Lessons from Sheryl Sandberg: Stop Working More Than 40 Hours a Week

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Hours worked must be one of the worst metrics for performance, productivity, efficiency or commitment. I don't know why people in some countries or cultures are so obsessed with how long they work, or how few days they take off. Or actually, maybe I do know why, but it has nothing to do with 'amount of work done' or 'quality of work'.

I think that more often than not, the people consistently putting in the most hours are those who take the longest to finish stuff, and care the least about the quality of their output. Anyone can sit behind a desk 10 hours a day to impress the boss.

IMO no metric used to assess performance or productivity should include the number of hours present in the office. Instead of 'hours worked this week' or 'number of days worked this year', the metric should be 'total number of hours to finish the job', preferably divided by a factor based on the 'amount of rework or support required afterwards' and/or multiplied by a factor based on the flexibility of the person doing the work, both in terms of availability as well as skill set. Of course some of these things are hard to track on a spreadsheet, so they are rarely used.

Long story short: just try to do the best job you can in the most efficient way possible, without turning into a bean counter, just because that's the best way to impress your superior.

I agree in part.

I strongly approve of people who go home on time. But I'm very suspicious of developers who consistently work a lot of hours. Working tired is like working drunk: your judgment is one of the first things to go.

That matters less to me in other fields. But software development is all about good judgment. And version control preserves every late-night mistake until a well-rested person cleans is up later.

I don't know about staff closer to Sheryl (ie, not in e), but there are definitely many software and other engineers working 40-45 hours a week fairly standardly, and I seemingly don't hear enough negative chatter about it for me to recall hearing any.

I believe the difference is "normal" versus "emergency". My startup aims for a sane work-week, but if something caught on fire I would be there until the fire was put out.

As long as that happens rarely, it's not a problem. And you keep it that way by carefully analyzing each fire and making sure that you solve the root causes.

Well that was certainly nice of him. Did you have any evidence that Sandberg's strategy is wrong for her or even the majority of people in the tech industry, or were you under the impression that an anecdote from a completely unrelated incident years before would actually prove something?

People aren't forced to work nights and weekends during lockdown, although some teams may up their expectations for people to do that. I haven't been on a high-priority project for a lockdown, but I imagine it is possible that some go overboard. I also imagine it is likely that the guys who have good reasons to not stay late or work weekends also teach the guys that go overboard a thing or two much of the time. Working a few nights and weekends for a known short period of time is different from a death march, making it a habit, or having a culture that expects it all the time. Much like I imagine Sheryl does a few late nights in a row and an impacted weekend every once in a while to overcome some time-sensitive hurdles to the company's success.

The message is that the company is going to make it easy to work on and focus on the particular high-priority projects you are involved in by increasing the rate and operating hours for shuttles and kitchens, and making it even more culturally acceptable (and even dutiful) to avoid distractions like meetings, lower-priority projects, and so forth. Obstacles to getting work done, whether during usual office hours (which are already not that usual) or not, are reduced or removed.

For me, the lockdown concept gave me an opportunity to consider working on more important things than the things that just happened to be in my tasks list, my appointment calendar, what people in team meetings thought was important, and so forth. Lower-value meetings started happening less frequently or being indefinitely postponed. In terms of time, I think I ended up working less at the end of lockdown than I did before it started.

I work at Facebook, do not work very many hours (9:30-5:30 most days, including breakfast, lunch and sometimes an hour-long workout at the gym), and have never heard so much as a suggestion that I work more. This was also true during lockdown. The truth is, if you are capable of getting a lot of shit done, people are just happy that you're able to give them a lot, they don't squeeze every productive second out of you.

I attribute the 24/7 lockdown stuff to people who wear it as a badge of honor (that's exactly how Carnegie Mellon was, at least).

I believe that was in reference to what she USED to do, to avoid the slacker stigma. Now she works less hours, proudly.

Yeah the law really doesn't mean alot. I know for a fact that the usual suspects like bankers, lawyers, middle management work crazy hours like everywhere else. There was actually a high court decision not long ago, where a lawyer demanded overtime pay for a few years of 60-70 hour workweek. But since his base pay was around 7000€ / month the court decided he shouldnt get anything, all hours are included in the salary - which is of course a totally reasonable and expected decision, but it shows that the 40 hour limit isnt too meaningful.

As an entrepreneur/freelancer, I don't have a lot of firsthand experience with Finnish labor laws, but my impression is that in practice such limitations apply mostly to manual laborers in bigger corporations.

Going by the book, the labor laws also allow for paid overtime (up to 2x salary), but that is limited no more 138h per 4 month period, or approximately 8h per week. And even then the employee can decline.

But that's if we go by the book...

Many of my friends working in specialist jobs across various industries regularly work overtime, often without compensation. I guess they could technically decline but if your plan is career progression that might not be a smart move outside unionized workforces.

It's certainly not illegal in the UK if the employee signs a waiver when hired: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/WorkingHour... (see "Opting out of the 48 hour week")

Be productive, ignore the haters, do your thing.