Spring forward? No, fall back!

On Sunday, our smartphone clocks will automatically update, then we’ll wake up confused about why our stove is lying to us. Although shifting to and from daylight saving time causes a nearly 70% uptick in lost workdays, it especially impacts employees who work nights (and the bosses who pay them) since those workers will put in an extra hour.

Overall, 3.6% of the U.S. workforce has a night shift; it’s highest for the transportation and utility sectors, with over 6%, according to consulting firm Venture Smarter. Manufacturing is close behind at 5.7%.

Meanwhile, information sector workers have the fewest night shifts at a mere 0.3%. But don’t gloat too hard about your extra hour — of either pay or sleep — because it’ll just be reversed come March 10, 2024.

Weekends: Why aren’t you (or we) taking them off?

Vacations: Help your employees take better breaks.

(Source: Shutterstock)

For years now, every other LinkedIn influencer post has implored us to take it easier. Plenty of businesses have offered workshops and programs to help employees balance life and work.

So, why are we all working on Saturday and/or Sunday?

According to ActivTrak’s “2023 State of the Workplace Report,” which surveyed almost 135,000 workers at over 900 companies, the average weekend includes 6.6 hours of work. That’s a 5% increase from 2021.

How many of us can say we put in a five-day workweek followed by two days of rest? True rest means: no emails, no deliverables, no loose ends. And if not, why can’t we?

One possibility, explored by The Wall Street Journal, is that the laptop class has largely asked for this scenario. Since the tail end of COVID, complete and total flexibility has been one of workers’ biggest asks. In exchange for slotting more personal time Monday through Friday, catch-up time dents Saturday and Sunday. Some workers appreciate the autonomy. 

(As for everyone outside of the laptop class, many need extra hours or even extra jobs to make up for persistent inflation. These are the teachers, Uber drivers, and servers who propel the gig economy.)

Managers can set a bad example by working too hard themselves. There’s a tendency for Gen X (and older) workers to equate hard work with long hours, NPR reports. They’ll check that Slack work-status dots are green, and will email after-hours and throughout the weekend. That ethos is alien to much of Gen Z, who’d prefer to put in 110% for shorter bursts. Managers should be careful not to confuse real productivity with “theater of productivity.”

And perhaps we should all be careful not to confuse authentic work-life balance with the LinkedIn influencer version of it.

🤿 DIVE DEEPER  

• Work-Life Balance: How to Set Manageable Boundaries
• The Importance of Self-Care for Productivity at Work
• How to Take a Vacation as a Small Business Owner

(Source: Shutterstock)

Dr. Ben Baran is an associate professor at Cleveland State University and co-founder of Elevating What Works.   

It’s common for people to come back from a good vacation feeling refreshed, with a new sense of energy for their work. That’s good for work productivity and overall job performance. 

Unfortunately, those positive benefits may fade quickly. For example, one study on the topic found that employees’ well-being had mostly gone back to pre-vacation levels within just one week of returning to work. But research also suggests that managers and their organizations can help preserve the post-vacation bump in two ways:

• Providing employees with a strong sense that you care about their well-being and that you value their contributions to the team. Good managers do this by noticing and recognizing their employees’ efforts, talking with their people about how they’re doing and showing genuine concern for them.
• Provide employees with a sense of job security. Although job security also involves how top management makes decisions about the workforce, individual managers can assist through their influence on hiring decisions and retention strategies. Managers can also assist by advocating for their people and ensuring the rest of the organization knows how they contribute.

In workplaces that lack a supportive environment and have a low level of job security, vacations function as a departure from reality. They’re a chance for employees to escape and forget about work. And while that may help their well-being in the short term, those benefits will fade quickly when they come back to the reality of their jobs.

But in supportive workplaces with a high level of job security, vacations can be a chance to relax and return with a renewed sense of energy and purpose. And in those situations, both employees and their teams can reap the maximum benefit. 

Find out the best time to take a vacation!

• 1930: Italian-American banker Amadeo Giannini renamed Bank of Italy to Bank of America, which made more sense as he’d founded it in San Francisco.
• 1952: Inventor Clarence Birdseye started marketing frozen peas. Celebrate this anniversary by defrosting the ones that have possibly been in the back of your freezer since 1952.
• 2015: People scratched their heads when Activision Blizzard bought Candy Crush maker King.com for nearly $6 billion. Today, Activision Blizzard rakes in most of its money from King’s mobile games, not Call of Duty. 

Written by Elizabeth Barton and Ali Saleh. Comic by John McNamee.