The Return of the 60-Hour Workweek?

First, leaders were asking people to come back to the office a few days a week. Then they moved to get them to return full-time. Now, some want workers at their desks for more than 40 hours per week.

In the latest sign that leaders are over remote work, one major tech founder publicly released a memo suggesting that employees work at the office every weekday and that 60 hours weekly was the "sweet spot" for productivity. A week earlier, the CEO of a large investment bank had suggested that employees who didn’t want to come to the office full-time look for another job. Experts say what’s happening is bigger than just the pendulum swinging back in employers’ favor: Leaders in certain industries are trying to reclaim their cultures. “In some industries, putting in long hours and burning the midnight oil is a badge of honor,” says Flo Falayi, a senior client partner in the Leadership and Executive Development practice at Korn Ferry.

To be sure, many workplace experts say that demanding such long hours is a throwback to past eras in which few firms and workers acknowledged, let alone embraced, the concept of work-life balance. Today, many companies strongly encourage people to maintain eight-hour workdays, and many workers, remote or in-office, jealously protect their out-of-work life. “The majority of people need time to reset and recharge mentally and physically,” says Renee Whalen, North America consumer market leader for Korn Ferry.

Technology and financial services are among the industries in which long hours have been not only encouraged but also rewarded. The image of a young coder pulling an all-nighter at a desk full of empty Red Bull cans is an ingrained part of pop culture, for instance. And for junior bankers, despite efforts to limit weekend work or days off, 100-hour workweeks are still a rite of passage.

Chad Astmann, co-head of global investment management at Korn Ferry, says most people entering these industries know what they’re getting themselves into—and even embrace it. Such workers, he says, willingly put in long hours and deprioritize work-life balance because their positions offer “significant wealth creation far faster and earlier than most other careers.” For leaders in these industries, such ambition creates a virtuous cycle: Overachievers compete to work the longest, while underperformers end up leaving.

Working 60 hours or more per week is commonplace in other industries as well, among them healthcare and professional services. But in those sectors, long hours are less a cultural signifier or a way to get ahead than they are a reflection of labor imbalance or the need to book billable hours. At the other end of the spectrum, some experts think—and studies show—that long hours can lead to burnout and decrease productivity. “The idea that 60-hour workweeks are a ‘sweet spot’ for productivity is a dangerous myth,” says Korn Ferry’s Falayi.  “Research consistently shows that after 50 to 55 hours, productivity declines sharply.”

For Greg Button, president of global healthcare services at Korn Ferry, getting maximum productivity from people isn’t a matter of hours worked—it’s a matter of engagement. “Sixty hours in the office chained to the desk doesn’t necessarily equate to productivity,” he says. If leaders want workers to put in longer hours, he advises they focus on increasing engagement and intrinsic motivation by creating a sense of shared purpose and community. “If you create that, people will be energized by their work and be more productive,” he says.

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