How many productive hours do you expect your people to work in a day? Rather, how many required hours do the person has to work? This depends on the labor law of the country but for my insight I will use the standard 8 hours we have from where I come from.

While productive hours and required hours should ideally be the same, there are lots of factors that could hinder the person from rendering a full 8 hours of productivity and these includes restroom breaks, small chats with superiors, brainstorming, phone calls, etc. which hit the total productive hours the person can accomplish for the day without overtimes.

The advancement of technology has brought a whole new level of perception from people and the industry thinking that in order to stand out and win, one must be as complex and sophisticated as possible. As I work in a fast paced technology industry, I am a victim of this perception and would always think of ways to come up with the most mind boggling output as possible. As it turned out, not a lot of people appreciated the thought and would like to make things as simple as possible.