How to Keep Work From Home Fridays From Getting Too Casual

Hybrid work is now an established norm of the modern, despite many recent efforts to force workers back into the office five days a week. These arrangements, a legacy of the pandemic, remain popular with millions of people who prefer this kind of workday flexibility. But in some circles, remote and hybrid work models are very much out of favor, as experts and managers argue that they reduce productivity. New research adds fuel to this fire because it found that hybrid and remote workers typically work fewer hours on a Friday, perhaps trying to get a head start on that relaxing weekend feeling. 

But before power-crazed micromanagers giggle in delight and ramp up calls for more RTO rules, the research also showed that these same workers put in extra time on a Wednesday.

The workplace data, gathered by Christos Andreas Makridis a labor economist and research professor at Arizona State University, first reinforced that more people are working remotely. Just 15 percent of professionals who could do so tended to work remotely on Thursdays and Fridays in 2019, but in 2025 fully 35 percent to 40 percent worked remotely. The same pattern held for the first three days of the work week: in 2019 about 10 to 15 percent of professionals worked remotely, while in 2024 that figure rose to nearly 30 percent.

But the key part of Makridis’ data is that from 2019 to 2024 the average number of minutes people worked on Fridays dropped by up to 90 minutes for workers on remote or hybrid schedules. For workers with jobs that are harder to achieve remotely, Makridis notes that this decline was “much smaller,” which indicates the change really does go hand in glove with remote work.

Meanwhile, his research also found that those workers were redistributing some of these “missing” minutes to other parts of the week, working an average of 8 hours 24 minutes on Wednesdays in 2024, up from 7 hours 54 minutes typically logged on Wednesdays in 2019.

In some ways, Makridis’ data runs counter to other investigations that have shown the benefits of remote work. And his data merely measures minutes worked, and doesn’t attempt to examine how shifting working hours affects business metrics like productivity or profitability. A slightly lower pressure Friday could easily boost worker happiness levels, for example, and that quality is closely linked to engagement — and profits.

Makridis makes a nod toward these points in his report at Phys.org, acknowledging this earlier research and also pointing out other benefits of the hybrid and remote working models. This includes better work-life balance (which we know appeals to Gen-Z workers), and boosted recruitment opportunities (with companies able to appeal to a broader pool of non-geographically limited candidates). It also noted increased employee retention and how work flexibility addresses the needs of working mothers.

But he concludes that the “erosion of Fridays” that began with informal traditions like casual dress Fridays and quitting work a little early before the weekend, may be going further with remote work. This is “part of a broader shift toward individualized schedules that expand autonomy but reduce shared time for coordination,” he says and this last part, he worries, may impact team cohesiveness.

What’s the takeaway from this for your company? After all, you may feel that in your smaller, more family-like workplace the emotional and cultural benefits of letting work workers slack off a little on Fridays more than compensates for the slight dip in hours worked. 

Essentially it comes down to managerial choice and corporate culture decisions. Makridis’ data appears to dent the notion that remote and hybrid workers achieve the same as in-office staff do, and this may make you frown on the idea of informally reduced Friday hours, or even rethink hybrid work options entirely. But remember: research shows that RTO rules may be hurting employee morale, that there’s little evidence that RTOs improve productivity, and that there’s broad support for hybrid and remote working models among actual workers. 

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