What does the research say about work-life balance?

Global corporate giant Amazon’s culture of overwork has been revealed in a New York Times exposé. RealKM has previously looked at the gap between the Amazon depicted in the exposé and the perceptions of its CEO.

Does overworking employees really improve productivity? Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook cofounder and CEO and cofounder of software firm Asana, explores working hours and productivity research in a post on stories and ideas site Medium:

The research is clear: beyond ~40–50 hours per week, the marginal returns from additional work decrease rapidly and quickly become negative.

Moskovitz recommends cultural change, saying that he wishes he had achieved a better work-life balance while he was at Facebook. He dismisses the notion that this would have made Facebook less successful:

Actually, I believe I would have been more effective: a better leader and a more focused employee.