My fellow IT workers will likely be familiar with the non-standard hours our work can require us to keep. Since we’re an essential service any interruption means that other people are unable to work so we’re often left with no choice to continue working long after everyone has left. Thankfully I moved out of doing that routinely long ago however I’ve still had my fair share of long weeks, weekend work and the occasional all-nighter in order to make sure a job was done properly. I’ll never work more hours simply for the sake of it though as I know my productivity rapidly drops off after a certain point, meaning the extra hours aren’t particularly effective. Still though there seems to be something of a worship culture around those who work long hours, even if the results of doing so are questionable.
My stance has always been that everyone should be able to complete their work in the standard number of work week hours and if goals aren’t being met it’s a fault of resourcing, not the amount of effort being put in. Too often though I’ve seen people take it upon themselves to make up for these shortcomings by working longer hours which feeds into a terrible cycle from which most projects can’t recover. It often starts with individuals accommodating bursts of work which falsely set the expectation that such peaks can be routinely accommodated. Sure it’s only a couple extra hours here or there but when each member of a team of 20 does that you’re already a resource behind and it doesn’t take much to quickly escalate from there.
The problem, I feel, stems from the association that hours worked is equal to the amount of contribution. In all cases this is simply not true as many studies have shown that, even with routine tasks with readily quantifiable output, your efficiency degrades over time. Indeed my highly unscientific observations, coupled with a little bit of online research, shows that working past the 8 hour mark per day will likely lead to heavy declines in productivity over time. I’ve certainly noticed that among people I’ve worked alongside during 12+ hour days as the pace of work rapidly declines and complex issues take far longer to solve than they would have at the beginning of the day.
Thus the solution is two fold: we need to stop idolizing people who put in “long hours” and be steadfast when it comes to taking on additional work. Stopping the idolization means that those who choose to work longer hours, for whatever reasons, are no longer used as a standard by which everyone else is judged. It doesn’t do anyone any good to hold everyone to standards like that and will likely lead to high levels of burnout and turnover. Putting constraints around additional work means that no one should have to work more than they need to and should highlight resourcing issues long before it becomes a problem that can’t be handled.
I’m fortunate to work for a company that values results over time invested and it’s been showing in the results that our people have been able to deliver. As someone who’d worked in organisations where the culture valued hours and the appearance being busy over everything else it’s been extremely refreshing, validating my long held beliefs about work efficiency and productivity. Working alongside other agencies that don’t have this culture has provided a stark reminder of just how idiotic the idolization of overtime is and why I’ll likely be sticking around this place for a while to come.
