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Welcome to the ‘infinite workday’ of 8 p.m. meetings and constant messages
While probably not news to many Soylentils, it's interesting to me that this comes from (a Big-Bad-Corp like) Microsoft. Will they, or any companies, implement changes based on these findings? [endless laughter]
Workers are struggling to cope with a “seemingly infinite workday,” involving an increasing load of meetings scheduled at 8 p.m. or later and a near-constant stream of interruptions, according to new research by Microsoft.
The company analyzed data from users of Microsoft 365 services... globally between mid-January and mid-February. It found that the number of meetings booked between 8 p.m. and just before midnight had risen 16% compared with last year. Geographically dispersed teams, as well as those with flexible working arrangements, were responsible for much of that increase.
“The infinite workday… starts early, mostly in email, and quickly swells to a focus-sapping flood of messages, meetings, and interruptions,” Microsoft said in a report [microsoft.com] Tuesday.
The company found that the average worker is interrupted every two minutes by a meeting, an email or a chat notification during a standard eight-hour shift — adding up to 275 times a day.
And those messages don’t stop after they’ve clocked off. During the study period, the average employee sent or received 58 instant messages outside of their core working hours — a jump of 15% from last year.
The typical worker also receives 117 emails per day and, by 10 p.m., almost one-third of employees are back in their inboxes, “pointing to a steady rise in after-hours activity,” Microsoft noted.
[...] “It’s the professional equivalent of needing to assemble a bike before every ride. Too much energy is spent organizing chaos before meaningful work can begin,” it added.
[...] One outcome is that one-third of workers feel it has been “impossible to keep up” with the pace of work over the past five years, according to a Microsoft-commissioned survey of 31,000 employees around the world, cited in the Tuesday report.
