- The most productive people are now rest for almost two and a half hours in a day of eight hours, complaints report
- Office work can naturally support better mental recovery
- Desktime’s productivity metric is specific to the role, which brings subjectivity
The longtime conviction that the work of longer hours leads to higher productivity is faced with an in -depth examination, after new research has asserted the opposite.
A new Desktime study questions this conventional wisdom, revealing shorter working sessions combined with longer ruptures can be correlated with higher production levels.
The study revealed that the most productive employees now follow a work / rest ratio, working for 75 minutes, followed by a 33 -minute break. This represents a significant increase in the rest time compared to the 52/17 report of Desktime origin, a decade ago.
Productivity is subjective, not universal
This means that in an 8-hour working day, current productive employees will need about two hours and twenty-seven minutes (147 minutes) of rest.
The rest time is greater than the 118 minutes granted to productive employees for the same working day ten years ago.
This revelation may not be good with employers who assimilate productivity to endurance rather than efficiency. However, the transition to a 75/33 cycle in 2025 can reflect the way in which hybrid or office work promotes more balanced working habits.
“When Desktime conducted the work / rupture report in 2021, we saw that home work had enormously had an impact on the ability of workers to trace a line between work and life,” said Arts Rozentals, CEO of Desktime.
“Now our latest research on productivity shows that we come back to more balanced working habits. Given the prevalence of hybrid work, the new 75/33 report can be linked to work again. ”
Indeed, office work naturally introduces more ruptures through informal interactions and social moments. These may seem counterproductive to the surface, but could be essential for mental rejuvenation.
“The hybrid model is the choice of Goldilocks, because it best uses the current social dynamics and the deep focus offered by remote work,” added Rozentals.
Consequently, companies using employee surveillance software may need to reconsider how they define “productive behavior”.
To identify the best interpreters, Desktime analyzed the highest 10% of users with the largest time ratio spent in productive applications. This group – including 6,000 people – served as a reference for the results of the study.
Unlike many measures based on generalized definitions, the approach to Desktime productivity is more suitable. The software allows users to define the applications considered to be productive according to their specific roles.
However, as data is based on an activity followed by software, this raises questions about the nuances that these tools can neglect.
The platforms which offer quantitative information, such as task management platforms, often fail to capture the complete image, in particular when the so-called “inactive” time includes reflection, strategy or informal collaboration.
