Hoosier cities ranked among ‘Hardest Working’
INDIANAPOLIS (Inside INdiana Business) — Two Indiana cities are among the top 116 metropolitan areas across the country identified as “2020’s Hardest Working Cities in America,” according to a new study from WalletHub.
The personal finance website places Indianapolis at No. 47 and Fort Wayne at No. 72.
The ranking is based on 11 key metrics. The data set ranges from employment rate to average weekly work hours to share of workers with multiple jobs. WalletHub says the average U.S. worker puts in 1,786 hours per year, which is much higher than many other industrialized countries.
For instance, U.S. workers put in 403 more hours each year than German workers. For an average 40-hour workweek, that’s ten weeks of additional time “on the clock.”
But WalletHub says working more hours does not necessarily translate into higher productivity.
“In fact, empirical research shows that as the number of working hours increases, employee productivity starts to decline,” said Stephanie Andel, an assistant professor in the IUPUI Department of Psychology.
Andel is one of five experts asked by WalletHub to weigh-in on the workload.
“We simply are not wired to be working constantly, and we lose valuable mental resources as the workday goes on,” explains Andel. “This reduces our ability to maintain our work engagement over long periods, and in turn, creates diminishing returns when it comes to employee output and productivity.”
The list also included data on average commute time and the number of workers leaving vacation time unused.
“Overworked employees also struggle to balance their work and non-work roles (such as family demands), which further impacts their stress and health levels,” Andel said. “These problematic outcomes can also be felt by the organization’s bottom line in the form of increasing health insurance costs, employee absenteeism and turnover.”
WalletHub says the hardest working U.S. city is Anchorage, Alaska.
Click here to view the entire list.