If you stay back late at work this year, you're doing something wrong

It's a challenge almost every worker faces: getting out the office door on time. Many get caught in an email trap, sticking around to send one more message and finding themselves still at the office an hour later. Others linger late to appear committed to their jobs, particularly when the culture demands it.

But as the new year kicks in, resolutions around work-life balance invite new scrutiny into whether salaried employees should work late and why. Recruiting professional Andrew McGregor has gone viral with his strong belief that everyone needs to practise the art of leaving the office on time. In a LinkedIn post that drew hundreds of comments, McGregor, associate director at Design & Build Recruitment with offices in the US and Australia, said that work is a never-ending process and everyone should stop trying to get everything done in a day. He also said a person who stays late at the office is not the most hard-working, but rather someone who is unable to balance his workday effectively.

With mobile devices, more managers now buy into the concept that quality and quantity of work count rather than hours at the office. But not all. In some environments, the culture makes it difficult to walk out before dark, regardless of workload. As one employee ranted online: "I am in advertising, and it just isn't a nine-to-five job, so even if I am done with most of what I have to do, no one walks out the door at 5pm. It's stupid and annoying ... but it's just how it is."

Working late has increasingly become the norm for most salaried workers. A 2014 Gallup poll of 1271 U.S. workers found on average, full-time workers spend 47 hours a week at work, and 80 per cent of workers spend time "after hours" answering emails and returning phone calls. But with all this effort, research shows working longer hours doesn't contribute to higher productivity. In studying a variety of research, the Harvard Business Review found working more than 40 hours a week could make some workers less productive, put them at risk for making mistakes, and create the appearance of poor time-management skills.

Carrying out the art of leaving on time starts before the work day does, with a psychological commitment to a departure time and a plan to make it happen.

A growing number of managers understand a desire for better work-life balance, see the trend toward burnout and are willing to help employees work toward a timely departure – without the need to log back on later in the evening. Nubielena Medina, CEO of NMG Consulting, a strategic communications firm, says training her employees and clients to expect the office to close at 5 pm took 15 years to accomplish: "We don't have emergency fires all the time that obligate us to stay late. We plan ahead, create schedules, make sure clients understand the schedules." Medina says the rule is employees must be there when the office opens at 8.30am. "When we're done, we leave," she said. "We're responsive to the needs of our clients, but we have to be able to have time for families and ourselves."

Of course, there are careers that won't fit the nine-to-five mould, such as doctors and police officers. And sometimes the workload in key positions demands long hours. When a new job function or innovative project comes with a learning curve, the challenge to leave the office after eight hours becomes greater.

But in studying overwork, experts say people whose job constantly interferes with an outside life because of long hours may need to re-examine whether they are taking on too much – or in the wrong job.

Miami Herald