Workers are laziest at this time — on this day of the week

As your boss already knows — the weekend starts a little early for many employees.

A new study from the Texas A&M School of Public Health looked at how workers use their computers to find which days of the week are most — and least — productive.

“Most studies of worker productivity use employee self-reports, supervisory evaluations or wearable technology,” Dr. Mark Benden, director of the Ergonomics Center at Texas A&M, said in a news release.

“Instead, we used computer usage metrics — things like typing speed, typing errors and mouse activity — to get objective, noninvasive data on computer work patterns,” Benden said.

The researchers examined the computer use of 789 employees at a large energy company for two years.

They then compared computer use on different days of the week and times of the day to see if any patterns emerged.

And the winner of least-productive time of the week?

It’s Friday afternoon — to the surprise of almost no one.

“We found that computer use increased during the week, then dropped significantly on Fridays,” said Dr. Taehyun Roh, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

“People typed more words and had more mouse movement, mouse clicks and scrolls every day from Monday through Thursday, then less of this activity on Friday,” Roh added.

And it seems that Monday gets a bad rap, at least from a productivity point-of-view.

A February survey of more than 2,000 workers, conducted for Canon U.S.A., revealed that Monday is the most productive day of the week, say 28% of workers, especially among people who consider themselves introverts (39%).

Additionally, employers who value speed or accuracy would do well to assign tasks early in the day, rather than in the afternoon hours.

“Employees were less active in the afternoons and made more typos in the afternoons — especially on Fridays,” Roh said.

“This aligns with similar findings that the number of tasks workers complete increases steadily from Monday through Wednesday, then decreases on Thursday and Friday,” he added.

“Our study can further help business leaders as they identify strategies to optimize work performance and workplace sustainability,” Benden said.

For example, flexible work arrangements like hybrid work or a four-day work week, could lead to more productive, focused employees.

But despite the post-pandemic acceptance of hybrid or remote work models, as of May 2023 almost 60% of full-time employees still worked entirely on-site, according to a study from WFH Research. The remainder worked remotely or had a hybrid work arrangement.

And now, some employers have adopted a compressed workweek during which they operate longer hours, but for fewer days.

A recent experiment using four-day workweeks in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland gave ammo to those workers gunning for a shorter workweek. The study found that after six months, workers had less burnout, improved health and more job satisfaction.

Companies didn’t ask workers to “speed up and cram five days of tasks into four,” Juliet Schor, an economist at Boston College who helped conduct the study, told the Wall Street Journal.

Instead, they had fewer meetings and dedicated more time to focused work.

The authors of the Texas A&M study noted that flexible work arrangements could boost company’s bottom line in other ways, such as reductions in energy use and office space rental costs.

“The findings from our study can further help business leaders as they identify strategies to optimize work performance and workplace sustainability,” Benden added.