The workforce analytics firm ActivTrak Inc analyzed 134,000 employees globally across a variety of industries and found that the average workday has shrunk from 10 hours 37 minutes to 10 hours a day.

According to the research, working hours are being lost specifically at the end of the day, signally that staff are clocking off earlier than they used to and are less inclined to work overtime. 

But businesses needn’t worry about missing out on over three hours’ worth of work a week from their staffers. Workers have managed to squeeze in the same amount of work in less time.

Not only had productivity not slipped by working a shorter week, but the researchers found that a byproduct of workers being at their desks for less has improved health.

“What we’re seeing here is truly an efficiency gain,” said Gabriela Mauch, vice president of the ActivTrak Productivity Lab. 

Is presenteeism dead?

ActivTrak’s findings that people reduced their working hours “exclusively” at the end of the day could suggest that presenteeism is well and truly dead.

While working from home during the pandemic, employers got used to doing their job as and when they felt productive.

Despite mass mandates for white-collar workers to return to the old way of working—in an office from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.—employers haven’t been able to shake off the Covid-era habit.

Managers and researchers alike have highlighted that workers are routinely leaving the office at 4 p.m. to run errands, pick up their kids, and work out, before logging back in on their laptops after hours to finish their work.

This cultural shift indicates that the days of watching the clock tick over to 5 p.m. before it is socially acceptable to leave the office are long gone.

Now, workers are leaving whenever they feel like they are done for the day, even if it’s 37 minutes earlier than expected.