If you want to be the best, you have to put in the hours. So goes the conventional thinking in virtually every profession, from office workers to professional athletes. It turns out there is no correlation between the number of hours an employee works and their performance, according to a study by research firm Gartner.
And yet, despite those findings, 77% of human resources leaders believe that better-performing employees work longer hours, according to the same survey. It's a notable number considering HR teams are facing their own burnout crisis, as CHRO Daily reported last month.
HR leaders should establish proactive rest policies alongside managers to mitigate these declines and keep organizations humming. That means encouraging employees to use all their vacation time and offering flexible and reasonable schedules.
This mindset seems to fly in the face of tradition, which has always dictated that burning the midnight oils gets the most out of people. Yet consider that 22% of employees on average are burned out, while at companies with proactive rest policies, that number drops to a staggeringly low 2%, according to Gartner. That’s less than one-tenth the normal rate. Proactive rest goes beyond offering a set number of vacation days a year, and it isn’t just good for employees’ well-being; it's also good for business. A survey of 3,500 employees found that proactive rest increased their performance by 26%.
Employees rely on leadership to set the tone and normalize proactive rest. In a March Deloitte survey, 69% of employees agreed their employers should do more to help them fight burnout. Some employers are doing so.
Samsung just announced that it would let employees take off one Friday a month after rival computer chip maker SK Hynix did the same last year. Other popular examples include:
- No-meeting calendar blocks
- A companywide office closure once a year
- The now-topical summer Fridays
Leaders will need to find the right version and timing for proactive rest that works for their organizations, but the message is clear: To get the best out of people, give them time to recharge.
Paolo Confino
paolo.confino@fortune.com
@paolo1000_
