Working regular office hours means that employees can regulate the amount of time that they actually spend at work. Knowing the exact times which they start and finish results in them being able to clearly differentiate home-life and work-life. The 9-5 working life allows for weekends to be totally free to pursue any passions or interests. This allows for employees to be rested and prepared for a busy week of hard work ahead. The ability to unwind at the weekends is a great way to be rewarded.
This schedule allows for employees to wake up early and have some time to themselves before heading into the office, potentially fitting in some form of exercise or preparing for their day of work. It matches the schedule of children at school, allowing for parents to drop-off and collect them. This also means that the parents have plenty of time after they finish work to engage in any activities that they wish, whilst also being able to fulfil their parenting duties of kid’s clubs and helping with homework before eventually putting them to sleep. Due to the 9-5 working week being the norm for most people, it means that society is build around this structure and everything will be accessible. On top of this, everything that person has to do within their day can be completed relatively easily whilst also getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep.
Running a company where all of the employees are operating on the same time schedule of 9am-5pm means that the office only has to be open for that timeframe. So all of the associated costs are limited to this. Whereas if the workforce had employees operating on different schedules at all different hours of the day, the cost of electricity, heating, water etc would rise significantly due to being tuned on for a much longer period of time. Although at first glance the impact of this seems minimal, even the slightest increase in daily usage of heating or electricity would cause annual costs to rise significantly and hinder the profitability of the organization. All this whilst productivity falls and scheduling becomes more difficult , so the tradeoff is non-existent.
With all of the employees working on the same schedule, mangers can set up meetings with confidence in knowing that everybody will be in the office at certain times and so they should all be able to attend. This allows for projects to be completed with improved efficiency and in theory the business can grow at an increased rate. Alternatively, if a 9-5 schedule was not the case, managers would struggle to determine who will be in the office at certain times, creating a logistical nightmare and resulting in reduced efficiency. With certain team members working at contrasting times, projects may be completed to a lower standard as a result of communication being limited.
