Omondi rises before dawn, unlocks the gate to his Mombasa shipping yard, and endures 12 ruthless hours beneath cargo cranes that groan overhead. He checks manifests, directs container lifts, troubleshoots radio alerts, and logs each discrepancy long after deep fatigue blurs the lines that he sees on his tablet.
Little errors start to find their way into the workload after hour nine. The overtime pay that he receives starts to evaporate into clinic bills for his chronic migraines, and his dream of night logistics courses so he can get a promotion fades with every midnight drive home for overworking instead of pursuing his dreams.
Omondi’s friends marvel at his stamina, but his promotion file gathers dust because exhaustion blunts the sharp judgment that managers crave.
In contrast, up the coast in Malindi, Amina creates bespoke furniture in a cooperative which provides six dedicated hours a day on weekdays.
The staff schedules are designed to work with precision, intentionally adding reflective pauses for staff, and locking up the workshop doors at four o'clock before the sunset chills the streets.
Evenings for Amina are spent mentoring apprentices, taking a design course, and enjoying leisurely dinners as her brain is still sharp and not overworked. Customer satisfaction scores for the cooperative increase every quarter, defect rates in the furniture output drop, and a lucrative interior contract lands her way in significant part because sharper mind and rested hands complete complex joinery with finesse.
Research supports the observations of what Omondi and Amina experience. A study by Marion Collewet and Jan Sauermann followed 332 Dutch call centre workers and compared minute by minute productivity with centrally determined hours.
Their econometric calculations indicated that an increase in working time of one percent increased call volume by only zero point nine percent. In essence, marginal productivity declined once tiredness took effect in the agents.
Extended shifts drained mental energy, prolonged average handling time, and diluted customer satisfaction even in part time contracts, which counters the popular but wrong managerial belief that increased presence necessarily means increased output.
In another study, researchers Kerstin Nilsson and Emma Nilsson conducted a survey among Swedish managers on methods of maintaining senior staff productivity and found that participants preferred reduced work pace, less physical strain, and job rotation much more than longer schedules.
Logistic models indicated that managers supportive of lighter demands were optimistic that employees could continue to perform well past statutory retirement, but demanding heavy hours gave rise to little optimism.
The cross-sectional study put working time within a broad sustainability perspective, repeating occupational health admonitions that endurance, not brute stamina, retains value over decades.
Finally, researchers Kyungmyung Jang, Horim Kim, and Martin Kang studied South Korea's funding cap of 52 hours for large companies and estimated a difference in specifications that used over 9,000 panel observations.
The study illustrated that statutory reductions pared return on investment and sliced patent activity since managers reacted to reduced ceilings by cutting research expenditures and postponing risky initiatives.
The researchers cautioned that State decrees on hours must be balanced with incentives for technological innovation lest companies trade long‑term competitiveness for short‑term health.
Organisations that learn such lessons abandon the simplistic equation of more hours equal more value and instead create schedules that accommodate human physiological and cognitive limitations.
Executive boards should use analytics to establish fatigue thresholds, introduce rotation of tasks that refreshes attention, and blend brief shifts with focused upskilling so production increases through mastery instead of duration.
Open discussions on workloads allows veteran workers to prolong careers while subsequent generations can avoid burnout, thus generating inter-generational knowledge flow that fosters resilience.
Firms that start embracing flexible hours while defending revenue through process innovation are likely to outperform those lagging in chronometer idolatry.
Human resource managers can run 90-day pilots that reduce work to seven focused hours a day, then begin tracking granular productivity, and having teams report energy and creativity.
Managers can complement with aggressive goal setting during the day, deter late-night email binges, and invest in ergonomic improvements that erase physical strain.
Policymakers with the government, on the other hand, can design tax credits for fatigue-reduction initiatives, and universities can include confidence training in technical studies so graduates exude mastery without swagger.
Professional groups then document success stories and share them across industries, accelerating the take-up of sustainable more realistic work hour schedules.
Kenyan businesses can flourish better once bosses focus on productivity per energised hour rather than mere chair occupation, especially since global research now offers irrefutable proof for that shift.
Success stories across the country confirm that tight, concentrated schedules unleash creativity, health, and revenue at the same time. Empirical studies all conclude on one point that balanced confidence and moderate hours lead to lasting success. Followers of such values lead organisations to success far beyond the era of punch‑clock culture.
Have a management or leadership issue, question, or challenge? Reach out to Dr. Scott through @ScottProfessor on X or on email [email protected]
