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THE INEFFICIENCY OF OVERTIME
An international time-use study outlining what happens at work
among knowledge workers who work overtime hours.
Presented to: Time Budgets and Beyond: The Timing of Daily Life
International Association of Time Use Research 32nd Conference,
Paris France, July 2010
Mark Ellwood B. Comm. President, Pace Productivity Inc. Toronto,
Canada
www.GetMoreDone.com
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THE INEFFICIENCY OF OVERTIME
Overtime is the amount of time that employees work over and
above standard, or normal working hours. Around the world, these
standard hours typically range around 40 hours per week. Normal
hours may be based on contractual agreement, law, traditional
practice or custom.
In many countries, work done in excess of this must be
compensated at a different rate. Paying for overtime hours at a 50%
premium is common in many jurisdictions. From the companys
perspective, overtime among hourly paid workers encourages a supply
of extra labour by paying a premium for extra hours. As Robert A.
Hart points out, the company establishes patterns of working time
that would otherwise not have been forthcoming.
However, salaried workers do not receive extra compensation for
overtime hours. They work more hours than the norm to:
Achieve a level of results beyond expectations in order to
obtain a promotion
Reach bonus status, whereby compensation is tied to results
Comply with requests by senior management
Conform with peer pressure
Be consistent with external schedules (e.g. train schedules, car
pooling, or night time courses)
Avoid stresses elsewhere. (For some, the attraction of work
occurs when work becomes like home and home is too much work)
BACKGROUND DATA
While workers today complain about long work hours Juliet Schor
estimates that 20th and 21st century work hours are actually
considerably lower than in the mid-nineteenth century. During this
period artificial lighting stretched the workday into the night.
Combined with the pressures of emerging capitalismthe longer
workday and the expanding work-year increased hours dramatically.
Whereas I estimate a range of 1,440 to 2,300 hours per year for
English peasants before the seventeenth century, a
mid-nineteenth-century work in either England or the United States
might put in an annual level of between 3,150 and 3,650 hours.
Assuming a 52-week year with no vacations, this translates to
60.5 hours to 70.2 hours per week. A 40-hour work week today,
including two weeks vacation and ten statutory holidays translates
to 1,920 hours per year.
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During the 20th century, with the rise of unions and more
regulated workplaces, hours of work generally decreased. Deborah
Sunter and Ren Morissette show this trend below, noting how hours
of work dropped massively from the beginning to the late 20th
century.
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Overall U.S. macro statistics show that hours have not changed
dramatically over the last thirty years. The table below shows work
hours remaining in the range of 38-39 hours per week.
This might seem surprising to employees who are required to work
at least 40 hours and who have seen an increase in their overtime
hours. The data blends full time and part-time employees
together.
TABLE 1 HISTORICAL WORK HOURS Total Women Men
1976 38.4 34.1 41.4 1977 38.5 34.2 41.6 1978 38.7 34.4 41.8 1979
38.6 34.4 41.7 1980 38.3 34.4 41.2 1981 37.9 34.1 40.7 1982 37.7
34.0 40.6 1983 38.1 34.4 41.0 1984 38.6 34.9 41.5 1985 38.9 35.2
41.8 1986 38.9 35.3 41.9 1987 38.8 35.3 41.8 1988 39.3 35.7 42.2
1989 39.4 35.8 42.4 1990 39.3 35.8 42.1 1991 39.1 35.8 41.9 1992
38.8 35.6 41.6 1993 39.3 36.0 42.1 1994 39.1 35.6 42.1 1995 39.2
35.7 42.2 1996 39.2 35.7 42.2 1997 39.4 36.0 42.3 1998 39.2 35.9
42.2 1999 39.5 36.2 42.4 2000 39.6 36.4 42.4 2001 39.2 36.1 41.8
2002 39.1 36.1 41.7 2003 39.0 35.9 41.6 2004 39.0 35.9 41.6 2005
39.1 36.1 41.7 2006 39.2 36.2 41.7 2007 39.1 36.1 41.6 2008 38.8
36.1 41.2
SOURCE: Current Population Survey, U.S. Department of Labor,
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Non-Agricultural industries
However, what the table above does not show is that in the last
three decades, there has been an increasing polarization of work
hours. Whereas in the past, production employees targeted
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towards an ideal 40-hour work week, today, more employees work
part-time, more work long hours and fewer work a 40-hour week.
The following table shows how the share of managers (i.e. a
subset of all knowledge workers) working more than 40 hours has
increased.
Chart 1: Share of Managers Working 49 Hours or More Per Week
Source: Bureau of Labour Statistic, Issues in Labour Statistics,
Are Managers and Professional Really Working more?
Around the world, there are a number of countries where the
incidence of long work hours is higher than the U.S. Note that
these represent a mix of employees or self-employed workers.
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Chart 2 - Working Time Around the World
Source: International Labour Organization (ILO), Working Time
Around the World (ILO and Routledge 2007), pp 46 51.
