Forget 9-to-5: Infinite workdays and the triple peak day explained

Working smarter vs. working harder

Employees regularly cite flexible working hours as a priority, with the ADP report finding that almost a third (29%) of respondents ranked it as important when considering a job. While logging on at 6 a.m. or 10 p.m. might not appear to be a sign of flexibility, it can be a useful option for various employees. These hours might enable them to work around other responsibilities, such as childcare, or may simply be when they perform best.

"People do their best work when they can respond to their natural energy rhythms," said Tia Katz, the founder and CEO of leadership consultancy Hu-X. "We all have different bodies, responsibilities and natural windows of focus. The idea that everyone should be equally productive at 9 a.m. or 3 p.m. is outdated."

Depending on the type of job, working an infinite workday could mean working a regular total of 8 hours per day, just split between hours that are most convenient. The benefits for this are clear, whether the employee is balancing childcare or collaborating with partners in different time zones: Flexible hours can promote greater productivity, work/life balance and job fulfillment. In some cases, it may even enable workers to clock fewer hours overall, since their rate of output has increased.

However, experts repeatedly stressed the danger of so-called flexible hours sliding into mandatory overtime. In some industries or companies, there is a cultural expectation that workers be available before and after their official shifts. In others, there is a resistance to deviating from the 9-to-5 setup: If an employee chooses to take advantage of early – or late – hours to get their work done, they will still be expected to show up for all traditional hours as well. While this may lead to a temporary increase in productivity, sustained overwork is only going to cause problems.

"When late evening work isn't offset by breaks during the day, it leads to lower-quality outputs," said Seals. "Cognitive function — focus, decision-making and memory — declines as employees become fatigued. The brain needs recovery time. Without it, even high performers will see diminished returns."

With so many potential downsides, why has this become the norm?

Remote working erodes traditional boundaries

The term "infinite workday" may be new, but the expansion of the workday has been developing ever since companies embraced digital communication. It's become possible to reach employees wherever they are in the world, through emails, texts, or other kinds of instant messaging. While this has brought flexibility, it has also eroded the traditional boundaries of the workday; leaving the office no longer means that a worker is off the clock. If it is always possible to do work, the workday becomes infinite – and employees can burn out.

Remote working exacerbated this shift, with employees effectively living at their place of work. If there was no office to visit or leave, then there was even less reason to adhere to the expected 9-to-5. If the same amount of work was completed each day, it became less relevant when those hours of work took place.

This was especially true during the global pandemic, when workers were simultaneously fulfilling caretaking roles and trying to do their jobs. Necessity required employees to take advantage of whatever windows they could find to get their work done, whether that was before anyone else woke up or after small children went to bed. For some, this flexible style of working proved more productive than the regular workday, and so they adopted it permanently.

Although many companies have since implemented return-to-office policies, the legacy of remote work can still be seen in how people approach working hours.

Cultural shifts in the world of work

It's not just the technological and geographical changes that have given rise to the infinite workday. Increasingly, it's about cultural mindset, expectation and insecurity:

• Employees often fall victim to workplace cultures that equate long hours with productivity. “As a broader culture, we've conflated working longer with working harder," said Michelle Rakshys, vice president of learning and development at Cadence Leadership + Communication. She explained that being surrounded by colleagues or managers who model long hours can exacerbate the pressure to keep up, even if official policy says otherwise.
• Tough economic environments pressure employees to demonstrate their worth. "Keep up" culture often intensifies during periods of instability, such as during mass layoffs or broader economic downturn. Several experts spoke of employees feeling the need to prove their loyalty or value through putting in longer hours, even if this has a minimal impact on their actual productivity; the appearance of commitment is sometimes enough.
• Companies develop cultures of "do more with less." During lean times, many teams forego recruitment and ask employees to take on greater workloads. This can lead to necessary overtime just to keep up.
• The broader culture glorifies working too much. "The surge in remote work makes 'infinite work' possible for more people, but the root cause is deeper: ‘always on’ culture, hustle glorification and lack of boundaries," said Jesse Gildesgame, CEO of BooksTime. "Toxic norms like these predated remote work and simply expanded without resistance when the tech allowed it."

Steps to avoid "infinite workday" burnout

For some employees, a triple peak day enables greater flexibility and the opportunity to fit work duties around other life activities. They may not work more hours overall, but with the right infrastructure in place, they can be equally productive and have a better work-life balance.

However, if there is an expectation that people log back on after dinner – no matter if they already worked a full day – then this can contribute to stress, strain and eventually burnout.

Companies need to be aware of whether they are creating a culture of constant availability and balance this with opportunities for employees to reclaim their time in other ways. Some steps they can take to achieve this include:

• Encourage leadership to model appropriate working hours.
• Save non-urgent emails for traditional hours.
• Empower employees to choose and publish their preferred working hours to their teams.
• Promote transparent conversations about workload between employees and managers.
• Consider implementing a "right to disconnect" policy internally.

The goal should be to create sustainable working hours for all employees, whether they fit into the traditional workday or are more widespread.

Madeleine Streets is a senior content manager for WhatIs. She has also been published in 'TIME,' 'WWD,' 'Self' and Observer.