Workers

 The Atlantic -  In 2016, a small group of work researchers calculated that time spent in meetings had increased by 50 percent since the 1990s. “Collaboration is taking over the workplace,” they wrote in an article in Harvard Business Review. “Buried under an avalanche of requests for input or advice," some workers were spending so much time in meetings, taking calls, and combing through their inbox that their most “critical work” often had to wait until they were home. Wall-to-wall meetings from 9 to 5 were pushing any creative or individual work to some period after dinner.

In 2022, Microsoft researchers published a study that anonymously tracked workers using the company’s software. They discovered that, in fact, a miniature workday was forming in the late evening. About one-third of the workers in their study were as likely to work at 10 p.m. as they were at 8 a.m. The reason? When the pandemic sent knowledge workers home, official meetings replaced casual interactions and made it impossible for many people to get things done unless they found time to log back online after dinner. In further research, Microsoft has found that, since 2020, workers in their sample have tripled the time they spent in meetings.