RESEARCH QUESTION AND METHODOLOGY
Exasperated employees often comment on the long hours they work.
Sometimes it appears to be a boast those who are busy and working
long hours must be more successful than those who leave the office
promptly at the designated close of business, such as 5:00 p.m. Or
so the perception goes.
On the other hand, many comments about long hours reflect
genuine angst. Galinsky et al find that 26% of employees were
overworked in the last month and 27% were overwhelmed by how much
work they had to do often or very often in the last month.
Time use research answers the question about how long employees
work. Our questions are more specific;
What happens during overtime in terms of activities? Are there
efficiencies in working overtime? What are the patterns of activity
through the day and through the week?
Understanding long term trends in overtime work is difficult
because data usually blends part time and full time employees to
determine a composite work week. It also blends employees from
traditional production industries (manufacturing, mining,
transportation) with knowledge workers (sales reps, managers,
clerks).
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The focus of this paper deals with knowledge workers. For the
most part, these are employees and self-employed individuals who do
the majority of their work in offices, as opposed to production
lines, farms, mines, etc. Their work might include a portion of
travel to customer locations. Some also do a portion of their work
from home-based offices. The main distinction of knowledge workers
versus manufacturing workers is that, on the whole, they are not
doing work that requires a physical effort of moving or making
things. They are selling, managing, planning, engineering,
providing service, administering, counting, recording, etc.
Data for this study is derived from Pace Productivity Incs
proprietary database of 311,711 hours of real time data recorded on
a portable electronic device called a TimeCorder time tracking
system. 3,600 participating employees usually tracked their time on
this device for two weeks. See Appendix 1 for methodology details.
Data is from 1990 to 2010.
Time of day data is based on a subset of the main database.
Results are based on data from 268 participants, all of whom worked
more than 50 hours per week. 60,075 individual time stamped events
were examined data from 2004-2010.
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MAJOR FINDINGS
Employees can be classified into categories based on the number
of hours they work:
Under 30 Part time 30 40 Undertime 40-45 Full time 45-50 Extra
time 50 60 Overtime 60 70 Excess time 60-80 Extreme time 80 +
Danger time
1. Knowledge workers work an average of 46.7 hours per week. A
typical work week includes all of the work an employee is
contracted to do, plus lunch and breaks during the regular workday
at a work location. It would also include work done outside of the
office and during the evenings and weekends, but does not including
breaks after hours. Commuting time is not includes, since employees
are not paid for this time and commuting distances vary greatly by
employee. Those who work exclusively at home include all of their
lunch and break time during normal hours. (i.e. 9:00 a.m. 5:00
p.m.), but not before or after. They would also include travel time
to their main office, or to customer locations.
These results show that at 46.7 hours per week, employees are
working a regular 40 hour week plus about an extra hour per
day.
Data from the Pace Productivity Inc. data (See Appendix 1 for
methodology) shows that among knowledge workers, i.e. those
primarily doing salaried office work, the total work week over the
last 20 years has averaged 46.7 hours per week.
The table below shows the last twenty years in 5-year
increments. Work hours are higher at either end of the period may
reflect economic conditions. In the early 1990s during an economic
recession and again in 2008-2009, workers may have worked longer
hours to preserve jobs that were in jeopardy of being lost. As
Robert A. Hart comments, overtime hours have been found t respond
more quickly than employment stock to fluctuations in business
activity. One reason for this is that overtime decisions are more
easily reversible than employment hiring decisions.
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TABLE 2 : HISTORICAL TIMECORDER DATA
# of People in Sample
Hours Per
week Occasions Per Week
1990 - 1995 467 47.6 261 1996 - 2000 1017 45.2 144 2001 - 2005
1408 46.1 167 2006 - 2010 1079 48.4 117
All Years 3971 46.7 159
2. With greater seniority comes longer work hours. Length of
activity also increases with seniority.
Among full time employees who generally work five days per week,
municipal workers generally only work 42.5 hours per week. Some of
these are unionized workers with contracts that specify the number
of hours. The other jobs that are lower than the average of 46.7
hours per week do not have a travel component. Employees stay at
one location. Those who are above average have greater
responsibilities, more travel, and more people management
components to their jobs. The chart below shows two scales; the
blue bars are work hours per week. The scale for the maroon bars is
in minutes. The bars represent typical durations, showing how long
each event lasts. Those who supervise employees have longer work
hours and occasions than those who do not. Consultants are an
exception. Unlike most other employees, their income is directly
related to hours worked they have a different incentive from
employees to work long hours.
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3. Typical durations become longer with seniority. Chart 3 below
shows two scales; hours worked per week in blue and durations per
event in minutes in maroon. Both scales increase at the same time,
however there is not a causal relationship between hours worked and
length of duration. Rather durations increase with added
responsibilities. Inside sales reps and receptionists for instance
receive a high number of short phone calls or customer visits.
