There’s a new data point in the flex work debate. According to researchers at Microsoft (LinkedIn’s parent company), the average work day contains three “peaks” during which keyboard activity spikes: one each in the morning and afternoon, and a third around 10 p.m. The last shift is likely workers compensating for the 4-to-6-p.m. “dead zone,” The Wall Street Journal writes— a period when even in-office employees clock out to “take a turn in the kids’ carpool, hit the gym or beat traffic.”
- Some say such flexibility puts workers without children at a disadvantage by extending their duties into the nighttime hours. Like it or not, though, Microsoft expects that the “triple-peak” phenomenon is here to stay.