Working excessive hours is not productive. Fact.
The basic assumption that we or an employee will be more productive and get more done if we/they work longer hours seems obvious, but it’s fundamentally flawed.
There is clearly an inverse proportion to the hours worked and productivity.
The statistics prove that working longer hours does not increase productivity. Let’s take a look, according to DeskTime.com the 10 most productive Countries in the world are;
- Ireland
- Germany
- Indonesia
- Mauritius
- Argentina
- Bermuda
- Brazil
- Spain
- Bangladesh
- Australia
All of whom work less than the average 33.6 weeks that Americans do.
Least productive?
And the least productive Country in the world? It’s Japan!
Japan famous for high intense work pressure. Where nearly a quarter of Japanese companies have their employees work more than 80 hours per week (source). That correlation cannot be accidental. There is clearly an inverse proportion to the hours worked and productivity.
Millions are literally working longer to get less done. That’s just crazy. You can read the full article here.
Excessive work hours damaging our health
The damage this does to our health, to our morale, to our families, and also to our businesses (remember we are reducing productivity not increasing it) is significant, alarming and profound.
Women with high job strain = 88% more heart attack risk
Are you really going to perform at your best if you’re still exhausted from the previous days work. I think not.
First hand experience
We’ve seen this first hand at Overnight.Design (if you’re new to Overnight.Design there’s an intro video here from our founder).
We design business documents, animations, reports, and power point presentations (a lot of them) for Global enterprises. In reality we don’t provide a design service really, we provide a productivity and optimisation service.
You see we take the design tasks off your staff so that they can focus on the content which is their speciality. They can go home knowing that the work will be done through the night and be on their desk (well in their email inbox) before they get to work the next day. And they love us for it.
Here’s a blatant testimonial to illustrate the point:
“At least 120,000 deaths per year are associated with how companies in the U.S. manage their workforce.”
Got et al. Management Science, February 2016
The teams we work with see huge performance improvements because they can get home earlier, get a full nights sleep, and come into work the next day ready to deliver their best day’s work.
Nailing their business presentation, and winning that new contract.
All because they simply outsourced an area of their work they aren’t optimised to deliver.
Work Smarter
Are there tasks that you could outsource, that could not only reduce your stress, but potentially improve your performance, or the performance of your team?
It’s time to work smart, not just hard.
