Kim’s Message: Does Working More Increase Productivity?

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What do you think, does working more make you more productive? If you had asked me that question ten years ago, I would have replied, “Absolutely!” The more hours I work, the more tasks I can accomplish and feel “ahead of the game”. I have always been a workaholic, and I really enjoy what I do. But many of us forget that being busy and being productive are two different things. Responding quickly to emails and attending more and more meetings can keep us from working on important key projects, which means we end up being less productive. With more technology continuing to enter our lives and after the eye-opening and successful experiment of working remotely during the pandemic, if you asked me this question today, I would answer with a much different reply of “Absolutely Not!”

Like many of you over the past decade, we’ve been working hard to streamline our processes and procedures at CEA, and we make continual strides to work smarter, not harder. However, there are still many articles that show not all leaders have this philosophy. I often read articles, backed by statistics, about the fact that “the nations that log the most hours at work also tend to have the weakest economies, while workers in many of the world’s most successful economies—not to mention happiest countries—tend to work the fewest.”

Did you know that according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), workers in its 38 member countries average about 32 hours of work per week? For context, workers in Peru average about 43.5 hours per week, Mexico comes in at 42 hours/week, and at the other end of the spectrum, German workers average about 25.5 hours per week, followed by Denmark at 26.5, and Norway at 27. The USA comes in with a work schedule that averages 34.5 hours per week.

The pressure of working through evenings, weekends, or lunch to complete work is often praised by leaders (and I used to be very guilty of this), but this dynamic can also create more pressure to look busy instead of delivering actual value. This old thinking can lead to burnout for your team, which reduces organizational productivity.

So maybe it’s time for all of us, regardless of what industry we are in, to really focus more on thinking smarter about work. It doesn’t mean you need to switch over to a four-day-workweek, although this is becoming an increasingly accepted idea in the US. Perhaps we can schedule fewer meetings, shorten meetings, and leverage new technologies to help us all do more in less time? Leaders who work to change old behaviors and focus on overall outcomes, versus hours worked, often discover more success and increase the well-being of their employees! Working more doesn’t make you more productive!