Microsoft has more than 180.000 employees in 100 countries. So you know a thing or two about how people really work. In their latest study, the Work Trend Index report, the people of Redmond found that people who work from home don't work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
(If you work from home, you already know, but stay with me…)
It's not because people who work from home are lazy watching Better Call Saul over a beer.
No, they work as hard, or harder, than ever.
They just don't do it on a set schedule first seen in Ford Motor Company factories in the 1920s.
Instead, based on data on its employees' work habits, Microsoft found that people are working later than ever.
Data from Microsoft Teams showed that people often meet after 5 p.m. To be exact, most of the time they met or communicated between 6 and 8 p.m.
In fact, the average Teams user now sends 42% more chats per person after hours (*9*).
According to a Microsoft blog post: "Traditionally, knowledge workers had two productivity peaks during their day (*9*): before lunch and after lunch. But when the pandemic sent so many people into work mode from At home, a third spike appeared for some in the hours before bedtime.Microsoft researchers refer to this phenomenon as the "triple day spike."
Using keyboard data, Microsoft found that 30% of its employees worked more nights. And it's not just early evening either. While not as high as the historical work peaks around 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., there is now also a lower but still significant work peak at 10 p.m.
In a way, this is nothing new.
It has long been a truism that programmers are night owls. And long before anyone wrote a line of code, in 1635 to be exact, the phrase "burning the midnight oil" entered the language.
But, as Gloria Mark, a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine and a visiting Microsoft scholar, has observed, "more than ever, people are taking on additional daily tasks they didn't have before." . , whether it's babysitting and helping with school or being a caretaker for another family member... making a lot of people work later."
It also blurs the line, for better or worse, between work and personal life.
Do you know everything about the need to balance life (*9*) and personal? It is gradually being replaced by discussions about the "integration of life (*9*) and personal".
Modern life does not give workers many options in this matter.
According to Payscale's 2022 State of the Gender Pay Gap report, 85% of women said the main reason they left a job was childcare. And with childcare, when you can find it, costing €10,174 per child per year, it's no wonder people work late; that's when they have time.
As Mary Czerwinski, director of Microsoft Research, observed: "Having your kids home with no meal or exercise breaks, we found that one of the ways to cope is to take a break, have dinner, and then hang out around the evening". really get things done."
And once the tasks are done, they turn their attention back to work.
So if you have managers telling you that people who work from home are lazy without proof, fire them. The real danger is not that your domestic workers are lazy. (*5*) are going to finish.
Shamsi Iqbal, Principal Productivity Researcher at Microsoft Research, said: "The third peak should be an option available to people who need it, but the challenge is: 'How do we make sure people aren't working 24 hours a day? 7 days a week?" people are working all three peaks, that's a recipe for burnout early."
Microsoft Research studies have also shown that "breaks are important, not only to make us less exhausted at the end of the day, but also to improve our ability to focus and engage."
And, on that note, I'll be taking a break from my home office to walk my dogs.
Links:
3 reasons why leaders should leave the day (*9*) from 9 to 5
https://blog.jostle.me/blog/why-leaders-should-abandon-the-9-to-5-workday
The 9 to 5 job is a stale relic of the past and it needs to stop now
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/07/25/working-9-to-5-is-an-antiquated-relic-from-the-past-and-should-be-stopped- ahora mismo/?sh=67d7bcc140de
The week (*9*) from 9 to 5 is dead. here is the continuation
https://www.inc.com/magazine/201612/kate-rockwood/tipsheet-productivity.html
How to make the most of your day (*9*)
https://www.nytimes.com/guides/business/how-to-improve-your-productivity-at-work
This is what happens when there are too many meetings
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/triple-peak-day-work-from-home/629457/
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