Hence their durations are short. Middle managers and presidents on
the other hand are more involved with long term planning through
meetings. Meanwhile field supervisors show a long duration because
their time spent in the field is usually long.
WEEKLY HOURS BY JOBAND MINUTES PER EVENT
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Hours per Week
Hours Per Week 42.5 43.6 44.6 45 45.5 48.5 48.7 48.8 50.6 54 54
59.7Duration (Minutes) 11 6 10 14 19 17 22 38 24 35 33 32
Muni-cipal
Worker
Inside Sales
Recept-ion / Asst.
ClericalRetail
Banking Sales
Outside Sales Rep
Sales Mgr
Univ. Faculty
Middle Man-ager
Consult-ant
Field Super-visor
Presi-dent /
VP
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4. Men work more overtime hours than women Among men the average
workweek is 48.2 hours per week. For women, the comparable figure
is 44.5 hours. Two reasons for this difference are suggested; a)
women in our database tend to be employed in more clerical jobs,
requiring fewer long hours and b) women face greater pressures to
get home to attend to child care and domestic responsibilities as
other time use studies have shown.
The chart below shows how womens work hours are skewed to the
lower end, while men find themselves working longer hours. As such,
only 18% of women work more than 50 hours per week, while 38% of
men work more than 50 hours.
CHART 4
Though women work fewer hours in employed work, they then go
home to engage in what Juliet B. Schor calls the second shift the
duties of housewife and mother. Grocery shopping, picking up the
children and cooking dinner take up the next few hours. After
dinner theres clean-up, possibly some additional housework, and, of
course more child care.
Pace Productivitys own study of mothers time (Time Trade-Offs
Among Busy Mothers, 2002) show a work week that consists of 43.3
hours of paid work plus 28.2 hours of child care, and 10.8 hours of
household maintenance for a total work week of 82.3 hours.)
HOURS WORKED - MEN VERSUS WOMEN
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
30-40 40-45 45-50 50-60 60-70 70-80
FemaleMale
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TIME OF DAY RESULTS
5. More overtime work is done in the morning than evening.
Overtime work occurs more in the morning than after hours. If
one considers a normal work week for knowledge workers to begin at
9:00 a.m. and finish at 5:00 p.m., this would add up to 40 hours
per week, including lunch and breaks.
Examining the pattern of activity among 235 employees who worked
50 hours per week or more, TimeCorder data from 2004-2010 indicates
that the average hours worked for this sub set of workers is 55.5
hours per week. 72% of these hours (or 40 hours per week) are
completed during the 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. period. Of the
remainder, 19% occur prior to 9:00 a.m. and only 9% occur after
5:00 p.m.
An expanded work day shows the same pattern. When the bookends
of the day are extended one hour earlier and one hour later, the
result is a work day that stretches from 8:00 a.m. in the morning
until 6:00 p.m. at night. The total time worked during this period
now represents 85% of all hours. Earlier in the morning than that,
hours worked are equivalent to 10% of the total. Meanwhile later in
the evening, overtime hours represent just 5% of the total.
Clearly, when people work long hours, there is a greater
tendency to come in early and do their work before the start of the
official work day. The chart below show the percent of time spent
during each of the 24-hour periods of the day, starting at
midnight, the 0 hour.
Distribution of Time Throughout The Day Among Those Working 50+
Hours Per Week
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23
Hour of Day ( 0 = Midnight to 1:00 a.m.)
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6. Employees are able to achieve greater concentration, before
and after regular hours. Concentration can be measured by the
duration of tasks how long each one lasts. The greater the
interruptions, the shorter the duration. The average duration among
those who work overtime is 22 minutes. (Note that the average among
all employees is just 15 minutes those in more senior positions who
tend to do more overtime hours have longer durations.)
There are not many activities that occur very early in the
morning or very late at night. However when they do occur, they
tend to be quite long. Early morning events tend to be the longest.
Before work from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., durations are 34-39
minutes long. During the regular day (9-5) they average 22 minutes.
Around lunch time, activities are longer because lunch breaks take
longer than short phone calls, etc. Afternoon events are slightly
shorter than those in pre-lunch hours. Then, late in the evening,
the length of events picks up, but only to 30 minutes, not as long
as the early morning hours.
Duration of Tasks Throughout the Day - in Minutes
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23
Hour of Day ( 0 = Midnight to 1:00 a.m.)
Du
ratio
n in
M
inu
tes
7. There is a concentration of administrative activities during
overtime hours.
The pattern of selected activities is shown in the chart below.
Among those who work more than 50 hours per week (on average 55.5
hours) the patterns for a select number of activities reflects the
overall pattern. That is, more overtime work is done prior to 9:00
a.m. than after 5:00 p.m. The major exceptions are meetings with
ones manager, reading, and time sheets. More of the overtime hours
spent for these three activities occur after the end of the day
than in the morning.
Low percentages in the first column indicate that a large
proportion of the work is being conducted outside of regular hours.
