The trouble with being productive in the current office environment

Day 235 / 365

One thing I have learned through talking to friends who have 9 to 5 jobs as well as from my own personal experience is that in most offices it’s an unspoken rule that a person that stays late at the office is a good employee. Everyone dreads leaving the office before 6, and people feel obliged to provide a reason or an excuse why they are leaving early, even if they have completed their 8 hours for the day.

I guess the reasoning for the management behind this might be that more hours spent at the office means more work done. And as a corollary to that, they assume that a person leaving early is just trying to avoid work.

I see two reasons why this approach actually hinders productivity instead of increasing it

Peak hours are different for different people

Different people have different times during the day when they are the most productive. I might be a minority, but my most productive hours are during the morning. It would be great if I could get to work by 8 and utilize these hours to get a lot of stuff done. But that would mean I will need to leave early, which would raise a lot of eyebrows. Thus my most productive hours are wasted in commute to work, and I wind up sitting at the office in the evening when I am at my least productive.

More hours don’t translate to more work

When you start measuring people’s performance by the number of hours they spend at work, they will find more and more innovative ways to waste time at work. If you allow people flexible hours, they will be motivated to find ways to be more productive and get things done faster. Wouldn’t that be a win for all parties?

Unfortunately, I don’t see the situation improving any time soon.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — Will doing a job badly actually save time?