How Many Hours Should a Startup Employee Work?

August 26, 2010 by Ben Yoskovitz 24 Comments

Every so often I get drawn into the debate about startup employees and how much they should work. Should you hire workaholics? Is it expected that startup employees work 100+ hours per week? Should they be online all the time, constantly available and ready to go?

It depends. And it’s up to you. If you expect employees to work 20 hours / day that’s your choice. If you find people willing to accept those jobs that’s great. I don’t have any issues with that, because when you recruit someone it’s a relationship between two people. If two people mutually agree on something that’s good enough for me. There’s rarely any arm twisting during an employee offer. If they don’t agree, the employee quits or they’re fired. Such is life.

But it got me thinking…

One of the big problems I’m seeing with a startup’s expectations for “hours worked” is that they use it as a metric of employee quality and success. Likely because it’s one of the easiest metrics to track. If someone works 80+ hours in a week they must be kicking ass! Whoever works the most is the best! But clearly that’s not always going to be the case. “Hours worked” is a poor measurement of almost everything, except for “hours worked.” I’m not even sure it’s a great measurement of passion (which is an essential quality you need to look for in startup employees.) It could just be that the guy is slow, so he works more hours.

We need to think about other measurable indicators of an employee’s quality and value. Just like “years of experience” on a resume is a shoddy measure of expertise and quality, the same holds true for “hours worked”.

I’m not arguing against a startup’s need to move insanely fast. Startup jobs aren’t (and never will be) “9 to 5 gigs.” And I agree that oftentimes startups do feel out of control and insane, and that’s part of the appeal. Startups are roller coasters. Don’t think of them any other way. But at the same time if you look at how you evaluate the quality and value of an employee and you’re saying, “Well, he’s not putting in 20 hours per day…”, just stop and ask yourself whether that’s a true measure of value or not.

image courtesy of shutterstock

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Lee

As John Wooden said, never mistake activity for achievement.
Carl Mercier

15-20 hours a day should definitely not be the norm. However, people expecting to come in at 9 and clock out at 4:30 should definitely not work for a startup. Startup employees have to be committed to the success of the company and be passionate enough to want to give their absolute best in terms of time, energy and productivity.

I find that many people think they want to work at a startup because it sounds like so much fun. In reality, they would probably be better off working for a larger business where regular work hours are expected and where mediocrity is often tolerated.
Cedric_dugas

I wonder what kind of compensation startup offer to employee that work 20 hours a day, specially developers, if I could do 15 hours a day for startup (I couldnt) for almost nothing, I would probably work on my own startup after my 9 to 5 gigs, lots better than trowing your life in another person project.
mrphantuan manh

Thanks for sharing, very useful article
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Mkey

nice articel, great, Thank!
Jim Hub

I honestly agree. I am setting up my own website from this quadracentifiable website-builder and I am ready to launch my Business, believe me I’ve got my hands full of Start up employees. But what matters most for me is not how hard they push themselves but how efficient they are at what they do.
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I agree. Someone could just be working 40 hours a week because he’s getting the job done. On the other hand, someone who’s working 80 a hours a week is maybe not that productive. So it’s a double-whammy. You’re paying someone more and he’s not getting the job done.

Fortunately, most start-up employees are really very productive and they’re very excited to make a difference. So they work long hours without sacrificing work quality. As a start up owner, I expect my employees to work 8 hours a day for 5 days. I offer optional overtime every now and then if something needs to get done fast. But they know that I expect them to get a day’s job done in 8 hours.
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If some one is working 20 hours a day on internet, that person expects to be paid well also. It is not a child’s play to sit in front of the screen and tire yourself doing some extensive research work or whatever is required of that person.
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I am setting up my own website from this quadracentifiable website-builder and I am ready to launch my Business, believe me I’ve got my hands full of Start up employees.
Scentsy

In the direct selling business, each of the new recruits on our team are new start-up employees. The learning curve is steep and the hours can be intense if they expect to meet company incentives for fast growth. Learning more about what realistic expectations should look like for our “employees” is a big help.
Phil | Digital Fodder

Efficiency and work quality are clearly much more important than hours worked, perhaps startup companies should give potential employees a trial run before full employment, that way they can gauge the efficiency of the employee over solely using the quantity of hours said employee is willing to work.
Tgpsillas

I think it depends on the vision ogf the owner and his/her attitudes.
As a startup owner of http://www.linktomeet.com, we treat our staff like family, so they put in the extra hours.
Here we are today, Sunday, September 5, 2010 in CT; blue skies, excellent weather and everyone is working today.
Go figure!
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DSI Canada

My former boss in a previous work said… Don’t work hard, work smart… It’s not about how many hours you spent working but it’s about the quality of work spent in an hour… 😀
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In my view only time is not important we should provide target to them and then give time limit. If they are honest and want to complete their target they themselves spent more and more time.
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The normal working hours should not be more than 9 hours.
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offshoreally Only

Yeah sure! I mean I am completely agree to this. They should be given some quality time to adjust initially.
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MizBoat

Work hours come in either quality or quantity. As you said just because someone is working 80 hours a week does’t necessarily mean they are kicking butt. Some people are really focused and can accomplish more in less than time, then someone who takes their time and procrastinating. I would look at results rather than how fast someone got it.
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