The average for all activities is 72%. This table shows a
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selection of activities that a large number of time study
participants have tracked. The table is organized from lowest to
highest activities at the top of the list are more prone to being
done during overtime hours. (The grey bar separates those that are
above and below the average.) Those at the top where much of the
work is done during overtime tend to be more administrative and
less customer-focused. The one exception is Special Projects, which
is not an administrative task. When work on this high priority
activity can be done alone, overtime represents a productive time
to do it.
Sample Group: Those working over 50 hours per week
% of Work being done during:
Selected Activities 9:00 a.m. to
5:00 p.m. All Overtime
Hours Midnight to 9 :00 a.m.
5:00 p.m. to midnight
Team meetings
43% 57% 42% 16% Miscellaneous Emails 50% 50% 42% 9% Meet with
manager 55% 45% 13% 32% Management Meetings
57% 43% 42% 1% Planning the day 59% 41% 25% 16% Time Sheets 59%
41% 16% 25% Internal phone calls 60% 40% 34% 6% Special projects
60% 40% 38% 2% Internal Communications 60% 40% 34% 6% Personal
Training 62% 38% 28% 10% Administration / Paperwork 63% 37% 25% 12%
Call Reports 63% 37% 16% 21% Safety Compliance 64% 36% 35% 1%
Emergency customer response
65% 35% 17% 17% Voice mail listen / respond 69% 31% 23% 8%
Account Administration 70% 30% 26% 4% Reading 70% 30% 12% 18%
Branch Administration 71% 29% 17% 12%
Coaching / mentoring 72% 28% 15% 13% Business travel 73% 27% 21%
6% Miscellaneous 77% 23% 17% 6% Sales prospecting calls 78% 22% 11%
11% Supervision 79% 21% 2% 18% Quote preparation
80% 20% 9% 11% Marketing 84% 16% 5% 10% Generate / manage leads
85% 15% 7% 9% Credit Applications 86% 14% 7% 7% Customer phone
inquiries 88% 12% 5% 7% Sales meetings with prospects
88% 12% 8% 3% Internal Meetings 88% 12% 10% 2% Personal time 89%
11% 4% 7%
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Sample Group: Those working over 50 hours per week
% of Work being done during:
Selected Activities 9:00 a.m. to
5:00 p.m. All Overtime
Hours Midnight to 9 :00 a.m.
5:00 p.m. to midnight
Sales meetings with customers 89% 11% 8% 3% Customer service
meetings 92% 8% 5% 3% Personnel planning
94% 6% 5% 0% Walk-in customer appt. 96% 4% 3% 1%
ALL ACTIVITIES 72% 28% 19% 9%
OTHER TIME OF DAY / TIME OF WEEK FINDINGS
The biggest spike for team / department meetings is between 8
and 9 a.m.
Email sessions peak at 60 minutes on Sundays versus just 25
minutes during the week. The biggest hours for handling
miscellaneous email are 6-8 a.m. representing 21% of all the time
on this activity
Planning happens as much on Sunday as any other activity (2% of
the total week). On those occasions when it occurs, planning is
very long 130 minutes versus a typical 10-15 minutes during the
week. The peak times for planning are 8-10 in the morning.
Professional reading is never done on the weekend. Those who
take materials from the office expecting to read them at home
either conduct other work activities first, or do none at all.
Management meetings tend to occur between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m.
They are longest on Wednesdays, peaking at 115 minutes versus 30-90
minutes on other days. Fridays are the shortest at just 30
minutes
Coaching sessions occur later in the day than other activities,
peaking at 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Prospect meetings peak between 10 and 11 a.m. Prospecting calls
occur mostly between 9 and 5, dropping off at noon for an hour.
Longest times for calls are at 9, 3 and surprisingly 8 p.m. when
calls lengthen to 13 minutes versus only 10 minutes the rest of the
time.
Customer phone inquires are above average on the weekends,
representing 11% of the time. They tend to peak between 10 and 11
in the morning most days.
Walk-in appointments, largely related to retail banking, occur
9% of the time on Saturdays because often branches are open on this
day. Zero walk-ins occur on Sunday
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when branches are closed. However, these tend to be the shortest
occasions. Averaging only 10 minutes versus 12-16 minutes during
weekdays. Of these, Fridays are the longest. Though a greater
number of walk-ins occur on Monday and Tuesday. Mornings are busier
than afternoons.
There is a spike in returning voice mails at 9:00 a.m. Although
those who work overtime come in early in the morning, they tend to
wait until everyone else is in to call them.
Customer service meetings skew towards the afternoon from noon
to 3 p.m. Weekend activities are very rare.
Emergency responses have the largest weekend component. Fully
25% of the time spent on emergencies is done on weekends.
Miscellaneous activities occur 8% of the time on the weekends,
slightly above average.
Meetings with ones manager regarding performance tend to fall
outside normal hours. These often occur between 6 and 8 p.m. These
one-on-one meetings are conducted in the relative quiet of after
hours, reflecting on the events of the day.
