ActivTrak Productivity Lab: Financial Services Sector Works the Most Weekend Hours

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May 21, 2025, 10:00 ET

Amid market volatility and long workdays, nearly 10% of employees work at least four hours on the weekend while 16% of all employees are underutilized

AUSTIN, Texas, May 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The ActivTrak Productivity Lab today announced key findings for the financial services sector revealing that nearly 10% of financial services employees work on weekends, the highest percentage across 23 industries. Weekend workers average more than 4 hours of work, while 16% of financial services employees are underutilized.¹

The Productivity Lab studied three years of anonymized workplace data spanning 23 industries, including 774 companies and 218,900 employees. The findings reflect user activity behavior for 13,806 financial services employees compared to their cross-industry peers, from January 1, 2022 to December 18, 2024. Data showed:

Financial services has the second longest workday at 9 hrs and 7 mins, 23 mins longer than the overall average
Financial services employees rank third for most productive hrs/day at 6 hrs 32 mins
74% of financial services staff maintain healthy^² work habits, while 11% are overutilized³
62% of financial services professionals used AI in 2024, 4% more than the cross-industry average
Daily collaboration tool usage in financial services averages 49 mins, 11 mins longer than the cross-industry norm

"The financial services industry is known for its high-pressure, high-performance culture, but this data suggests an opportunity for leaders to reassess org design, rebalance workloads and invest in training for those employees who may be underutilized," said ActivTrak Head of Productivity Lab and Chief Customer Officer, Gabriela Mauch. "With long workdays and a high percentage of weekend workers, the industry must balance performance expectations with sustainable work-life boundaries to avoid long-term burnout and attrition."

More than 900 customers in accounting, banking, wealth management, financial advisory services, technology and payments rely on ActivTrak's workforce analytics to provide insights and inform decisions around productivity and performance management, resource allocation and policy compliance and risk management.

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About the ActivTrak Productivity Lab
The Productivity Lab is a center for research and expertise on the future of work. Through reports, benchmarks, assessments and best practices, we provide an in-depth understanding of workforce activity data across people, processes and technologies. This work is delivered through consulting and advisory services that help leaders across industries identify trends, improve performance and validate workforce investments – ensuring workforce productivity is sustainable and optimized for success. Productivity Lab findings have informed the work of leading industry analysts, media and research organizations. To learn more visit: https://www.activtrak.com/productivity-lab.

¹ Underutilized refers to when an employee is more than 30% below their daily productive hours goal.
² Healthy utilization refers to when an employee is within the 30% threshold of their daily productive hours goal.
³ Overutilized refers to when an employee is more than 30% over their daily productive hours goal.

SOURCE ActivTrak