WORKING

1. For many people, the more hours they work, the more pride they feel in their efforts. Professionals either boast about how many hours they’ve worked, or exaggerate how many hours they work to feel or seem more important. This is because many people value time, and try to make their best use of it - after all, time is money. They also see success as achievable only through long hours of hard work and effort. Combine that with the fact that work e-mails are checked every hour even outside the office. This is the result of rapidly improving technology and the newly named phenomenon of “telepressure,” which is constantly checking messages and e-mails, and worrying about not making a quick reply back. This has created a culture of work which values people based on how many hours they work, how few breaks they take, and how much effort they make.

2. This may seem like a good thing, but in reality, it’s damaging people’s productivity. Stanford University’s John Pencavel found the sweet spot of how long we should work each week. And it’s much less than most people realize: Fifty hours. That’s what research shows is the optimal work week. Anything more and people become less efficient at producing. In fact, Pencavel found that productivity in 70 hours differed little from productivity in 56 hours. So he thinks those extra 14 hours could’ve been better spent outside the office. It’s something to keep in mind next time when bosses ask people to work over the weekend.

3. What does this mean for employees around the world? In the United States, the average workweek is 34.4 hours, according to data from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Contrary to popular belief, there are countries who work much harder than the U.S. In fact, the U.S. only ranks 16th worldwide. Employees in Mexico worked the most hours with 42.85 average hours per week. German workers ranked last (or first, depending on how you see it!) with an average workweek of just 26.37 hours. In each country, however, there are exceptional people who work more than 70 hours. These people spend their vacations checking voicemails, or feel guilty when they do not work. Everyone should remember that weekends are for a reason. Work ends so people can begin again. That way, everybody can start the next week refreshed and refocused.