Quote preparations never occur on the weekend, perhaps because
other internal departments are not available to provide input and
support. It is often difficult to prepare complicated quote on ones
own.
Time sheets are often done on Saturdays. While the frequency of
events on Saturday is low, the time spent for each event is high.
Saturday time is 13% of the total
The biggest day for generating and managing leads is Monday (31%
of the time). Activity drops off considerable all the way through
Friday (14% of the time.). Sales reps who are re-energized after
the weekend get off to a strong start each new week. Perhaps they
intuitively recognized that Friday afternoons are a time of lighter
work, and hence do not make their calls at that time.
The exception is special projects. They tend to get done early
in the morning, more than almost any other activity except for team
meetings and emails.
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8. There is no efficiency in working overtime. During overtime,
the percentage of time spent on high priority work increases only
slightly, while time spent on secondary or support activities is
replaced by non-value added activities.
Many employees will say that they often arrive at work early in
the morning because thats when I get all my work done. The idea is
that with fewer people around, there are fewer interruptions,
scheduled meetings, calls from customers, staff to supervise, and
emergency situations to take care of. Thus the assumption that
employees made is that the border times, early and late, are when
high priority task and important work gets done.
In fact, there is no greater emphasis on high priority tasks
during overtime hours. While additional time becomes available for
a few high priority tasks, there are others that cannot be done
during this time and so administrative tasks fill in the time.
Our research includes data from 1831 activities, primarily those
done by knowledge workers. These are employees who are managing,
selling, serving customers, supervising staff, planning,
engineering, managing projects, answering customer queries, etc.
Together, these activities fall into the eleven categories within
three major groups, described below.
A) PRIORITY ACTIVITIES
Planning - Activities in this category deal with forward
thinking and planning, from planning ones day to long term
strategic planning.
Selling - These activities are meant to increase sales, either
to current customers or to new prospects. Some sales are to
individuals (i.e. banking), most are business to business. Selling
is done primarily on the phone, or in person. In a few cases, sales
correspondence is included.
Management - Management includes direction of employees. This
includes coaching and managing staff, personnel planning, dealing
with personnel issues, job site supervision, running team meetings,
scheduling staff, performance reviews.
Client / Customer Service - These are activates that clients pay
for.
B) SUPPORT / SECONDARY ACTIVITIES
Client Administration - These activities occur just prior to a
sale being made and just after. They include preparing quotes
entering orders in the system, and setting up clients. All of the
behind-the-scenes activities are included here.
Internal Operations - These activities advance a sale or
customer service. Production activities occur here, for
instance.
Miscellaneous - These are activities that do not show up
anywhere else. They are business activities that did not appear any
where else on participants list of activities to track. They might
fit into any one of these major categories.
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C) NON-VALUE ADDED ACTIVITIES
Administration - These are internal activities that are not
directly connected with specific customers or clients. They include
many paperwork and administrative activities such as writing
internal reports. A number of internal meetings are included, such
as regular staff meetings that are not involved with long term
planning. They are regular update and information meetings.
Travel - Only business travel is included, not commuting. This
includes traveling directly to work sites or to customer locations
directly from a home office. Traveling to a regular office location
(commuting) is not included because it is not an activity that that
employees are paid for.
Personal Time - While at work, employees need to take breaks for
the washroom and for lunch. Occasionally these are contractually
agreed. In some cases, employees are required to work 37.5 hours
during a 5-day week, and are allowed an hour a day for lunch. We
include these hours. Whether or not the employee is being paid, he
or she is at or near the work premises. Other personal activities
that might occur during the work week include calling a spouse or
day care, conducting banking, or conducting personal business
on-line. It might also include chatting with co-workers. When
employees work overtime outside of their main office location (i.e.
at home), these hours are not included in their work time.
Emergencies - Emergencies are customer related activities that
ideally would never occur. They occasionally need to be done, but
are highly disruptive to personal and organizational schedules.
With the three classifications, we examined time use data from
1990 through to 2010, classifying 1,760 activities into one of the
11 major categories. Then these categories were re-grouped into
those that are priorities, those that are supporting activities,
and those that are non-supporting activities. In the latter case,
these are necessary parts of the job.
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HOURS PER WEEK BY CATEGORY
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Ho
urs
Pe
r Ca
tego
ry
Administration 7.3 7.7 10.4 11.2 14.1 18.8Customer Service 6.1 7
7.8 10.4 9.3 11.1Client Admin 6.3 7 6.6 6 4.8 3.6Selling 5.6 6.4
6.3 6 6.2 7.8Personal Time 4 4.3 4 3.7 3 5.6Planning 2.2 3.1 3.3
4.1 6 8.1Management 1.8 2.6 3.4 5.3 8.1 5.9Miscelleneous 2.8 2.2
2.5 2.6 2.6 0.3Internal Operations 1.9 2.1 2.3 3.5 4.2 1.8Travel
0.6 0.7 1.4 2.8 5.5 6.8
30-40 40-45 45-50 50-60 60-70 70-80
With overall increased hours worked, most categories show an
increase. An exception is client administration. Activities in this
category are usually done by employees who have no incentive to
work long hours. Those at more senior levels in the organization,
who usually work longer hours, do not have client administration as
a main task.
