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Long hours don’t always boost productivity

According to a survey from the Workforce Lab at Slack, 40% of desk workers said they often worked past regular hours every week. The survey didn’t include professions such as trucking and nursing, where long work hours may be necessary.

Surprisingly, the report found that employees who feel pressured to work beyond the standard eight-hour workday were 20% less productive than those who didn’t put in overtime. The reason for this, according to a study published in the Industrial Health journal, is that those who are overworked are more prone to mental and physical exhaustion, which can lead to a greater degree of errors and absenteeism.

Simply put, managers forcing employees to work more than the typical 40 hours a week are not only putting their employees’ health at risk, they're also negatively impacting the company’s overall productivity.

Here’s how workers and managers can tackle this issue and improve the outcomes for everyone involved.

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Tackling exhaustion at the office

It’s not easy for employees to push back against the pressure to work long hours, but there are steps an overworked employee can take to set personal boundaries.

For starters, try scheduling a meeting with the HR team to discuss long work hours and their impact on your mental health. Communicate with your manager about prioritizing high-value work tasks so that you can spend less time and effort on low-value grunt work.

Setting clear boundaries about when you are unavailable to answer the phone or reply to emails is also a good way to draw a line between work and your personal life.

Meanwhile, managers should encourage their teams to take time off and recover so that burn out can be avoided. Openly communicating with your employees about how much you value their health and mental well-being could go a long way towards improving productivity.

These steps could also set your company apart from the competition. Only 35% of workers said their company’s culture encourages taking breaks, while just 29% said they work for a manager who values their mental health, according to the American Psychological Association’s Work in America Survey.

Corporations with better work-life balance can not only improve productivity, but they can also potentially gain an edge with talent recruitment and retention.