(This is part six of an ongoing series. Check here for weekly updates.)
In part five of this series, we looked at what your ActivTrak data says about burnout risk and how your employees’ work patterns compare to other teams.
Next, it’s time to look at weekend work: Do your employees log in on Saturdays and Sundays? If so, are they productive?
Let’s find out now. The answers may surprise you.
(Reminder: If you’re new to ActivTrak, sign up for a free trial to collect data and access Professional features for 14 days.)
1. Do your employees work on Saturdays and Sundays?
The finding: Weekend work is no longer the exception for knowledge workers.
More employees log time on Saturdays and Sundays, and they’re starting earlier than ever. On average, employees who work on Saturday start at 7:11 a.m. That’s a full hour and 24 minutes compared to 2023. Sunday work moved up, too, from 12:24 p.m. in 2023 to 10:58 a.m. in 2025. This isn’t driven by a small group of outliers. It’s a consistent, continual shift in how weekend work shows up in employee activity data — even at companies that formally operate Monday through Friday.
Why it matters: Weekend hours say more about your workweek structure than how hard people are working.
The increase in Saturday and Sunday hours doesn’t necessarily mean the workweek is getting longer. In fact, the average workday is nine minutes shorter now than it was three years ago. Instead, this shift points to looser boundaries on when work happens. Knowing how much of the weekend your employees devote to work helps you understand how they’re distributing their time. It may help explain extended breaks or midday gaps during the week, or show you when someone’s overextended and drifting toward burnout.
How to compare your data: Use ActivTrak’s Daily Work Metrics dashboard (available on all plans.)
- Navigate to Workforce Management > Daily Work Metrics (or Live Reports > Working Hours if you’re using legacy navigation).
- Under Date Range select “Last Month.”
- Click the + Filters button and check the box next to “Schedule Days.”
- Under the Schedule Days box that appears, select “Non-Workday.”
- View the “Work Time” column on the far right to see who works on Saturdays and Sundays, and for how long.
How to interpret the data: Weekend work patterns reveal whether you’re seeing isolated spikes or deeper trends that need attention.
This view gives you a clear picture of who’s working on weekends, how often it happens and how much time they log. But the real value comes from spotting patterns, not outliers. Start by scanning for consistency. Are the same employees showing up week after week, or is weekend work spread across the team? Consistent patterns may point to workload imbalance or role-specific demands, while occasional spikes may reflect deadlines or seasonal pressure.
Next, look at the volume of time. A quick check-in on Saturday morning tells a very different story than several hours both days every weekend. From there, expand your view. Adjust the date range to the past quarter or year to see if this behavior is persistent or temporary. If it’s ongoing, it’s worth a closer conversation about capacity, priorities or schedule flexibility. If it’s sporadic, you may be looking at a healthy redistribution of work. Either way, this data helps you move from assumption to clarity and respond with intention instead of guesswork.
2. How much of that weekend time is productive?
The finding: Employees aren’t just working weekends more often. They’re spending significantly more weekend time on productive work.
Weekend productivity rose sharply over three years. On Saturdays, productive time increased 46%, from 3 hours 10 minutes to 4 hours 37 minutes per worker. Sundays show an even bigger jump, with productive time up 58%. In other words, this isn’t passive or incidental activity. When employees work weekends, they’re getting meaningful work done — contributing focused, measurable output rather than just checking messages or staying loosely connected.
Why it matters: Weekend productivity reveals how and when employees do their most focused work.
For many employees, weekends offer something the workweek often doesn’t — uninterrupted time. Fewer meetings, fewer messages and fewer context switches make it easier to focus on deep work that moves projects forward. This may help explain both the earlier start times and the rise in productive hours. It also points to a broader shift in how work gets done, with more employees breaking the workday into flexible blocks to accommodate personal responsibilities. Surveys show 60% of employees schedule personal appointments during traditional work hours, which may also help explain the shift to more work on the weekends.
How to compare your data: Use ActivTrak’s Daily Work Metrics dashboard (available on all plans.)
- Navigate to Workforce Management > Daily Work Metrics (or Live Reports > Working Hours if you’re using legacy navigation).
- Under Date Range select “Last Month.”
- Click the + Filters button and check the box next to “Schedule Days.”
- In the Schedule Days filter box that pops up, select “Non-Workday.”
- View the “Productive” column to see how much of the time spent on weekend work goes to using productive apps and sites.
How to interpret the data: Productive time shows whether employees use the weekend for meaningful output or to stay lightly connected.
This view helps you understand how much of your team’s weekend work is truly productive. If you see high productive time on weekends, it’s a signal employees need that time to move work forward. If not, they may use it to catch up on messages and prepare for the week ahead. From there, compare patterns across roles or individuals and over longer time periods to understand whether this is a consistent behavior or tied to specific deadlines. If it’s consistent, look for ways to protect that focus time during the week. If it’s occasional, it may reflect a healthy, flexible approach to getting work done.
Stay tuned for more State of the Workplace benchmarking insights
Weekend work is likely here to stay. And how you interpret it makes all the difference. Use the guidelines above as a starting point to understand what weekend hours say about how your team works and what kind of support employees need from you. Tracking these patterns over time allows you to gain a clearer view into workload balance, flexibility and focus across the full week.
Stay tuned for the next part of the series, where we’ll continue breaking down benchmarks that matter most — and how your team stacks up.
Did you miss part five? Read it here.