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As shown in the chart above, time spent on high priority
activities increases as more hours are worked. But so does
non-value added time, at faster rate. Meanwhile, supporting
activities are constant until extreme hours are worked, at which
point they begin to decline.
HOURS PER WEEK BY MAJOR CATEGORY
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Primary Activities 16 19 21 26 30 33 Non-Value Added 12 13 16 18
24 36 Supporting Activities 11 11 11 12 12 6
30-40 40-45 45-50 50-60 60-70 70-80
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DAYS OF THE WEEK
The following analysis focuses solely on those who work more
than 50 hours per week and looks at when overtime occurs. We assume
a standard 9-5 work week of 40 hours as a base. In this analysis,
time stamp data was selected from 267 individuals for whom time
stamp data is available. Data includes results from 2004-2010. The
average work week among this group is 55.5 hours per week.
9. Slightly More work is done on Wednesdays than other days,
representing 20% of the time. The lowest weekday is Friday,
representing 18% of the time. Weekends are much smaller, with
Saturday equivalent to 3% of the time and Sunday 2 %.
TIME SPENT BY DAY AMONG THOSE WORKING OVERTIME
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
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10. Work done on Fridays by those who work overtime drops off
versus the other days in all three major segments of the day;
morning, evening and during the day.
With the impending weekend, employees are keen to work or
shorter day and take time off. Also, knowing that they have a
buffer of available overtime hours on Saturday and Sunday, they may
postpone overtime on Friday in lieu of picking it up on the
weekend.
TIME SPENT BY DAY AMONG OVERTIME WORKDERS
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
,00
0 IN
M
INUT
ES IN
SA
MPL
E
Before 9 53 62 67 61 57 8 4During day 202 204 205 204 189 29
15After 5 27 25 27 26 17 4 6
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
11. Typical durations for activities average 23 minutes among
those who work overtime. That is, using the TimeCorder device,
employees switched from one activity to another every 23 minutes.
This includes relative long travel trips, meetings (averaging 39
minutes each), personal breaks, etc. which offset relatively short
activities such as phone calls and interruptions from
co-workers.
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22
12. Durations are the longest on Sundays. During the week,
typical durations range from 22-25 minutes. On Saturdays, the
durations are much shorter. Although very little overtime work
occurs on Saturday, when it does there are more interruptions than
any other time, resulting in a typical duration of just 15 minutes.
Then on Sunday there is more concentrated time, resulting in a
duration of 47 minutes.
When employees do planning, they spend long amounts of time on
it during Sundays.
TYPICAL DURATIONS IN MINUTES PLANNING DAILY SCHEDULE
ACTIVITY
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Day of Week
Dura
tion in
M
inute
s
Duration
TYPICAL DURATIONS IN MINUTES - ALL TASKS
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Day of Week
Du
ration
in M
inutes
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23
IMPLICATIONS
Employers need to understand the work patterns of employees who
work overtime. They are more inclined to work before the start of
the day than after. This affects the timing of employee benefits
programs such as fitness classes, daycare, and even cafeteria /
snack bar offerings (i.e. breakfasts instead of pizza dinners). It
also affects when meetings can be held.
Major priority activities need to be scheduled during prime
hours. During overtime hours, customers, team members, and other
departments are not always available. Therefore priority work that
involves others needs to be done during regular hours. (The
exception to this is when those contacted reside in other time
zones.)
Employers need to offer and support family friendly policies to
women (primarily) who wish to work regular hours and get home to
take care of unpaid work responsibilities such as child care and
domestic maintenance.
The challenge for organizations is not to simply shift the time
when administration tasks get done, but to eliminate them, automate
them, or delegate them.
Mornings create better opportunities for concentrated
activities, as measured by duration length, than evenings. Those
who want to spend extended times on projects are better coming in
early than staying late. As for the day of the week, Sundays are
best for achieving concentrated effort.
Employees who expect that their long work hours are only
temporary are working under a false assumption. As one rises up
through the organization, working hours become longer. So there is
no break that occurs with seniority, unless employees employ
effective time management techniques or unless the organizations
culture supports healthy work-life balance.
