The clock is lying: Why your most productive hours aren't 9 to 5
Flexible work, hybrid work and employee wellbeing are reshaping the workplace, but experts say the biggest productivity gains may come from matching work hours to employees' natural body clocks. As companies move beyond the 9-to-5, outcomes matter more than attendance.
Some people are at their sharpest before sunrise. Others do their best thinking long after sunset. Yet for decades, most workplaces have expected everyone to perform according to the same timetable.
Whether it's replying to emails before 8 am, staying active on Slack throughout the day, or being the last person to log off, visibility has often been treated as a proxy for productivity. But is being seen really the same as being effective?
A growing body of research suggests otherwise. According to Harvard-affiliated sleep expert Michael A Grandner, our biological clocks, or chronotypes, play a significant role in determining when we are naturally most alert, focused and capable of doing our best work. As organisations rethink rigid schedules, a broader question is emerging: Have workplaces been measuring productivity by the wrong clock all along?
The conversation is no longer just about working from home versus working from the office. It is increasingly about when people work best, how performance should be measured, and whether flexibility has become as valuable as compensation itself.
THE BIOLOGY BEHIND BETTER WORK
Not everyone is wired for the same workday.
Grandner explains that people generally fall into different chronotypes. Around 15 percent are "morning larks," naturally waking early and performing best in the first half of the day. Another 15 percent are "night owls," whose cognitive performance peaks much later. The remaining 70 percent fall somewhere in between.
Imagine two equally talented software engineers. One solves complex coding problems before breakfast; the other consistently finds solutions late in the evening. Under a rigid 9-to-5 schedule, one appears naturally productive while the other risks being perceived as less engaged, even if both deliver identical results.
If biology influences when people think most clearly, measuring everyone against the same timetable may reveal less about performance than employers assume.
THE VISIBILITY TRAP
Despite growing evidence, many organisations continue to equate presence with performance.
In India's technology sector, being constantly available often carries more weight than the quality of work produced.
Sarbojit Mallick, Co-founder of Instahyre, believes this mindset is increasingly outdated.
"India's tech industry still equates productivity with who's online the longest, and it's measuring the wrong thing," he says.
Workplace data appears to reinforce that view. A NASSCOM-backed study found that 53 percent of organisations reported higher productivity with remote work, while nearly one-third recorded productivity gains of between 5 percent and 10 percent under hybrid models.
For Mallick, the takeaway is straightforward: organisations that reward visibility over outcomes risk encouraging presenters rather than performance.
"The real question is: are managers afraid of losing visibility at the cost of productivity?" he asks, arguing that leaders should evaluate employees by the value they create, not by the number of hours they appear online.
The challenge, then, may not be whether employees are working enough. It may be whether management systems have evolved as quickly as the nature of work itself.
WHEN FLEXIBILITY BECOMES A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Flexibility is no longer viewed as an employee perk. It is increasingly becoming a deciding factor in where people choose to work.
According to JLL's Workforce Preference Barometer 2025, 65 percent of global office workers say they would prefer flexible working hours over higher pay, up from 59 percent in 2022.
The shift is equally visible in India. Deloitte India's 2024 workforce survey found that flexibility, mental wellbeing and manageable workloads rank among the three biggest factors influencing job retention for professionals under 40.
These findings suggest that the definition of a "good job" is changing. Competitive salaries still matter, but employees increasingly value employers who trust them to manage both their time and their performance.
For organisations competing for skilled talent, flexibility is no longer simply a benefit, it is becoming part of the value proposition.
THE COST OF CHASING LONGER HOURS
Working longer has never guaranteed working better.
Research by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) found that regularly working 55 hours or more each week significantly increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.
The findings have strengthened calls for workplaces that prioritise sustainable performance rather than constant availability.
As businesses place greater emphasis on employee wellbeing, the discussion is shifting from measuring hours worked to understanding how people can produce their best work consistently without sacrificing their health.
TIME FOR A NEW MEASURE OF PRODUCTIVITY
For more than a century, organisations have organised work around the clock. But the future of work may depend on organising work around people instead.
Biology, employee preferences and workplace data increasingly point in the same direction: productivity is driven by outcomes, not attendance. The organisations best positioned to succeed may not be those with the strictest schedules, but those that give employees the autonomy to perform when they are at their best while holding them accountable for results.
