How Much Do Amazon, Google and Facebook Employees Actually "Work from Home?"
A survey of tech employees found that 42 percent are working four hours or less per day .
A small community poll on Blind found 42 percent of employees from 42 tech companies are clocking between one and four hours of “real work” per day.
30 percent said reported their schedule hovered around the standard (seven to 10 hours per day) while 27 percent of tech professionals reported five to six-hour days, 31 percent reported three to four hours and 11 percent are clocking one to two hours of work.
The poll was started by a user who asked “how many real hours of work do you put in each day?” on Blind: a community platform where 3.5 million employees across various professional sectors worldwide communicate anonymously about company culture, salary information and the like.
Employees from companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple Goldman Sachs weighed in, and some left additional comments.
According to one Amazon employee, “Amazon requires at least 10 hours a day, with exceptions and maybe less work on Fridays or more work on weekends. I’m working way more during COVID-19, calendar’s full back to back, leadership is asking for more.” On the other end of the spectrum, a Facebook employee’s to-do list seems comparatively sparse: “If meetings count then 9-10. If they do not…<1," the commenter writes.
The poll is more of a temperature check than rigorous analysis; raw data from Blind appears to indicate a relatively small sample size and respondents were not asked to report on their productivity during their work time. That said, cynicism toward work and reduced efficacy are often symptoms of burnout, “chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been successfully managed.”
As Fast Company explains, mass layoffs, corporate reshufflings and work-from-home orders spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic have only increased anxiety and burnout among employees. An October report from Gallup even found employee burnout had also taken an unexpected turn in 2020. Namely, “fully remote workers are now experiencing more burnout than on-site workers.” And the trend has continued into this year.
