These findings dovetail with a wealth of research ( like these studies analyzed by Evan Robin, a programmer who is interested in programmer productivity) that demonstrates that, over the long-term, the 40-hour work week is the most productive. “The employees with the highest productivity ratings, in fact, don’t even work eight-hour days.” The most productive Draugiem Group employees work less than 40 hours per week, according to Gifford. employees work an average of 49 hours per week, according to Gallup’s recently published annual Work and Education Survey. Not just fewer hours, in fact, but far fewer hours. The second key finding from The Draugiem Group’s employee study is that its elite performers-the aforementioned top 10 percent of its workforce in terms of productivity-work fewer hours than the average U.S. The intense and purposeful work habits of The Draugiem Group’s top workers reminds me of Stanford University computer scientist Donald Knuth’s technique of operating in batch mode, during which he “is concentrating intensively and uninterruptedly on one subject at a time, rather than swapping a number of topics in and out of my mind.” As Gifford puts it, “ou’re entirely resting, not peeking at your email every five minutes, or just ‘quickly checking Facebook.’ “ During the 17-minute breaks, the most productive employees totally separate themselves from work. The 17-minute breaks are equally as important as the all-out 52-minute sprints, as the intensity and vigor of latter would not be possible, or sustainable, without the calm and peacefulness of the former. What is key about the 52-minute work periods is that these most productive employees treat them as “sprints,” according to Julia Gifford, a Draugiem Group manager, and they work during them “with intense purpose.” They work intensely for 52 minutes, then they take off the next 17 minutes. CIOs and IT managers would expect.įirst, The Draugiem Group discovered that its elite workers-the organization’s top 10 percent in terms of productivity-share a similar work pattern. The company’s data-based results, however, are not what many U.S. To answer that question with some mathematical vigor, The Draugiem Group used DeskTime, a time-tracking app developed by a Santa Monica, Calif.-based subsidiary, to study the work habits of its 100-plus employees. The analytically minded folks at The Draugiem Group, a Latvian-based umbrella organization that includes the largest social networking firm in the Baltic nation, recently asked themselves an interesting question: How are our most productive employees different from our least productive employees?

Desktime study results