Libre Eco week-end |
A typical work schedule of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.? Today, only four in ten white-collar workers (42%) who come to the office still rigorously follow these office hours, according to a Protime survey of more than 1,000 Belgians. More than one in five people (22%) start their working day earlier so that they can stop earlier, while 11% do the exact opposite. But 13% of respondents who start earlier also finish later.
“With the Covid, new norms have been established and we have all adopted habits of flexibility“, notes Sophie Henrion, spokesperson for this company specializing in time management. Some work, for example, from home and then arrive later to avoid traffic jams; others adapt their schedules to pick up the children at school.”Employers sometimes set a certain number of hours to be worked over the week or month and allow employees the possibility of working them when they wish., notes Sophie Henrion. It also happens that there is not a certain number of hours to work, the companies operating on the results. “But this is not possible in all companies. For example, those who charge customers by the hour.“
tacit agreements
But if many companies have organized this flexibility, it is still often done informally with tacit agreements. “But where is the limit? Employees will say to themselves that one of their colleagues arrives every day at 10 a.m. wondering how late he is. This is why it is interesting to measure working hours. Many had predicted the end of the clock, but providers have adapted to these more flexible standards. And the demand for working time measurement is growing.” More than six in ten employees (65%), 18% more than before the pandemic, keep track of their working time in this way.
At home too. The Protime study reveals that 32% of workers respect “office hours” at home. The difference is therefore not so important whether you work in the office or from home. “People took responsibility. There is also an implicit social control that makes them respect the norm. Some fear being told that we tried to contact them at 6 p.m. but that they did not answer and therefore that they do not work much. Which is not necessarily true”, says the spokesperson for Protime. And then most people collaborate with others, and therefore try to work more or less at the same hours.
For almost a quarter (24%) of those who regularly work from home, the working day starts and ends earlier. For 13%, it is the opposite. In addition, 18% start earlier and finish later. “The workers keep old habits. Even if they start earlier, they will at best stop at the time they usually stop. Moreover, social control is such that even if they start earlier, they dare not finish earlier. What would you say to someone who finished their day at 3 p.m.? A part of the population does not give itself the right to finish earlier. Another part is victim of the drift of telework: at home, we work in peace, without noise, without being disturbed, which encourages us to continue working.“
The survey reveals that almost half of the respondents (43%) feel that they work (well) more when they are at home than when they are in the office. Nearly a quarter of them (23%) also say they are (much) easier to reach when they telework.
Daily marathon
“No less than 18% of respondents indicate that they start their working day from home earlier and end it later than if they went to the office. They therefore work more hours working from home. In many cases, this inability to respect the usual working hours is explained by a feeling of guiltexplains Lode Godderis, professor of occupational medicine at KU Leuven. In addition, many people include travel time to the office in their working hours. When they work from home, they simply convert the time spent commuting into work time. So they work longer.“
For the teacher, “we attach too much importance to what will be said : ” They might think I work too little.” Instead, we should focus on our performance and our results. When we focus on what we want to achieve in a working day, the number of hours actually worked has matter less. Guilt is a particularly strong feeling.”
“Those who work from home do not always realize how much time they have dedicated to their job. The recording of time takes on its full meaning here by providing important information not to control but to avoid drifts“, concludes Sophie Henrion.