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24
REFERENCES
Ciulla, Joanne B. The Working life: the promise and betrayal of
modern work, Random House 2008
Ellwood, Mark Time Trade Offs Among Busy Mothers, International
Time Use Conference, University of Waterloo, 2002
Galinsky et al, Over work in America, a report by the Families
and Work Institute, 2004
Hart, Robert A The Economics of Overtime Working, Cambridge
University Press, 2004
Hoshschild, Arlie Russell, The Time Bind, Metropolitan Books,
1997
Schor, Juliet B. The Overworked American, BasicBooks, A Division
of Harper Collins, 1992
Sunter, Deborah and Morrisette, Rene The hours people work,
Perspective on Labour and Income Magazine, Autumn 1994, Volume 6,
no. 3, Article 2
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25
APPENDIX 1 : TIME TRACKING METHODOLOGY
This summarizes data from a number of corporate time studies,
each of which was designed with a different purpose. Objectives
include benchmarking, determining best practices, setting
standards, improving time management, building business plans,
etc.
It is a summary of data combined from 98 time studies
commissioned by corporate clients. Typically these were designed to
identify what activities make up the day of a group of employees.
For this paper, managers have been isolated.
Pace Productivity Inc. has conducted these studies on behalf of
corporate clients since 1990. The database of results gathered from
1990 to 2005 contains over 170,864 hours of real time data,
covering 678,979 events.
Focusing on managers only, this group of 385 participants
tracked their time for 42,639 cumulative hours, recording 126,401
events.
The purpose of the typical study is to improve organizational
effectiveness by creating an environment where employees can spend
the greatest amount of time on their highest priority tasks. The
corollary to this is that they should spend as little time as
possible on their lowest priority tasks those that do not
contribute directly to results.
In other academic research, the interest has been to study the
role of a manager how he or she is effective in doing the job. In
this study, the concern is more about what is to be achieved what
the output of the job is. For instance, regardless of whether the
manager uses meetings, face-to-face contact or email, are sales
calls being made? Are orders being processed? Are customer service
reps being coached to do their jobs better?
The TimeCorder electronic device used to gather the data was
introduced in the spring of 2004. The previous version of the
device was slightly larger and heavier and had a flip top lid. The
newer version of the device is 4 inches wide by 7 inches long
(deep).
The TimeCorder device allows users to easily track their time by
pushing buttons associated with pre-coded activities. It has a
series of buttons labeled A to Z. Each button is associated with an
activity. Each time a study participant presses a new button, time
stops recording on the previous activity and begins recording on a
new one, like a chess clock in reverse. In addition to cumulative
time, the TimeCorder also tracks the number of occasions for each
activity. When a button is pressed, the count for that activity
increases by one. In the report, the accumulation of
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26
these is referred to as occasions. By dividing cumulative time
by the number of occasions, a typical duration is derived. It is
the average length of time for which an activity occurs, expressed
in minutes. Data recorded with the TimeCorder is tracked accurately
to the second.
Employees consistently embrace TimeCorder studies with
enthusiasm. This is because a unique methodology that a) gets them
involved from the beginning, b) asks for their input c) makes the
process fun and d) gives them instant feedback. Cooperation level,
based on an initial review of raw data is approximately 96%.
Typically the managers in this database are middle managers and
above. For instance, production line supervisors or team leads for
clerical staff are not included.
Following is a list of industries from which data has been
collected:
Financial Services Manufacturing Wholesale Distribution Retail
Consulting Banking
Advertising Sales Travel Computer Software Professional
Hospitality Public Service
Typically, the purpose for conducting a time study was to gather
data to: Increase organizational effectiveness Recruit qualified
managers and staff Train managers to acquire and apply new skills
Eliminate activities that dont contribute to primary job functions
Provide appropriate technology that automates mechanical, clerical,
repetitive tasks Introduce systems that facilitate communications
without adding to administrative work.
