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Meetings After 8 p.m. Are On the Rise, Microsoft Study Finds (bloomberg.com) 77

Posted by msmash from the new-normal dept.
Meetings starting after 8 p.m. are up 16% compared to a year ago, and at 10 p.m. almost a third of active workers are still monitoring their inboxes, according to research from Microsoft. Bloomberg: The company's annual work trends study, which is based on aggregated and anonymized data from Microsoft 365 users and a global survey of 31,000 desk workers, also found that almost 20% of employees actively working weekends are checking email before noon on Saturdays and Sundays [non-paywalled source], while over 5% are active on email again on Sunday evenings, gearing up for the start of the work week.

[...] Meetings are often spontaneous. Some 57% of the gatherings tallied by Microsoft came together without a calendar invite, and even 10% of scheduled meetings were booked at the last minute. [...] Mass emails, those which loop in more than 20 participants, are on the rise, climbing 7% from last year.

Meetings After 8 p.m. Are On the Rise, Microsoft Study Finds More | Reply

Meetings After 8 p.m. Are On the Rise, Microsoft Study Finds

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  • Haha (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2025 @12:22PM (#65455871)

    Yeah good luck with that. You want me to attend a meeting at 8pm from my home? Fine then you're getting billed for time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Burdell ( 228580 )

      Fine then you're getting billed for time.

      Incorrect response - some manager will believe that THEIR meeting is SO important that it's worth paying for (and you said it's fine if they pay). Even if they pay time-and-a-half for extra time, it's still almost certainly not worth the intrusion into your life... living a life outside of work is worth more than some extra $$.

      Which, that's kind of a privileged point of view, because I've never needed to work more than one office-hours job to survive. I've been on-call, but that's kind of a necessity in my

      • Re: Haha (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2025 @12:55PM (#65455959)

        Except this is really about having meetings with India.

        • Don't be so quick to generalise. Many countries have offices around the globe. I myself host a meeting that is attended by people in US Eastern Time, US Central Time, UK time, Central European Time, Gulf Standard Time, India Standard Time, Australian Western Time, and Eastern Indonesia Time.

          And those attending from India Standard Time are marked as optional, in fact the meeting I host predated us opening any India office for engineering work by a decade.

          • Yes, well in my history of US-based companies doing any kind of tech work, it's always India. And in my experience, right now, due to Trump's TCJA R&D tax grenade, companies are trying to move work back to India again. Since the BBB is once again putting the R&D tax breaks on a fuse set to blow up after he leaves office, companies aren't changing course.

        • So training your replacement then? Pass.

      • You're lucky. Last time I had a job that involved an on-call rotation it meant that one week out of five was 80 hours but only paid if something happened. Having to monitor email and phone queues is work, damnit.

        And yet I kept working there longer than I should have. Sigh.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by whitroth ( 9367 )

      Sorry, you're salaried. No overtime for you.

      Why do you *think* they list you as management, other than to call you "salaried", and not pay *anything* more. Your life is theirs.

      • It's true.

        Of course, I also get paid that if I work 35h a week, and the base salary is... well, embarrassingly good, so I don't feel too shitty about it.

        Not good for the whole work-life balance thing, for sure, but I mean... why not burn the candle at both ends for a while if you can, if it helps you pull a top 1.5% individual income?

      • Sorry, you're salaried. No overtime for you.

        Why do you *think* they list you as management, other than to call you "salaried", and not pay *anything* more. Your life is theirs.

        Hardly. You have to look at what you are paid. My life is definitely mine, but there are times when something needs done. Especially when we live on a globe, where it isn't the same time in each zone. If I'm dealing with ten different people in ten different zones, it just won't fit into a nice little box.

        But that aside, while I don't get paid hourly, I get a lot more in my paycheck. Even compared to if I was paid overtime because if I was an hourly worker I'd be paid less.