Perhaps the real question is no longer whether employees are working enough.
It is whether workplaces are still measuring success using a clock that no longer reflects how modern work actually gets done.
Some people are at their sharpest before sunrise. Others do their best thinking long after sunset. Yet for decades, most workplaces have expected everyone to perform according to the same timetable.
Whether it's replying to emails before 8 am, staying active on Slack throughout the day, or being the last person to log off, visibility has often been treated as a proxy for productivity. But is being seen really the same as being effective?
A growing body of research suggests otherwise. According to Harvard-affiliated sleep expert Michael A Grandner, our biological clocks, or chronotypes, play a significant role in determining when we are naturally most alert, focused and capable of doing our best work. As organisations rethink rigid schedules, a broader question is emerging: Have workplaces been measuring productivity by the wrong clock all along?
The conversation is no longer just about working from home versus working from the office. It is increasingly about when people work best, how performance should be measured, and whether flexibility has become as valuable as compensation itself.
THE BIOLOGY BEHIND BETTER WORK
Not everyone is wired for the same workday.
Grandner explains that people generally fall into different chronotypes. Around 15 percent are "morning larks," naturally waking early and performing best in the first half of the day. Another 15 percent are "night owls," whose cognitive performance peaks much later. The remaining 70 percent fall somewhere in between.
Imagine two equally talented software engineers. One solves complex coding problems before breakfast; the other consistently finds solutions late in the evening. Under a rigid 9-to-5 schedule, one appears naturally productive while the other risks being perceived as less engaged, even if both deliver identical results.
If biology influences when people think most clearly, measuring everyone against the same timetable may reveal less about performance than employers assume.
THE VISIBILITY TRAP
Despite growing evidence, many organisations continue to equate presence with performance.
In India's technology sector, being constantly available often carries more weight than the quality of work produced.
Sarbojit Mallick, Co-founder of Instahyre, believes this mindset is increasingly outdated.
"India's tech industry still equates productivity with who's online the longest, and it's measuring the wrong thing," he says.
Workplace data appears to reinforce that view. A NASSCOM-backed study found that 53 percent of organisations reported higher productivity with remote work, while nearly one-third recorded productivity gains of between 5 percent and 10 percent under hybrid models.
For Mallick, the takeaway is straightforward: organisations that reward visibility over outcomes risk encouraging presenters rather than performance.
"The real question is: are managers afraid of losing visibility at the cost of productivity?" he asks, arguing that leaders should evaluate employees by the value they create, not by the number of hours they appear online.
The challenge, then, may not be whether employees are working enough. It may be whether management systems have evolved as quickly as the nature of work itself.
WHEN FLEXIBILITY BECOMES A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Flexibility is no longer viewed as an employee perk. It is increasingly becoming a deciding factor in where people choose to work.
According to JLL's Workforce Preference Barometer 2025, 65 percent of global office workers say they would prefer flexible working hours over higher pay, up from 59 percent in 2022.
The shift is equally visible in India. Deloitte India's 2024 workforce survey found that flexibility, mental wellbeing and manageable workloads rank among the three biggest factors influencing job retention for professionals under 40.
These findings suggest that the definition of a "good job" is changing. Competitive salaries still matter, but employees increasingly value employers who trust them to manage both their time and their performance.
For organisations competing for skilled talent, flexibility is no longer simply a benefit, it is becoming part of the value proposition.
THE COST OF CHASING LONGER HOURS
Working longer has never guaranteed working better.
Research by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) found that regularly working 55 hours or more each week significantly increases the risk of heart disease and stroke.
The findings have strengthened calls for workplaces that prioritise sustainable performance rather than constant availability.
As businesses place greater emphasis on employee wellbeing, the discussion is shifting from measuring hours worked to understanding how people can produce their best work consistently without sacrificing their health.
TIME FOR A NEW MEASURE OF PRODUCTIVITY
For more than a century, organisations have organised work around the clock. But the future of work may depend on organising work around people instead.
Biology, employee preferences and workplace data increasingly point in the same direction: productivity is driven by outcomes, not attendance. The organisations best positioned to succeed may not be those with the strictest schedules, but those that give employees the autonomy to perform when they are at their best while holding them accountable for results.
Perhaps the real question is no longer whether employees are working enough.
It is whether workplaces are still measuring success using a clock that no longer reflects how modern work actually gets done.
