How long is too long?

If at the end of a typical working day (of, say, 8 hours) you had to go and start another job elsewhere, I would expect your performance on Job 2 to be limited and poor.

Yet, in many organisations, we see people working well into the evening or taking work home with them - in effect, starting Job 2.

We have to find ways of getting our work done in less than 8 hours per day - or we are creating conditions for tired people and poor performance.

Even worse, if we do this over a long time, we create the conditions for poor health, for mistakes, for poor judgement.

If you have employees working excessively long hours, don’t be proud of them. Be ashamed of yourself for not planning and organising the work more effectively, for creating improved risk of failure.