July is the most productive month in the US

With an average employee efficiency of 86.23%, July is the most productive month of the year in the US, according to a new study by the DeskTime time tracking app. The least productive month, on the other hand, is June, when employees work with an average efficiency of 81.84%. 

March claimed second place in terms of efficiency (85.75%), while August came third (85.74%). At the bottom of the top, along with June, were May and April with 82.35% and 83.46% of the time spent on productive work, respectively.

DeskTime allows its users to categorize used programs, websites, and apps into “productive” or “unproductive”. The efficiency percentage indicates how much time is spent working productively relative to the user’s set working hours.

The data shows that after a strong start of the year, users’ work efficiency begins to fall off in April until it reaches its lowest point in June. Then in July, when businesses cross into the second half of the financial year, employee work efficiency jumps up again. 

This could be related to businesses analyzing their first half of the financial year, setting new goals, and that way boosting their employees’ motivation. Not for long, though, as work efficiency begins to decline again right after and continues to do so until the end of the year.

However, at the end of the day, the data demonstrates that employees’ work efficiency is rather balanced throughout the year. In an eight-hour working day that includes an hour-long lunch break, employees spend on average five hours and 56 minutes on productive work. 

Some research had suggested that in an eight-hour day, the average worker is only productive for two hours and 53 minutes. DeskTime users, in that case, are 2x more productive.

The sample included 48,000 users in the US. DeskTime has over 460,000 users globally. The period of time analyzed was July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022 – that is 12 full months.