- Report finds remote employees log more productive hours, fewer interruptions
- Hybrid Model offers flexibility but leads to shorter work breaks
- Health workers are facing a high burn -in risk in spite of increased productivity
Activtrak Productivity Lab’s latest report on workplace productivity trends has revealed the workplace significantly affect productivity, and remote companies where employees work far most of the time, provides greater productivity, reduces interruptions and are the most popular.
The study covers 958 companies and 135,098 employees offering an overview of productivity across different sectors, such as financial services, healthcare, insurance and professional services.
It found productivity levels across different industries varies – employees in the financial sector registered 30 minutes more productive time per day. Day than their peers in other sectors, where these employees also exhibit a 9% higher healthy utilization rate, which means they worked effectively without risks of burnout or under -utility.
A question about balance?
Similarly, employees in the health industry also logged a more productive time than average across the industry with an additional 36 minutes of work a day. However, more than one -third of healthcare employees face a high risk of burnout or liberation as they fall into either the overutilized or Under -utilized categories.
In the insurance sector, employees spend 18 fewer minutes a day in collaborative applications than their peers, but there is a 41% lower degree of under -utility, which suggests that employees are generally more committed and work with capacity.
Most companies (55%) adopt the remote first model, where employees spend over 60% of their time working externally, but 25% of companies prefer the hybrid method.
Only 18% of companies use the first setups where employees spend most of their time in the office, while only 2% of companies use the external models where employees work completely from home.
Interestingly, remote employees log more productive hours a day compared to those in other models, probably due to fewer personal meetings and interruptions. In contrast, office-first employees exhibit the most balanced work patterns, with almost 70% of their time spent in a healthy state.
Hybrid staff take slightly shorter breaks (90 minutes on average compared to 104-120 minutes for other models), suggesting that working across both environments may introduce more intensity in their working days. Despite this, the hybrid model is gaining popularity for its flexibility.
Activtrak warns that employees who spend over 75% of their time in an overutilized state risk burning, while those who spend more than 75% of their time in an underlying state risk development.
For only remote staff 31% of their time is spent in an overutilized state, which is the highest among all working models. However, they are also the most focused who spend an average of 4 hours and 24 minutes a day on single tasks without interruptions. Predictable is their collaboration time very low, which means they have fewer opportunities for group work compared to employees who spend some time in the office.
“Our latest study reveals that workplace model and location – whether it is office, remote or hybrid – really affects how we work, focus and collaborate,” said the company’s head of customer manager and head of the productivity laboratory, Gabriela Mauch.
“Since organizations are considering flexible workforce policies, a return to the office or other changes in organizational design, it is critical for managers to first understand baseline productivity data and the potential impact of placement on employee engagement and performance.”
