The office shift that makes you are feeling you’re choosing up co-workers’ slack

Do your workplace, inbox and calendar really feel like a ghost city on Friday afternoons? You’re not alone.

I’m a labor economist who research how know-how and organizational change have an effect on productiveness and well-being. In a examine printed in an August 2025 working paper, I discovered that the way in which individuals allocate their time to work has modified profoundly because the COVID-19 pandemic started.

For instance, amongst professionals in occupations that may be completed remotely, 35% to 40% labored remotely on Thursdays and Fridays in 2024, in contrast with solely 15% in 2019. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, almost 30% labored remotely, versus 10% to fifteen% 5 years earlier.

And white-collar workers have additionally change into extra prone to sign off from work early on Fridays. They’re beginning the weekend before earlier than the pandemic, whether or not whereas working at an workplace or remotely because the workweek involves a detailed. Why is that taking place? I think that distant work has diluted the barrier between the workweek and the weekend – particularly when workers aren’t working on the workplace.

The altering rhythm of labor

The American Time Use Survey, which the U.S. Labor Division’s Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts yearly, asks 1000’s of People to recount how they spent the day past, minute by minute. It tracks how lengthy they spend working, commuting, doing house responsibilities and caregiving.

As a result of these diaries cowl each weekdays and weekends, and embrace details about whether or not respondents may work remotely, this survey provides probably the most detailed image out there of how the rhythms of labor and life are altering. This information additionally permits me to see the place individuals conduct every exercise, making it doable to estimate the share of time American professionals spend working from house.

After I examined how the standard workday modified between 2019 and 2024, I noticed dramatic shifts in the place, when and the way individuals labored all through that interval.

Thousands and thousands of pros who had by no means labored remotely immediately did so full time on the top of the pandemic. Hybrid preparations have since change into widespread; many workers spend two or three days per week at house and the remainder within the workplace.

I discovered one other change: From 2019 to 2024, the typical variety of minutes labored on Fridays fell by about 90 minutes in jobs that may be completed from house. That change accounts for different components, resembling an expert’s age, schooling and occupation.

The decline for workers with jobs which might be more durable to do remotely was a lot smaller.

Even should you simply have a look at the uncooked information, U.S. workers with the potential to work remotely have been working about 7½ hours per weekday on common in 2024, down about 13 minutes from 2019. These averages masks substantial variation between these with jobs that may extra simply be completed remotely and those that should report back to the workplace more often than not.

For instance, amongst staff within the extra remote-intensive jobs, they spent 7 hours, 6 minutes engaged on Fridays in 2024, however 8 hours, 24 minutes in 2019.

Meaning I discovered, wanting on the uncooked information, that People have been working 78 fewer minutes on Fridays in 2024 than 5 years earlier. And controlling for different components (e.g., demographics), that is truly a good bigger 90-minute distinction for workers who can do their jobs remotely.

In distinction, these workers have been working longer hours on Wednesdays. They labored 8 hours, 24 minutes on Wednesdays in 2024, half an hour greater than the 7 hours, 54 minutes logged on that day of the week in 2019. Clearly, there’s a shift from some Friday hours, with workers making up the majority of the distinction on different weekdays.

Fridays have lengthy been slightly completely different

Though workers are shifting a few of this skipped work time to different days of the week, a lot of the discount – whether or not on the workplace or at house – has gone to leisure.

To make sure, Fridays have all the time been slightly completely different than different weekdays. Many bosses allowed their workers to decorate extra casually on Fridays and permitted individuals to depart early, lengthy earlier than the pandemic started. However the potential to work remotely has evidently amplified that tendency.

This casual easing into the weekend, as soon as confined to workplace norms, generally is a morale booster. However because it has expanded, it’s change into extra individualized by way of distant and hybrid preparations.

These staff in remote-intensive occupations who’re single, younger or male diminished their working hours throughout the board probably the most, relative to 2019, though their time on the job elevated a bit in 2024.

The advantages and limits of flexibility

There are just a few causal research on the results of distant work on productiveness and well-being within the office, together with some wherein I participated. A common takeaway is that individuals are inclined to spend much less time collaborating and extra time on impartial duties after they work remotely.

That’s high quality for some professions, however in roles that depend upon frequent coordination, that sample can complicate communication or weaken staff cohesion. Colocation – being bodily current together with your colleagues – does matter for some kinds of duties.

However even when productiveness doesn’t essentially undergo, each hour of unscheduled, impartial work may be an hour not spent in coordinated effort with colleagues. Meaning what occurs when individuals clock out or sign off early on a Friday – whether or not at house or at their workplace – will depend on the character of their work.

In occupations that require steady handoffs – resembling journalism, well being care or customer support – staggered schedules can truly enhance effectivity by spreading protection throughout extra hours within the day.

However for workers in project-based or collaborative roles that depend upon overlapping hours for brainstorming, overview or decision-making, uneven schedules can create friction. When colleagues are hardly ever on-line on the identical time, small delays can compound and gradual collective progress.

The issue arises when versatile work turns into so individualized that it erodes shared rhythms altogether. The time-use information I analyzed means that remote-capable workers now unfold their work extra erratically throughout the week, with much less overlap in actual time.

Ultimately, that may make it more durable to maintain the casual interactions and staff cohesion that when occurred organically when everybody left the workplace collectively on the finish of the week. As a few of my different analysis has proven, that can also cut back job satisfaction and enhance turnover in jobs requiring better coordination.

The way forward for work

To make sure, permitting workers to do distant work and have some scheduling flexibility on any day of the week isn’t essentially dangerous for enterprise.

The advantages – by way of work-life steadiness, autonomy, recruitment and lowering turnover – may be very actual.

Versatile and distant preparations develop the pool of potential candidates by liberating employers from strict geographic limits. An organization primarily based in Chicago can now rent a software program engineer in Boise or a designer in Atlanta with out requiring relocation.

This wider attain will increase the provision of certified candidates. It will probably – significantly in jobs requiring extra coordination – additionally enhance retention by permitting workers to regulate their work schedules round household or private wants quite than having to decide on between relocating or quitting.

What’s extra, many ladies who might need needed to exit the labor drive altogether after they turned dad and mom have been capable of stay employed, at the least on a part-time foundation.

However for my part, the erosion of Fridays could transcend what started as an off-the-cuff custom – leaving the workplace early earlier than the weekend begins. It’s a part of a broader shift towards individualized schedules that develop autonomy however cut back shared time for coordination.