Professionals often take pride in working long hours. Others work excessive hours because their supervisors reward only those who are always at work. Data from Clockify, a time tracking software solution, suggest that the average full-time employee in the U.S. works 260 hours per year more than employees in thriving countries such as Australia, Canada, France, and the Netherlands. That is more than six full-time workweeks per year or 1.1 hours per day. In many organizations, there is a silent understanding that more hours equate to high performance. Research, however, tells a different story. Here is what the numbers say, followed by ideas for limiting your work hours.
Long Work Weeks Tank Performance
Economists have long warned that long workweeks undermine the performance of factory workers. In a series of studies, John Pencavel, Professor Emeritus at Stanford, found that any additional hour worked above 53 hours per week rapidly decreased the following week’s output. Munition workers with 70-hour workweeks had 19 percent less output the next week than those working 53 hours.
Pencavel speculated that workers need time off to restore energy. Other research confirms this, assigning sleep a pivotal role. A study among 429 employees, published in Occupational Medicine, found that those working more than 48 hours per week reported lower sleep quality than employees working fewer hours. Based on data from more than 10,000 Americans, Professor Christopher Barnes and his colleagues found that employees lose an hour of sleep for every three hours worked beyond the 8-hour workday.
Sleep replenishes the energy we use during a workday. Without a good night's rest, we start the day exhausted, risking errors, procrastination, and distorted decision-making. On January 7, the National Sleep Foundation released data illustrating how crucial sleep is for work performance. Of the 1,372 American adults surveyed, a large majority report negative impacts on their work productivity when they do not get enough sleep (60%) or when they do not get quality sleep (70%). In an interview with Dr. Joseph Dzierzewski, Senior Vice President of Research & Scientific Affairs at the National Sleep Foundation, he specifies, “When people sleep poorly, they find it difficult to think clearly, handle their workload, or get going at the beginning of the day. Together, those factors undermine productivity.”
Read More: 3 Unusual New Year’s Resolutions That Boost Your Work Performance
Working Long Days Can Be Risky
Impaired performance due to long shifts can have disastrous consequences. A study on quality and patient safety for the Harvard Work Hours and Safety Group reveals that nurses who work more than 12.5 consecutive hours are up to three times as likely to make an error in patient care. Even more shocking, physicians-in-training with recurring 24-hour shifts make 300 percent more medical errors that lead to a patient's death.
If you do not work in healthcare, pulling an all-nighter might not kill anyone, but you can be sure that your performance is suboptimal the day after. In a recently published study with Professors Charles Calderwood, Christopher Rosen, and Allison Gabriel, we followed participants on five consecutive workdays. After a longer workday, participants slept fewer hours and woke up with less energy and resilience the following morning. The result? On those days, coworkers rated the performance of these drained workers as lower than usual.
Performance Versus Career Advancement
Enough scientific evidence supports the business case for restricting excessive work hours. Instead, many organizations do the exact opposite. The ideal worker norm, defining the most desirable worker as someone fully committed to and always available for work, is still omnipresent in the U.S. Those who fit this image are rewarded. Professor Erin Reid from McMaster University interviewed 114 consultants. Only consultants who embraced the norm of working long hours, evenings, and weekends on-demand received bonuses and promotions.
So, there is the catch-22. Research shows that working long hours impairs performance, yet the only way to climb up in many organizations is by working extreme hours. Even though employees might know, deep down, that they should take it easier, doing so is not always a realistic option as supervisors, coworkers, and the organization at large paint the picture that it is normal to work 65 hours a week.
How to Reign in Work Hours
The “grind culture” in organizations can be stubborn, and making a change on your own can feel daunting. Here are a few ideas for organizations and employees to start the fight for more manageable work hours.
· Start at the top. Changing a work culture does not happen overnight. However, it helps if top management takes a clear stance. Write down a work hour guideline that underscores valuing the quality of work rather than hours worked. Make sure that employees read it and, most importantly, believe you.
· Supervisors set the example. Employees are likelier to believe you if managers follow the work hour guideline. If managers typically put in 60+ hour workweeks, they communicate that this is the norm. Behavior is a much stronger signal than any written statement. The same goes for rewarding employees. Assign bonuses and promotions based on output, not on input.
· Set the right expectations. To endorse the new guideline, explain your own work hours to your team. Clarify that sending emails on Sunday night works well for you, but does not mean you expect others to be online then. One of my research collaborators cleverly added the following line to their email signature: “My work hours might not be your work hours. Please respond when your work-nonwork life allows you to do so.”
· Find an ally. In many high-pressure work cultures, employees assume that coworkers are OK with the pace and workload. Talk to others to see how they are coping. It is easier to raise concerns with your supervisor when peers join you.
There is a chance you will not win the fight against your company’s excessive work culture. If you feel your job's long hours will never change, consider changing jobs. Finding a new job is never easy, but staying in a job that makes you miserable gives you the short end of the stick. Life is too short.