Work Less, Get More: Are work days getting shorter?

In the past, the notion of shorter workdays was far-fetched that most employees and companies barely gave it a thought. However, things have changed post-COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous businesses globally have tested this setup and have seen encouraging outcomes. A smaller number of employees are working overtime hours, and the length of the typical workday has decreased by 37 minutes in the last year, according to a new study. This could be a sign that managers in the post-COVID-19 era are becoming more conscious of work-life balance. Notably, the development also comes at a time when four-day weeks with the same workload have been on trial in several countries. Let’s take a closer look. Also read: China's 'full-time children': What does it say about the economy? Working less, getting more ActivTrak, a workforce analytics company, conducted a survey that found that time spent at work had decreased to 10 hours from more than 10.5 hours at the end of the second quarter of 2022. The study examined 38 million hours performed by more than 134,000 people worldwide in a variety of fields, including professional services, healthcare, insurance, and financial services. “What we’re seeing here is truly an efficiency gain,” said The Strait Times quoted Gabriela Mauch, vice-president of the ActivTrak Productivity Lab as saying. The study also discovered that the proportion of overworked employees—those who routinely work outside of regular business hours—had decreased from 32% to 28% from a year earlier. The employees’ mental, physical, and financial well-being may benefit from the adjustment. Shorter workweeks could indicate that employers are responding to employees’ “cry for help as it relates to burnout,” Mauch added. However, the study found that over a third of workers (28 per cent) still put in days that are longer than 10 hours. The company also found that although employees are checking in for shorter periods of time, production has not decreased. “Factors such as the return of commutes for in-office workers, seasonal summer schedules and better time management could be contributing to this shift,” it said. Also read: Stop Work: How an Indian tech firm is pushing staff to go home on time Countries with the longest working hours Mexico had the longest workdays in 2020, while Germany had the shortest, according to a report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose 36 members include many of the world’s most developed nations (such as the USA, UK, Australia, Germany, etc.) as well as some rapidly developing and emerging nations (such as Chile, Turkey, Mexico, etc.). Mexicans worked an average of just over 2,128 hours a year in 2021. If he works all 52 weeks of the year, this translates to more than 41 hours per week. Germans, on the other hand, worked an average of just 1,349 hours a year, which is equal to a 26-hour workweek. The OECD annual average for workers in 2021 was 1,716 hours per worker, which is equivalent to 33 hours each week. Workers in the United States, Estonia, Czech Republic, Cyprus, and Israel have shorter workweeks than those in 11 other OECD nations, but they still put in a little bit more time than the average OECD worker, who puts in 33 hours per week, the report says according to Singapore-based Instarem.com. In 2020, Turkey also has had the longest workweeks, clocking in at 42.9 hours, according to Euro News. Serbia (42.3 hours) and Montenegro (42.8 hours) were also on the list, according to data from 2020 Eurostat, the EU’s official statistics office. These are the nations with working weeks that are typically longer than 40 hours. After Greece and Romania, Poland (39.5 hours), Bulgaria (39.2 hours), and North Macedonia (39 hours) came in order. Also read: Why ‘overworked’ South Korea is adding more hours to its work week Shortest average working hours German employees work a staggering 1,349 hours (or 15 weeks) fewer in a typical year than their Mexican colleagues. Employees in the Netherlands and four of the most prosperous Nordic nations — Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden — enjoy 26–28-hour work weeks, similar to those in Germany, according to OECD data. Euro News reported that in 2019, the average workweek in the UK (36.4 hours) was the same as that in the EU. With 36.2 hours each, France and Italy had slightly worse statistics than the EU. Only six minutes more than the EU average was worked in Spain, where people worked 36.5 hours per week. With inputs from agencies