        Consider that there are peo

    • And some meetings seem have weird hours because the attendants cover multiple timezones.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If it becomes attending the meeting or having the H-1B or B1 visa holder (it is common for companies to bring B1 visa holders over and rotate them out every 179 days) will be more than happy to take your job because he is more than happy to be earning what he does and if the B1 guy gets fired, he gets deported, so he will do what he is asked no matter what... you likely will attend the meeting.

      Always funny when people say they won't, but if the job is on the line, and in this economy where people don't los

    • Yeah good luck with that. You want me to attend a meeting at 8pm from my home? Fine then you're getting billed for time.

      Ah yes - I take it that you never will deal with different time zones?

      For you see, it is many different time zones in this big ol globe, and by golly, we sometimes have meetings, when the meeting needs held. And there is no way that it will be worldwide at the same local time. And occasionally, it ain't even the same day! I show up for the meeting. when it is called, usually by Universal time, and if it is at a time I'm not at work, so what?

      These are great things to know before hiring someone!

    • It's part of my salary package, I don't have any legal right to refuse. I can either not do it and get fired or quit.

    • At double rate, at the very least. I religiously clock out at 5pm.

  • Nightmare Workplaces += AI Bullshit Story (Score:3)

    by JakFrost ( 139885 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2025 @12:26PM (#65455885)

    This article describes what a nightmare workplace looks like that everybody should avoid. If you work in one of these companies, start looking for other work before you are no longer able to mentally function and the amount of prescription and non-prescription drugs overwhelms your system.

    If you work in IT or do On-Call work then you will be asked to do something after hours and it's normal if there is an outage or some kind of a serious issue or a project is about to go live and you need extra preparation due to an unusual event, but if this is your constant workflow then you are screwed and also inefficient.

    At the end of the article it throws the idea of being an agent boss where you use the Microsoft AI to do more useless AI slot production to help you work and produce more useless bullshit

    • Re:Nightmare Workplaces += AI Bullshit Story (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2025 @12:40PM (#65455917)
      The economy is in freefall. So you can look all you want you're not going to find anything.

      The current political situation means things aren't going to get better either. The massive tax cut going through the US Senate right now is going to spook the bond markets and lead to a deep deep recession. The people pushing the law through know this so they have scheduled it all to hit 2 weeks after the midterm elections. The 800 billion in Medicaid cuts aren't going to help either. You can't take almost a trillion dollars out of the economy and hand it to the 1% and not see a massive impact. Rural hospitals will be shutting down. And all the economic activity that goes with them.

      I don't think people realize how screwed we are yet. We may be heading into a new Great depression. Basically everything is lined up for it. A pointless trade war. Multiple real wars. A shock in the bond market from out of control trickle down economics and the goal of being the first trillionaires (admittedly it was billionaires back in the day)...

      And then you have climate change causing food shortages and natural disasters they're all being mismanaged plus you've got bird flu also being mismanaged by a man who literally said you shouldn't ask him for medical advice.

      We put absolute lunatics and psychopaths in charge of everything. Bad things are going to happen and it can't be stopped now.
      • Your previous chicken-little bullshit became a fart noise, so this is your new doom? Fucking hell, man. You need to be on antidepressants.
        • Trump always chickens out. Although not always unfortunately. He's not going to chicken out on the tax cuts for billionaires. He did back down from the absolute worst of the trade wars but only until after the midterm elections while he consolidates his power.

          This doesn't mean that tons and tons of people haven't lost their jobs or the bad shit hasn't hit. Also his cuts to foreign aid have given China enormous power and the rest of the world and directly killed 300,000 people.

          The problem here is you

          • Trump always chickens out.

            He does- and that's what you need to not forget. The dude is a moron. His levers of power, while considerable, are not more powerful than the economic output of the United States.

            In terms of "shit, this economy isn't looking good", we're not even at an interesting point historically.
            You're talking about something larger than the Great Depression, when it's unlikely we'll match the Great Recession.

            You're panicking- and there simply isn't a reason for it.

        • USD is taking a hit. https://tradingeconomics.com/u... [tradingeconomics.com]

          • Of course it is!

            Now turn that fucking map to 10Y, FFS.

