Findings Showcase Executives Spend More Hours at Work to Get Less Done
Doodle, a leading enterprise scheduling technology, released findings from its Work-Life survey of full-time executives at Fortune 500 companies highlighting a concerning trend: Americans are spending more hours connected to work and missing out on their personal lives to not be any more productive. Feeling pressure to work overtime is not uncommon, a quarter of all respondents think it’s critical to advance their careers.
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Forty-four percent of executives now work an average of 52 hours a week and that number increases to 58 among senior-level staff, 65% of who report working overtime. And it’s no surprise when you consider over a quarter of employees surveyed admit that they’ve spent 20 hours or more in meetings in a single week. These extra hours don’t necessarily take place in the office either – they’re intruding on personal lives:
- Almost every senior executive surveyed (99%) joined a meeting on PTO, 85% for non-senior staff.
- Over half of senior executives (53%) took a meeting on an observed holiday.
- For executives outside the senior level, 57% participated in a meeting during a personal appointment and 40% dialed-in while on a vacation.
- Executives cancel personal plans an average of twice a month, for 20% of senior executives that skyrockets to five or more per month.
While plans with friends and family can be rescheduled and vacations can resume after a call has ended, there are certain milestones and once-in-a-lifetime events that can’t stop for work. Doodle’s survey revealed:
- More than a quarter (28%) of respondents have missed a family member or close friend’s wedding.
- Almost a third (29%) surveyed indicate they’ve missed a graduation.
- Skipping out on birthday celebrations was the most common (45%).
- The most heartbreaking finding was the 26% who missed their child’s first words while working overtime.
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Particularly frustrating for those folks passing up personal plans is that often the meetings they join are poorly managed and didn’t accomplish anything (59%) – or even ones they didn’t need to be in at all (60%). Poorly run meetings lead to disengaged employees and participants turn to other activities to fill the time, including:
- Watching videos
- Taking selfies
- Falling asleep
- Sending texts
- Leaving the room to take another call
- Working on other tasks
It’s unfair to put the blame on meetings themselves – some of the greatest innovations, ideas and companies of our time all started with a meeting. We’re misusing meetings and engaging in them without clear parameters and objectives. For companies experimenting with the four-day work week, productivity actually increased because people had to be much more efficient with their time; big gains were made by capping meeting times, limiting participants and having a clear agenda and purpose.
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