Working ‘out of hours’, or outside of a nontraditional 9-5 schedule, and checking in throughout the day and over weekends can harm worker motivation. The corresponding research was published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
For the study, the researchers conducted three experiments to examine how working and studying among college students during nontraditional hours affected job satisfaction and motivation.
In the first experiment, the researchers approached students at Cornell University in New York on President’s Day. Half of the students were reminded that they were studying on a federal holiday, while half we not.
When asked about their intrinsic motivation for their school work- how enjoyable, engaging, interesting, and fun they found it to be, the researchers found that students who were reminded of the holiday reported their work to be 15% less enjoyable.
In the second experiment, the researchers examined the effects of a calendar reminder on a federal holiday on workers’ perception of work enjoyment. They found that those who received the reminder found their work 9% less enjoyable than working on the same day of the week when there was no holiday.
In the third experiment, the researchers asked participants about their work satisfaction on a Tuesday without a reminder that it was a work day and again on Saturday. Some participants were reminded it was a Saturday- or a ‘weekend day’- while others were not. The researchers found that both groups reported less work satisfaction on Saturday, although those who were reminded it was a Saturday were the least satisfied.
To explain their results, the researchers say that participants who were reminded that they were working while others may be on holiday may feel less satisfied and less motivated as they are unable to take part in ‘collective time off’ with friends and family.
"The real benefit of time off on the weekend or on holidays is that it's not just that I have time off, but my family and friends have time off, too,” said Kaitlin Woolley, associate professor of marketing in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, “And so one thing that we suggest for managers is, can you create a 'weekend shift' so people feel like they're in it together with other people?"
"It's hard sometimes for workers who aren't in a position of power, whereas I think managers have the responsibility to create that environment for their employees," she said. "I do think people are becoming more aware of the importance of that, and shaping their jobs and their life choices to allow for it,” she added.
Sources: Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Science Daily