Many office workers may already know this instinctively: they are often less productive in the afternoon than at the beginning of the day. Especially on Friday. Researchers now find evidence of this phenomenon in a Texas office.
Researchers at Texas A&M University Public Health collected computer data from 789 office workers at a major Texas energy company over two years, from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2018. Therefore, it is possible that a survey among employees of another company yields different results.
The researchers analyzed the data to determine whether office workers are less active in the evenings and on Fridays and make more errors.
They looked at typing speed, typos, and mouse activity, among other things. The researchers then compared the results on different days and times of the week. In this way they hoped to discover certain patterns.
“We found that computer use increased during the week and then decreased significantly on Friday,” said researcher Taehyun Roh, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at a new.
People write and scroll more at the beginning of the week.
People typed more words, moved their mouse more, clicked and scrolled more frequently from Monday to Thursday. “Employees were less active in the afternoon and made more typos,” says Roh. “Especially on Fridays.”
According to the researchers, this is consistent with the results of other studies. This shows that employees become increasingly active from Monday to Wednesday. Productivity will drop starting Thursday.
Researchers give employers some advice to make their employees happier and more productive: offer flexible work arrangements. Such as a four-day work week or a better division between working from home and being in the office. They have not investigated whether it really works like this, so they refer to other studies.
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