            • It's going to keep getting hit as long as the orange shitgibbon is in office, and there will surely be knock-on effects, so a ten year scale is not wholly satisfying either.

              • Let's talk when the drop exceeds that of any of the other drops on the 10Y graph.
                Right now, it's not even historically interesting.
                For now- a 10Y scale is perfectly satisfying, because it demonstrates that fearmongering and doomsday talk is pretty fucking premature.

      • The massive tax cut going through the US Senate right now

        What tax cut?

        They are merely making permanent the current tax levels we have NOW...otherwise eveyrone's taxes are going to jump way up....

        As for the rest of your rant...wow, you sounds like a nervous nelly, how are you able to sleep at night being so frighten the sky is falling and that climate change will send us to the Stone Age in the next year or so....

        I'm still always confused at your worry about the US and how we conduct our business here, s

      • The current political situation means things aren't going to get better either.

        Those under 25 might find themselves with a new job as a military conscript late next year.

        • Those under 25 might find themselves with a new job as a military conscript late next year.

          And if so, it may well turn out to be the best thing that's ever happened to them, although they probably won't believe it at the time. Not only will they get food, shelter and a paycheck out of it, they'll come away with some new and marketable skills as well. And, once they're out, they'll have access to subsidized schooling to put a polish on those skills and low cost world-class medical care for the rest of t

        • I don't assume that the draft age will not be expanded. Assumptions which once seemed safe now appear quaint.

      • The only thing that can save the USA at this point is a revolution. Taking Trump and his associates out and execute them publically as a reminder for the next would be dictators and incompetent fools that ruining a country carries a price tag.

    • This article describes what a nightmare workplace looks like that everybody should avoid.

      You're generalising. Having calls out of hours does not mean you're working for a nightmare place. I have calls out of hours all the time. In fact I have one at 9pm tonight to deal with an issue in the USA and I have one at 5am on Friday to deal with an issue in West Papua. But I would wager I have a better work life balance than 100% of Americans on Slashdot. Just because some people are connected to meetings supporting a global engineering workforce doesn't mean we are overworking and doesn't mean we can'

      • This article describes what a nightmare workplace looks like that everybody should avoid.

        You're generalising. Having calls out of hours does not mean you're working for a nightmare place. I have calls out of hours all the time. In fact I have one at 9pm tonight to deal with an issue in the USA and I have one at 5am on Friday to deal with an issue in West Papua. But I would wager I have a better work life balance than 100% of Americans on Slashdot. Just because some people are connected to meetings supporting a global engineering workforce doesn't mean we are overworking and doesn't mean we can't switch off when we need to.

        I worked last Saturday. *GASP!* *SHOCK*. But that isn't the full story is it, you didn't ask me if I went to work on Monday.

        Flexibility goes two ways and the article doesn't even remotely provide enough information as to whether it is a two way relationship or not.

        Same here. My work schedule is all over the place, stuff happens when it happens. And I don't mind at all.

        And my work/life balance is just fine. Now I don't know how your situation is, but one of the things I get in compensation for my flexibility is money. So I get to take a lot of vacations to interesting places. I get to buy a lot of my big-boy toys. That's the old work hard, play hard thing.

        I think perhaps a lot of people just hate working period, so spending a second longer at work, or a late mee

  • Working with people in other countries/emergencies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ardmhacha ( 192482 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2025 @12:27PM (#65455889)

    Occasional meetings, planned well in advance, with people on the other side of the world, in the late evening are acceptable.

    Genuine emergency meetings at short notice, also acceptable.

    Effectively being on call every evening and at the weekend (without getting paid for being on call), not acceptable

    • That's similar to my reaction.

      I'd question how pressing an after-hours emergency was. Most of them, I've found, can and should wait for the next day, but that one impatient jerk won't want to.

      And if it's a scheduled meeting, it had better be for a maintenance window or with someone in a wildly different time zone. Otherwise, bite me. I don't plan on being sober that late.

      And there's no way in hell I'm checking my work email on the weekend.

