Planning a brainstorming session or a big push to finish a report at 4 p.m. on a workday? Think again. And 2 p.m. isn’t much better.
The hour from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. is the least productive time of a workday, followed by 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., according to an Accountemps phone survey of more than 1,000 senior managers at U.S. companies with 20 or more employees.
The findings, released Aug. 17, 2010, show that 10 a.m. to noon and 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. are the times employees are most productive during a daytime work shift.
“All professionals experience lulls in productivity, but the late afternoon, in particular, may not be a good time to hold brainstorming sessions or take on highly challenging projects,” Accountemps chair Max Messmer said in a news release.
“High-performing individuals are typically attuned to their most productive time of the day, and when possible, schedule their critical tasks during those hours,” added Messmer, who is the author of Managing Your Career for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2000).
A similar survey for Accountemps conducted in 2005 with 150 senior managers found the time from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. the least productive and 10 a.m. to noon the most productive.
Research published in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that morning people are more proactive—they anticipate and try to solve problems, for example—than people who are more energetic in the evening. That’s based on findings from Christoph Randler, a biology professor at the University of Education, Heidelberg, Germany, who surveyed 367 university students.
“Morning” people, he noted, tend to be rewarded more than “evening” people because their rhythms are better synchronized with the corporate culture.
The Accountemps news release included tips on how to avoid the post-lunchtime slump—planning the day so challenging projects are tackled at the start of the day and routine during less-energetic periods; keeping a to-do list and checking off progress made; taking a short walk to recharge when energy levels start to drop; and avoiding high-carb foods that lead to an energy crash.
However, downtime can boost productivity, according to research by the Department of Management and Marketing in Australia.
“People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration. Think back to when you were in class listening to a lecture—after about 20 minutes your concentration probably went right down, yet after a break your concentration was restored,” said Brent Coker, Ph.D., of the University of Melbourne, who conducted the study.
Coker’s findings were based on a survey of 300 workers, 70 percent of whom use the Internet at work for non-work purposes.
“It’s the same in the workplace,” he said in a news statement when the 2009 study results were released. “Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enable the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a day’s work and, as a result, increased productivity.”
Time not spent on job-related tasks, though, just got a little easier for employers to track. A wrist phone made by Japan cell phone company KDDI Corp., the BBC reported in early 2010, has technology that “can track even the tiniest movement of the user” and beam that information to managers, foremen and employment agencies.
Kathy Gurchiek is associate editor for HR News. She can be reached at kathy.gurchiek@shrm.org.