How Overworking Affects Productivity

Ruslan Askarov

Overworking reduces employees’ productivity levels, and this makes it bad for business. Research shows that there is a correlation between overworking and the productivity level of an employee. Besides, overworked employees usually perform poorly in their duties. Many studies show that workers’ productivity level is higher when they work for less than 40 hours per week instead of working more than 50 hours per week. 

In this post, you will get to know how overworking can affect the productivity of your team.

How does overworking affect your team productivity?

Poor business performance is one of the effects of long working hours on productivity. Working for long hours can reduce the productivity of even your most motivated employee. The paragraphs below show how overworking can affect productivity:

• Overworking may set high expectations.

When employees overwork themselves regularly, their managers may set unrealistic expectations, and even deadlines that they don’t realize are impossible to meet? Some team managers could even ask for unattainable results and expect their overworked staff to complete tasks with a low budget or a limited team. Instead of improving your business, all of this could have a counter effect on your workers and overall organizational success.

• Impaired work-life balance when working remotely

Maintaining a work-life balance happens to be one of the biggest challenges when working remotely. This is because you may be negligent on self-care, and in an attempt to appear productive, overwork yourself. Also, you may find yourself thinking about work all the time, even when with your family. Or you could sit in front of the TV checking emails (even though you’re supposed to be decompressing)

Consequently, this can negatively affect the average productivity of a remote team. Although working remotely gives greater job satisfaction, overworking statistics also prove that remote employees usually work longer and put in more extra hours than is needed.

• Diminishing returns.

According to a recent study, to some extent, putting in extra hours in your workweek leads to an expected increase in the amount of work you do. However, the study also shows that there is a sharp decline around the 50-hour mark. If employees work 50 hours or more per week, their productivity level (the total number of tasks they perform) decreases relative to the number of hours they work. This effect significantly increases as more hours are added to their work schedule, to such an extent that an employee who works 60 hours per week regularly will not do much more than an employee who works 50 hours a week.

Why is it important to limit overtime

Sacrificing your personal time and putting in extra hours into your work may seem like a good idea. But then the effects of overworking come with many challenges that could have an adverse impact on an employee’s quality of life. Mentioned below are some reasons it is essential to limit overtime:

• It helps to improve and boost your overall productivity
• It allows you to have more time for your family and also take part in leisure activities
• It takes the pressure off you, thereby improving both your mental and physical health.
• It helps you to have enough time to deal with other essential aspects of your personal life. 
• It helps you have enough sleep and make you much refreshed and focused on your business tasks.

How to prevent yourself from overworking

Unfortunately, the consequences of overworking employees do not only include reduced productivity, but can also adversely affect their mental health. Hence, with this in mind, below are some valuable tips to prevent yourself from overworking:

• At the start of each workday, commit yourself to the high-priority tasks and focus on them.
• Ensure to set strict boundaries in your workplace and stick to them
• Learn to recognize and combat various overworking symptoms such as high stress level, tiredness, mental burnout, etc
• Avoid being a “people’s pleaser” and learn to say no when necessary.
• Ensure you always take a set lunch break during working hours. This will help you get back to your desk feeling much refreshed.
• Improve your time management skills and leave your workspace once the working day is over. (We recommend Monitask Monitoring Software to help you manage your time and avoid overworking).

Wrapping Up

It’s always a bad idea for companies to encourage an overworked culture amongst their staff because it could negatively affect productivity. Furthermore, it would do your business much good if you can reduce your team members’ work time and utilize reliable monitoring software to track and record their work time.

That’s why we recommend Monitask Monitoring Software for your company. This tool lets you know which employees need to reduce their working hours to enhance productivity and overall work quality.

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