  • Go and smell grass .. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mirnotoriety ( 10462951 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2025 @12:30PM (#65455895)
    If you think the company will appricate you working evenings and weekends then you are deluded. Clock out at 05:00 and go and smell grass.

    • If you think the company will appricate you working evenings and weekends then you are deluded. Clock out at 05:00 and go and smell grass.

      Just part of my job. Don't feel too badly though I'm well compensated. And when there's no immediate work, I'm still paid.

      Don't do one extra second of work because doing nothing is the real goal.

    • Just don't inhale...

    • Having started at 2100? ;)

  • Never attended a meeting past 5PM. No will I.

    • Never attended a meeting past 5PM. No will I.

      The development team I worked in for decades spanned at least 7 time zones across five continents.

      There’s no way that rule would have worked.

      We took turns sacrificing nights or sometimes very early mornings.

      But at least weekends were off limits, and “comp time” was quite freely available.

  • If you're good at your job you can tell your boss when you're willing to work, within reason. If you're not, in the end you'll be working under some combination of pay that's too low, a workplace that sucks, (because you don't have the proven skills to go elsewhere) bad or long hours, and/or other problems. It's universal. Don't get me wrong, the American hypercapitalist absolutely is abusing workers and that needs to be fixed. But in the mean time learning how to work better will result in a better working

    • If you're good at your job you can tell your boss when you're willing to work, within reason. If you're not, in the end you'll be working under some combination of pay that's too low, a workplace that sucks, (because you don't have the proven skills to go elsewhere) bad or long hours, and/or other problems. It's universal.

      There are some careers that do not fit into a week where you always start at the same time, take a break at the same time, Lunch at the same time, second break at the same time, then leave exactly at the same time. Although I've worked with people who try to do that in the past.

      I have one of those jobs that just do not work with that rigid concept. Some of my days are long, and some are short. But I'm results oriented, do not consider work as anathema nor do I hate the people I work for.

      And the canard

  • According to research? (Score:4, Funny)

    by allo ( 1728082 ) on Tuesday June 17, 2025 @12:59PM (#65455965)

    Is that the research defined somewhere in the middle of the 30 pages privacy policy of a Microsoft account?

  • Did someone mention that there are people that work other shifs... I have an 8am meeting and 4:30 EOD call, so I bookend my day, but outside of an oncall event I am not on in meetings at 8pm.
    • I wonder how much of it is people who work other shifts or need to meet with people in different time zones, and how much is people who don't know how to stop working and don't think about how most people do.
  • It's up to you, the employee, to set your own boundaries, preferably from day 1. Make it clear what you find acceptable to be asked to do and what you find unacceptable. Don't be unreasonable, of course, like saying "there will never be a situation I am willing to work outside 9am-5pm." Emergencies do truly happen sometimes. Employers won't by default take your life and well-being into account, but good ones will respect you if you are clear about your boundaries. If you have an employer that doesn't respec

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Who do you think stands to land the job? The person who lays out their demands for working hours or the one who displays flexibility?

      Don't get me wrong, I think it sucks some people are stuck having to spend so much of what should be personal time on their job but your advice sounds like a great way to not get a job.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by flippy ( 62353 )

        I'm not suggesting that anyone should "lay out their demands for working hours." In every position, one needs some flexibility. However, especially in white collar jobs, employment contracts are not uncommon, and these should spell out the employee's responsibilities as well as the employer's requirements. When someone is hired, it is under certain obligations for both sides. What's being described above is expectations made by the employer *after* the employee has been hired.

        To look at it another way: if s

  • I can see checking your email late, if you're part of a small shop - assuming that 1) you willingly agreed to it when you accepted the job + 2) it is balanced out by flexibility during the traditional workday. This is pretty much my situation... and I have to say no one foisted it on me, I just find it less stressful to make myself aware of any issues when they happen (in the end, I'm left to decide whether to deal with them right away or leave them for the next day) versus walking into a wall of distressed

  • of work-from-home? How many of these things would be straightened out in the office before 5? How well does this correlate with remote work?

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