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The Research Is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and for Companies

The Research Is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and for Companies

August 23, 2015

In a study of consultants by Erin Reid, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, managers could not tell the difference between employees who actually worked 80 hours a week and those who just pretended to. While managers did penalize employees who were transparent about working less, Reid was not able to find any evidence that those employees actually accomplished less, or any sign that the overworking employees accomplished more.

-Sarah Green Carmichael

Source: The Research Is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and for Companies

If your work is knowledge based, the concern should be for the value you create, rather than the hours you work. If the concern is for hours worked, the employer is implying that the work is a commodity. Given that, I'd worry that they were looking to replace me with software. Once the algorithms are capable, and the price is cheaper, what's to stop them? How far off is that?