Working late hours.

According to a recent article on www.inc.com – a website for small businesses and entrepreneurs – we all think that we’re getting more accomplished by working longer hours, but in fact we’re probably not.

Sheryl Sandberg, the CEO of Facebook, recently owned up to the fact that for years she has been leaving the office every day at 5.30 p.m. to be with her children.  She obviously felt the need to hide that fact until recently, however over the years there has been much research done to establish the fact that working more than 40 hours a week actually decreases productivity.  Apparently in the early 1900s, Ford Motor ran tests to discover the optimum work hours for worker productivity.  The ‘magic number’ is apparently 40 hours a week.  While adding another 20 hours provides a small increase in productivity, that only lasts for a couple of weeks and then returns to negative.

Research shows that people who put in a 40 hour week get more done than those who regularly work 60 hours or more.  In addition, people who consistently work long weeks will eventually get burned out and that will affect their home life as well as their work life. 

A recent study by experts at University College London says that working more than 11 hours a day, rather than the usual 9am to 5pm, markedly increases the risk of heart disease (although a number of underlying factors, for example high blood pressure, may also make a difference).

The magnitude of risk goes up by 67% for people who work long hours, the University College London team stated in Annals of Internal Medicine.   It based its findings on over 7,000 civil service employees whose health has been tracked since 1985.

Professor Stephen Holgate of the Medical Research Council, which part-funded the investigation, said: "This study might make us think twice about the old adage 'hard work won't kill you'.”

The moral of the story?  You shouldn’t apologize for leaving work at a reasonable hour!