Working hours limitations are differentiate depends on the countries. Mostly it is not up to employees if it is not your own work.
Beyond that do we need to work more hours? Is working more hours more effective?
We should consider it.
Firstly, let’s look at its definition.
According to Cambridge Dictionary; working hour means that the amount of time someone spends at work during a day.
Running a business needs to have emloyees (at least one) and employees have to work for the company in order to produce or serve something. So working hours are key point of running a business. How many pieces you produce or how and when you serve depend on how many hours you work.
On the other side; when the employees work more, it might cause lack work-life balance. And if it continues like this for a while, productivity also decreases. Working hours should be optimum for both employees and employers side.
Well then, how can we know our working hours are optimum or not? Let’s start with thinking our routine tasks. Think about your weekly, monthly or yearly reports. Are all of them examined or are all of them are needed? Think carefully. If one of them is delayed, is anybody asking to you why it did not ready? How many reports are prepared in your department and what are their subjects?
Tips for considering the reports’ effectiveness?
- Talk with other colleagues to clearify the reports’ details. It is also important because more than one employees sometime prepare similar reports without being aware.
- Ask about the reports to find out why these are prepared. After that think about does it worthy?
- Think about reports’ conclusions. Are they consulted?
- Consider reports’ frequency. Is it really necessary these frequency or can be extended?
When you consider listed topics, you might realize that some of the reports can be combined the others or some of them can be eliminated. Just start to think about it and if you find something, share with your managers. Don’t hesitate. At least, just try.
After reports considering, continue with current tasks. What are you doing? Is there a better way to do it? Are all of them necessary? Are all meetings necessary? Is there any chance to manage the tasks in better way? Ask questions to yourself and think about it without any bias. Don’t try to say that is the way we do. Think about it carefully. May be there is an opportunity to work less with changing the work pattern and at the same time you can have same output. Employees and managers including top management tend to do tasks with their own way. Sometimes, we need a break to consider what we do.
OECD Working Hours Report
Let’s have a look OECD reports. I picked one of them to show you. It is related with Labor Force Statistics. It is that “average usual weekly hours worked on the main job”. Additionally, annually average working hours was counted from 2000 to 2019. There is a link if you want to look details, click here.
On the right side; 8 countries are listed among 43 countries. Half of them have most working hours the other have least working hours. When we compare the both; 4 countries, which have most working hours average, have 32% more working hours rathen than least ones.
As you can see, working more does not mean everything is going well or we are making more money. Priority should not be working more, it should be smart working. Be smart at every step in your life.
