Employees are imprisoned in an ‘infinite workday’

Illustration: Anna Kim, Photos: Runstudio/Getty Images, Adobe Stock

Workdays once had a defined beginning and end. But, much like a bad first date or a card game at a party, workdays are increasingly stretching on forever, per the latest data from Microsoft’s Work Trend Index Special Report. The “infinite workday,” as Microsoft calls it, began as an anomaly with the rise of remote work during the pandemic but has since become the norm for many who are unable to disconnect completely. Microsoft made the observation after parsing “trillions” of data points across its Microsoft 365 products. Brace for the soul-crushing numbers: Early mornings: Microsoft used telemetry to determine that 40% of people online at 6am are checking work email instead of hitting the snooze. Meanwhile, Teams becomes the primary communication platform within the Microsoft environment by 8am, with workers receiving an average of 153 messages per weekday. Midday: Half of meetings take place between 9am and 11am and 1pm and 3pm, right when people are at their most productive (due to circadian rhythms). And 57% of meetings occur without a calendar invite, while 1 in 10 are booked last minute. Evenings/weekends: Meetings after 8pm are up 16% over last year, and the average employee sends or receives more than 50 emails outside of regular business hours. On weekends, ~20% of employees check work email before noon. Got a minute? This might be the most staggering detail from the report: Employees using Microsoft 365 are interrupted by a meeting, email, or notification every two minutes during “core business hours,” and that doesn’t even include your coworker swinging by your desk to tell you about their fantasy football team. AI could help (and also hurt). The report concludes that using AI for menial tasks will free humans to focus on more important aspects of their jobs. But as Forbes notes, if AI is only freeing people for more assignments, a healthy work-life balance will remain out of reach.—DL