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A new report from WFD Consulting found that workers in their study spent an average of 52 hours per week at work, with more than 10 hours focused on low-value work. What is low value work? It is work that does not accomplish business goals and may include inefficient, repetitive processes. Study participants indicated several causes of overwork including insufficient staff, too much information, unexpected customer demands, unclear priorities and poor communication. Overwork results in negative outcomes for both employers (reduced productivity, lower work quality) and employees (stress and burnout).

However, the report goes on to say that a team based approach has been effective in reducing overwork and low value work. For example those who have utilized a team based approach report “65% improvement in team morale and 61% improvement in work process efficiency.” Do you think that your team could work together to reduce overwork and low-value work? How would you get started?

The Sloan Network has numerous resources on overwork including a Topic Page, Fact Sheet, Effective Workplace Series, a Network News interview on Team Resilience with Kay Campbell at GSK and others.

• Overwork , Publications