How to address the growing ‘triple peak day’ trend

Traditionally, most conceive of the workday as taking place between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., which likely results in two productivity peaks — one in the morning and afternoon. But the pandemic and the rise of remote work shook up many people’s working hours as they navigated not having a commute, different facets of childcare and/or caregiving and more. According to Microsoft Research, this has created a rise in the “triple peak day,” with some employees resuming work between 9:00 and 11:00 p.m.

The research, which studied 50 consenting Microsoft employees for four weeks, defines these productivity peaks by using a total number of keyboard events. Research from Microsoft’s 2022 Work Trend Index previously found that the workday span for the average Microsoft Teams user has increased more than 13% since March 2020, as have after-hours (28%) and weekend work (14%).