...That way it benefits both parties.” 

Source: HR Brew