It's not your imagination — study finds day is longer when you work from home

If working from home over the last few months has felt like an endless slog, with business emails and meetings blending seamlessly into personal time that used to be sacred, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

A massive study of the world’s work habits since COVID-19 lockdowns went into effect shows the average workday for people toiling from home is nearly an hour longer.

The amount of emails sent after business hours has also increased by eight per cent, which means the average worker is dealing with an after-hours email about three times per week.

Despite this, polls show Canadians are relatively pleased to be working from home. A recent Angus Reid Institute poll found that 87 per cent of Canadians described working from home as “really great” or “okay.” Only 13 per cent said it was awful.

One reason for that satisfaction may be that people working from home are spending less time in meetings than they used to, even if they are working longer hours.

Although the average worker is taking part in about one extra meeting per day and the meetings tend to have about two more people than they used to, the length of the meetings has plunged.

The researchers found that meetings are about 12 minutes shorter than they were before the lockdowns and that the average amount of time spent in meetings each day has gone down by 19 minutes.

Although the decrease in the length of meetings remains unexplained, the researchers cite a previous study that found workers find it harder to stay engaged in virtual meetings, compared to in-person meetings. The meeting could also be shorter because people are trying to squeeze more of them into their day.

The working paper released on Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research in the United States analyzed aggregated data from digital communications software used around the world. Because the data is anonymized it leaves open the question of whether people are working longer days or just taking advantage of flexible hours while working from home.

“It is unclear if this increase in average workday span represents a benefit or a drawback to employee well-being,” the researchers write.

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The Angus Reid Institute poll does suggest that satisfaction about working from home is highly contingent on the circumstances. Only seven per cent of people living alone say their work productivity has been awful while working from home. Among people working from home with their spouse and kids, that number more than doubles to 17 per cent saying their productivity has been awful.

The poll also found that nearly 30 per cent of Canadians are working from home due to the pandemic.

In the first week of the lockdowns, the researchers found that workers unleashed a flurry of emails internally and externally. The amount of emails continued to be high through the first four weeks of the lockdown and then returned to pre-lockdown levels. The number of recipients on each email has continued to be higher than normal, even while email volume went back  to normal.

The changes in the length of meetings and the length of the work day have also been persistent throughout the lockdown.

• Email: sxthomson@postmedia.com | Twitter: stuartxthomson