Is 2020 the end of the 40-Hour Work Week?

This week is one of the first full workweeks in the new year and I’m personally feeling high energy from all sides. In January, people are typically filled with hope and renewed determination to achieve their goals. How was your Monday? The week has only begun but my question is: Are you exhausted yet?

Hustling. Grinding. Crushing It. These are all terms we regularly hear in connection with work and success. While the intentions may be good, I’d like to dispel any myths about how much working time it actually takes to achieve success.

Being a hard worker is a positive attribute for employers. This translates into someone who is reliable, dedicated, and will get the project done. This is an absolute must for any new hire or entrepreneur. But, at some point, we seem to have become confused about what a hard worker really looks like. Does it really equal putting in as many hours at work as possible? Let’s revisit history.

On September 25, 1926, Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford invented the modern workweek, comprised of 40 hours over five days. Before then, most employees worked 10-16 hour days.

Today, January 14, 2020, the 40-hour workweek is still the norm throughout corporate America.

That was ninety-four years ago!

Why are we still operating under a working model created in 1926?

Technology has revolutionized modern life. Women’s equal rights are here to stay. The human life span has increased quite a bit, from an average life expectancy of age 49 in 1910 to age 78.8 in 2019. The quality of our health, medicine, and the standards of living have also drastically improved. People are taking better care of themselves than ever before, both mentally and physically. “Wellness” and “Work-Life Balance” have become main-stream values to most American workers. Seventy-seven percent of employees say they prefer jobs with flexible work, according to Zenefits, which contributes to their well-being. And the gig economy and growing services-on-demand industry is making work anytime anywhere a reality for many Americans.

Yet, despite all this progress, most jobs are still based on 40-hour-five-day work weeks. Not only that, but as a society, workaholism is often celebrated. People boast of working until late at night or on weekends. This is the very contradiction to our 21st-century core values of health and well-being. Even within companies offering excellent wellness benefits like flexible hours and unlimited PTO, there may be pressure within the company culture that encourages workaholism. 

The real questions we should be asking are:

Is it possible to work less yet stay as productive or even double your productivity? What are the ideal hours for maximum productivity?

I’d like to argue that the problem isn’t in the number of hours worked but the actual way we work. A traditional workday is full of distractions and interruptions such as email, meetings, socialization, and private inbound messages. It is also based on set office hours when really, studies have shown that people have different energy levels so standard work hours aren’t optimized for the individual. Add an internal chat to the mix and an open-floor office plan and I really am surprised people get any work done at all. 

“How is it possible,” Tim Ferriss writes in The 4-Hour Workweek, “that all the people in the world need exactly 8 hours to accomplish their work? It isn’t. 9-5 is arbitrary.” 

Let’s take a closer look at productivity. Do you know your peak hours? Each individual has their own time for peak mental task alertness. These are the times of the day when you feel most creative. You are in your “flow”. For some, this may be early in the morning while for others, it is late at night. There is no right or wrong type, only your natural rhythms and energy levels. Knowing your peak hours can help you schedule your day better. Save the creative tasks for the peak hours and leave routine tasks or networking for your down hours. Throughout the 24 hours in a day, we cycle through ultradian rhythms by blocks of 90 minutes of ups and downs in our energy levels, which affects our concentration and decision-making capabilities.

In his book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, author Cal Newport gives practical advice to increase productivity and get better work done. Yet, sadly, traditional work cultures don’t take into account one’s natural energy levels nor creativity and don’t help employees in this way. In fact, office life is filled with interruptions and distractions.

'The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.''

  ― Cal Newport

If you force yourself to perform creative tasks during a down cycle, it will take you twice as long and the results will be half as good as if you synchronize your schedule with your creative energy and harness it to its maximum potential.

Studies on workers have shown that humans are only truly productive for less than 3 hours daily. We also need short breaks every hour before returning into a deep state of concentration. Lastly, we all know that people perform at different paces. There are plenty of studies done to make the argument for results-based work and remove time contingency altogether.

With all the scientific research available about how our brains work, why aren’t more companies letting employees set their own hours and work remotely?

Some companies actually are but it’s still not wide-spread and those who do are finding it a learning curve how to manage team collaborations and more. Luckily, technology is helping with many communication and project management tools. But there are still more reasons why flexible work still isn't the norm. Let's explore a few reasons companies are holding on to the 40-hour workweek:

1/ Lack of Trust - The common misbelief is that if you don’t have constant control over your workers, they won’t actually work, only pretend to. This culture of mistrust of educated adults is absurd, especially in the day and age of technology where you can set in place systems to keep tabs on your workers like set times for updates, chats, etc.

Solution: Stop paying employees for their hours and start compensating based on skill. Define the tasks and deliverables you need from your people and evaluate them on their results, not the time they sat inside their cubicle. How many hours they worked isn't as relevant as what they accomplished.

2/ Adaptability - Sadly, many people are afraid of change. The 9 to 5 is a familiar and trusted system whereas flexible hours are new and therefore, difficult to comprehend and adapt to for managers who are slow to evolve.

Solution: Educate people how to structure flexible work hours for maximum success without compromising on productivity. This is where companies should be using all the scientific research available to them and hiring productivity experts like David Allen or Kevin Kruse.

3/ Practical Application - Flexible work hours means people may not all be working at the same time compared to traditional work schedules where everyone is reachable at once.

Solution: New policies need to be put into place regarding meetings and communication. It is not as difficult as it sounds and quickly can be sorted out. Remote teams are already doing it.

The benefits of flexible work schedules far outweigh the initial challenges. Having happy, healthy, more productive employees with less sick days and lower employee attrition makes it worth it. I speak from personal experience as many years ago, I quit a job to stay home with one of my children due to lack of flexible work options.

Work-life balance, stress, and mental health are real issues that flexible work schedules can contribute to positively. It’s time that we broke the 1926 model and made flexible work the norm, not the exception. Maybe 2020 will be the year we overcome workaholism and take back our schedules to work less yet achieve more.

What are your experiences with flexible work (or lack of it)? Do you have any productivity tips to share? Do you work a traditional 9-to-5 job or reduced hours? I'd love to invite you to join the conversation!

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