Healthy Productivity: Why Organizations Need To Rebalance Work

It has been more than two years since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. Remote work that became a necessity during the pandemic, along with hybrid work, has now become a norm. Several studies have shown an improvement in productivity during this period. However, this may be at the cost of social isolation, lack of resources, and burnout in many organizations. Ignoring these employee problems will mislead organizations from identifying solutions for healthy habits and productivity in the organization.

So, how can companies foster healthy productivity? ActivTrak Productivity Lab recently collaborated with Cornell University’s Kimberly Gordon to find answers. The following are the key findings and a framework for organizations.

See more: Top Tech Solutions to Reduce Burnout and Enhance Productivity

Employees With Consistent Start Times Seem More Productive

At the pandemic’s beginning, companies had to go virtual almost overnight. This forced employees to create their own at-home office spaces and work schedule. During the initial days, people worked longer hours, more evenings and weekends. Did employees adopt more routine work habits later? Did productivity activity look similar to the earlier year, or did employee behaviors change?

According to the report, most people adopted some routine. About 70% of employees began their workday within the same 2-hour window. Further, the study found that routines matter; people who had consistent start times seemed more productive. People who started work in the same 2-hour window were an hour more productive than those who varied their start time across a 3-hour window.Â

Routines yield additional 1-hour productivity

Source: 2022 State of the Workplace: Productivity and Engagement Data TrendsOpens a new window

Productivity Increased in 2021

Another finding was that while employees worked for similar hours in 2020 and 2021, the productive time increased by 40% in 2021, jumping from an average of 4:37 to 6:28 hours. This could be due to various reasons, such as employees creating working habits that allow for more productive practices and companies providing additional at-home tools to support work. That said, organizations should be aware that too much efficiency may result in diminishing returns on healthy productivity.

A third finding was that employees reduced their weekend working hours, indicating an improved work-life balance. The study found an 11% decrease in weekend work activity over the last year. Consistent off-shift work on weekends may lead to employee stress and burnout.

A crucial finding was that schedule flexibility limits a person’s ability to connect with their colleagues in a day. When working in the same time zone, schedule flexibility led to higher degrees of variability and reduced overlap across employee schedules.Â

There Is an Immediate Need To Rebalance Work and Increase Healthy Work Habits

The length of a workday has returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, workload balance is a challenge, and many people find unplugging difficult. This may not be sustainable for employee well-being.Â

The study found an immediate opportunity to rebalance work and increase healthy work habits. While 80% of people should ideally fall into a healthy work category, only 62% were in this category this year. While there is an opportunity to improve workload balance, data distribution and consistency throughout the year indicated stability and resilience to the ongoing unknowns of modern work experiences.

That said, leaders should aim at increasing the percentage of healthy workers. Responsive and predictive adaptability will reduce and prevent burnout.

Employees With Healthy Habits Do Not Deviate for More Than Two Consecutive Days

The study found that employees with healthy work habits do not spend more than two consecutive days overworking. On the other hand, people who were overutilized for most of the year experienced over-utilization for almost all the days of the week. This poses a substantial threat of burnout to the employees. It was also seen that employees at the most significant risk of hours-based burnout spent more than 75% of the year in a state of overutilization.

Workdays Consist of Shorter Focus Periods

Achieving focus throughout the workday has been a challenge for years. But today’s distractions are different and come in the form of notifications, interruptions in collaboration tools, and subconscious habits. Similarly, access to more digital devices has also made distractions easy.Â

The number one source of focus disruptions was collaboration tools, accounting for 21% of distractions. On average, these tools distracted employees about 70 times a day with notifications to engage in meetings and respond to emails or messages. Further, the study found that employees spent 33% of their day (or 2.4 hours) across two activity types â€” multitasking and spending time on collaboration tools.

According to the study, an average workday had brief focus sessions instead of longer periods of deeper work. The study found that only 3% of employees had focus sessions longer than 50 minutes. About 73% of employees experience focus sessions of only 0-20 minutes, with the average lasting 14 minutes.

A 60-minute session may be unrealistic considering various distractions, especially in a remote setting. Employees should set attainable goals to achieve incremental improvements to preserve and extend focus sessions during a workday. On the other hand, leaders must shift their focus toward collaboration strategies that address the possible negative consequences of collaboration-related fatigue.

See more: How Eliminating Meetings and Internal Emails Can Boost Productivity

A Framework for Healthy Productivity

Based on the findings, the study proposed the ACT framework to promote healthy productivity in the workspace. ACT stands for:

Acquire Context: Understand the company’s data in the context of business demands, market stressors, company’s change impacts, and employee feedback.

Communicate Findings: Share the findings with the employees to create a culture of trust, transparency, and accountability. Further, collaborate on acceptable solutions. Understanding what could be effective on the onset can reduce cycles and optimize buy-in.

Take Action: Listen and share to prime the employees for action.

Conclusion

When planning the future of work, as an organization, you should focus on these three areas: work habits and schedule flexibility, workload balance and employee utilization, and workplace focus and distractions. Acquiring insights into them will help you better understand your employees’ work habits, reasons for distractions, and the challenges they face. In addition to this, developing an environment of trust and open communication will help you work with your employees to develop healthy work habits and productivity.

What steps have you taken to promote healthy habits and productivity at work? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .