Microsoft analysed how the working day has changed. You might not like what it discovered | ZDNet
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Microsoft has been analyzing work patterns among its employees who are working from home and what they’re experiencing with more flexible hours. One indicator of change is that when the pandemic began, meetings on Microsoft Teams were happening more frequently after 5pm, most often between 6pm and 8pm at night, according to Microsoft, which recently published its second annual Work Trend Index report.
The company’s data suggests that 9-to-5 is over and that meetings outside of previous norms are now common, creating a third peak of activity at night for some. Microsoft researchers call it the “triple peak day”.
“Traditionally, knowledge workers had two productivity peaks in their workday: before lunch and after lunch. But when the pandemic sent so many people into work-from-home mode, a third peak emerged for some in the hours before bedtime,” Microsoft notes in a blogpost.
The finding will likely not surprise parents who work and manage children after picking them up from school in the afternoon.
Microsoft found that 30 percent of its employees worked more at night based on “keyboard events”. That slight uptick in keyboard activity was much lower than traditional work peaks around 10am and 3pm, but around 10pm there is a spike.