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Office workers are now clocking out at 4:39 p.m. on average
As we enter spring, the days may be getting longer, but the average workday seems to be contracting. Corporate employees in the U.S. now seem to be ending their day at 4:39 p.m., according to a new report by the workforce analytics platform ActivTrak. That’s more than 40 minutes earlier than when workers clocked out just two years prior. While employees still start their day on average just before 8 a.m., the average length of the workday has dropped to about eight hours and 44 minutes. The report, which looked at data from nearly 220,000 workers at 777 companies, indicates that productivity has actually increased by 2% despite the slight reduction in time worked. Some employees seem to be embracing tactics like the Pomodoro technique and working in short bursts of time: ActivTrak found that the average “productive session” had jumped by 20%, from 20 to 24 minutes. (A productive session is defined as the time spent working without disruption.) There’s also some seasonal variability in working hours, according to ActivTrak. People tend to work more during the months of August and December, when they might be playing catchup after a vacation or hustling to meet end-of-year deadlines. Given the productivity figures and the prevalence of hybrid work, however, it’s possible that the workday has actually shifted more than shortened. People may be logging off earlier but then finishing up their work later or during weekends. (Since the workday timings are an average, some people could be working longer hours than what the report captures.) The report’s findings seem to support this idea: Employees are logging nearly 12 hours of work during the weekend, up from about 10 hours and 35 minutes. On average, about 5% of employees worked on the weekend in 2024, a 9% increase from the year prior. This was most common at larger companies with between 1,000 and 5,000 employees, where 12% of people worked on weekends. While U.S. employees may appear to be working less, it seems more likely that they’re leaning into the flexibility enabled by hybrid work. Long before the pandemic, many parents and others with caregiving responsibilities said they logged back on after hours to stay on top of their work. With more people now working remotely at least part of the week, it’s possible their days are truncated by doctors’ appointments and bedtime routines, leaving them to play catchup on weekends—or earlier in the morning. The report also found that on average, hybrid employees actually had longer workdays than people who were entirely remote or worked in the office full-time, which could be explained by greater variability in their schedules. The promise of a more flexible workday has driven much of the pushback to return-to-office mandates—and for good reason, if this report is any indicator. Employees seem to want the flexibility to set their own schedule, even if that means working during off-hours, and the variability in the average workday has not caused a dip in productivity. (In other surveys, workers repeatedly list a “flexible schedule” and the “ability to work remotely” as the top perks they seek in a job.) The ActivTrak report suggests that RTO policies don’t necessarily have a clear impact on output: In a case study of five companies, some saw an increase in productivity after implementing strict in-office mandates, while others saw a decline. While CEOs continue to extol the benefits of in-person collaboration, there’s little evidence that employees need to be in the office—or clock longer hours—to be effective in the workplace.
As we enter spring, the days may be getting longer, but the average workday seems to be contracting. Corporate employees in the U.S. now seem to be ending their day at 4:39 p.m., according to a new report by the workforce analytics platform ActivTrak. That’s more than 40 minutes earlier than when workers clocked out just two years prior. While employees still start their day on average just before 8 a.m., the average length of the workday has dropped to about eight hours and 44 minutes.
The report, which looked at data from nearly 220,000 workers at 777 companies, indicates that productivity has actually increased by 2% despite the slight reduction in time worked. Some employees seem to be embracing tactics like the Pomodoro technique and working in short bursts of time: ActivTrak found that the average “productive session” had jumped by 20%, from 20 to 24 minutes. (A productive session is defined as the time spent working without disruption.)
There’s also some seasonal variability in working hours, according to ActivTrak. People tend to work more during the months of August and December, when they might be playing catchup after a vacation or hustling to meet end-of-year deadlines.
Given the productivity figures and the prevalence of hybrid work, however, it’s possible that the workday has actually shifted more than shortened. People may be logging off earlier but then finishing up their work later or during weekends. (Since the workday timings are an average, some people could be working longer hours than what the report captures.)
The report’s findings seem to support this idea: Employees are logging nearly 12 hours of work during the weekend, up from about 10 hours and 35 minutes. On average, about 5% of employees worked on the weekend in 2024, a 9% increase from the year prior. This was most common at larger companies with between 1,000 and 5,000 employees, where 12% of people worked on weekends.
While U.S. employees may appear to be working less, it seems more likely that they’re leaning into the flexibility enabled by hybrid work. Long before the pandemic, many parents and others with caregiving responsibilities said they logged back on after hours to stay on top of their work.
With more people now working remotely at least part of the week, it’s possible their days are truncated by doctors’ appointments and bedtime routines, leaving them to play catchup on weekends—or earlier in the morning. The report also found that on average, hybrid employees actually had longer workdays than people who were entirely remote or worked in the office full-time, which could be explained by greater variability in their schedules.
The promise of a more flexible workday has driven much of the pushback to return-to-office mandates—and for good reason, if this report is any indicator. Employees seem to want the flexibility to set their own schedule, even if that means working during off-hours, and the variability in the average workday has not caused a dip in productivity. (In other surveys, workers repeatedly list a “flexible schedule” and the “ability to work remotely” as the top perks they seek in a job.)
The ActivTrak report suggests that RTO policies don’t necessarily have a clear impact on output: In a case study of five companies, some saw an increase in productivity after implementing strict in-office mandates, while others saw a decline. While CEOs continue to extol the benefits of in-person collaboration, there’s little evidence that employees need to be in the office—or clock longer hours—to be effective in the workplace.