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27
THOSE WORKING 30-40 HOURS PER WEEK (N = 277) Hours Percent
Duration Per Week of Time Occasions (Minutes) Planning 2.2 6% 9 15
Selling 5.6 15% 21 16 Management 1.8 5% 5 21 Client Administration
6.3 16% 24 16 Customer Service 6.1 16% 35 10 Internal Operations
1.9 5% 10 11 Administration 7.3 19% 31 14 Travel 0.6 2% 1 26
Miscellaneous 2.8 7% 9 18 Emergencies 0.0 0% 0 12 Personal Time 4.0
10% 9 26 TOTAL 38.5 100% 155 15
THOSE WORKING 40-45 HOURS PER WEEK (N = 909) Hours Percent
Duration Per Week of Time Occasions (Minutes) Planning 3.1 7% 13 14
Selling 6.4 15% 22 17 Management 2.6 6% 7 22 Client Administration
7.0 16% 30 14 Customer Service 7.0 16% 35 12 Internal Operations
2.1 5% 10 12 Administration 7.7 18% 36 13 Travel 0.7 2% 2 25
Miscellaneous 2.2 5% 8 17 Emergencies 0.1 0% 0 23 Personal Time 4.3
10% 10 26 TOTAL 43.3 100% 174 15
THOSE WORKING 45-50 HOURS PER WEEK (N = 744) Hours Percent
Duration Per Week of Time Occasions (Minutes) Planning 3.3 7% 11 17
Selling 6.3 13% 22 17 Management 3.4 7% 8 25 Client Administration
6.6 14% 25 16 Customer Service 7.8 16% 26 18 Internal Operations
2.3 5% 11 12 Administration 10.3 21% 51 12 Travel 1.4 3% 3 30
Miscellaneous 2.5 5% 8 18 Emergencies 0.1 0% 0 31 Personal Time 4.0
8% 9 26 TOTAL 48.3 100% 175 17
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28
THOSE WORKING 60-60 HOURS PER WEEK (N = 588) Hours Percent
Duration Per Week of Time Occasions (Minutes) Planning 4.1 7% 12 21
Selling 6.0 11% 22 16 Management 5.3 9% 11 29 Client Administration
6.0 11% 21 17 Customer Service 10.4 19% 30 21 Internal Operations
3.5 6% 10 20 Administration 11.2 20% 40 17 Travel 2.8 5% 5 34
Miscellaneous 2.6 5% 6 24 Emergencies 0.4 1% 0 49 Personal Time 3.7
7% 9 24 TOTAL 55.8 100% 167 20
THOSE WORKING 60-70 HOURS PER WEEK (N = 108) Hours Percent
Duration Per Week of Time Occasions (Minutes) Planning 6.0 9% 14 26
Selling 6.2 9% 17 22 Management 8.1 12% 14 34 Client Administration
4.8 7% 15 19 Customer Service 9.3 14% 24 24 Internal Operations 4.2
6% 9 29 Administration 14.1 21% 39 22 Travel 5.5 8% 10 34
Miscellaneous 2.6 4% 5 30 Emergencies 1.8 3% 1 213 Personal Time
3.0 5% 7 25 TOTAL 65.6 100% 154 26
THOSE WORKING 70-80 HOURS PER WEEK (N = 18) Hours Percent
Duration Per Week of Time Occasions (Minutes) Planning 8.1 11% 19
26 Selling 7.8 10% 22 22 Management 5.9 8% 14 26 Client
Administration 3.6 5% 15 14 Customer Service 11.1 15% 18 38
Internal Operations 1.8 2% 4 28 Administration 18.8 25% 47 24
Travel 6.8 9% 11 38 Miscellaneous 0.3 0% 2 13 Emergencies 4.9 7% 2
132 Personal Time 5.6 7% 11 30 TOTAL 74.6 100% 163 27
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29
Exhibit 1 JOBS TRACKED
Account Executive Accounting Clerk Acct Mgr Small Business Admin
Assistant / Support Analyst Arborist Area Manager Assistant
Principal Assistant Risk Manager Assistant Store Manager Assistant
Vice President Asst. Mgr. Personal Banking Branch Administrator
Branch Manager Branch Systems Administrator Business Direct Acct.
Mgr. Business Internet Officer Business Officer (Retail) Caregiver
Cashier Account Clerk Central Teller Clerk of Works Comm. Ban
Relationship Mgr Commercial Bank Support Committee Coordinator
Secretary Treasurer Community Relationship Rep Compliance Officer /
Quality Consultant Consultative Account Manager Controller / CFO
Corporate Service Assistant Credit Filing Staff Credit Officer
Credit Rep Credit Solutions Credit Supervisor Customer Service Rep
Customer Support Engineer Deputy Clerk
Doctor Documentation Staff Truck Driver Drug Rep Electrical
General Foreman Expert Facilities Coordinator Facility Laborer
Facility Manager Financial Advisor / Investment Executive Forestry
General Foreman Graphic Artist House Person (Hotel) Information
Services Staff Inside / Transactional Telesales Rep Inside Sales
Rep Lab / Quality Manager Lawyer Licensing Director Manager Manager
- Commercial Admin Support Manager - HR Administration Manager
Compliance Manager Customer Service Manager of Records, Election
Services Manager Personal Banking Mgr. Product / Mrkt Analysis
Market Development Planning Manager Marketing / Communications
Marketing Manager Marketing Officer (Retail) MIS / Project Officer
Municipal Worker Neighbourhood Sales Rep Nurse Performance
Supervisor Personal Banking Assistant Personal Banking Officer
Planner Plant Manager Policy Documentation President Principal
Product Manager Product Support Production Manager Professional
Organizer Professional Speaker Project Coordinator Project Manager
Purchasing Receptionist / Admin Asst. Recreation Coordinator
Refinery Manager Relationship Manager Repair Specialist University
Faculty Retail Store Clerk Risk and Portfolio Manager Sales
Assistant Sales Co-Ordinator Rep Sales Engineer Sales Manager Sales
Representative Scientist Senior Manager Service Officer Store
Manager Store Manager Trainee Store Merchandiser Team Lead
Technologist Teller - Custmr Service Rep Territory Manager - Retail
Town Planner Treasurer Unit Financial Control (UFC) Vice President
Volunteer Warehousemen / Stockroom Zoning Coordinator