By Abbie Hatch, Marketing Manager for Robohead
‘Bare Minimum Monday’ is not just a catchy phrase or internet trend. It represents a rising sentiment in the corporate world, especially for younger workers. Stemming from the surge of viral Tik-Tok videos where users share their most laid-back outfits, routines, or the minimal amount of work they’re willing to do on a Monday, it echoes a desire to ease into the workweek. But, is there more to this trend than just a passing social media fad?
According to data from the RoboHead 10000, the productivity gap between Monday and the other days in the week has been widening in 2023, indicating that in fact, the “bare minimum monday” trend might just be catching on.
The RoboHead 10000, an index that tracks activities for marketing and creative teams across many industries, provides some interesting insights into this topic. When comparing data from 2021 to 2023, a clear shift emerges:
- In 2021, the average productivity score for Monday was 93.3, just a slight 0.4 points below the average score overall, a mere -0.43% difference.
- By 2022, this gap widened with Mondays clocking an average score of 89.3 versus the overall average of 92.2—a 3.15% difference.
- In 2023, the trend accentuates further with Monday’s score at 98.8 while the overall average skyrockets to 105.7, marking a 6.53% difference.
Interested in learning more about the index? Read how we calculate this.
Why You Don’t Need to Worry
Before businesses start mandating “Maximum Effort Mondays” in response to this data, it’s essential to look at the bigger picture. While it may appear that Mondays are the new slack-off day, overall productivity is on an upward trend. From an average score of just 92.9 in 2021 to a much higher average score of 105.7 in 2023, the overall average score indicates that teams are working harder and smarter than ever before.
The fluctuating Monday productivity might be indicative of a shift in work culture—a transition towards understanding that not every day needs to be a power-packed start. By giving employees the flexibility and understanding that Mondays might be slower, we might be allowing them to recharge, regroup, and then hit the week running, allowing them more freedom to be creative. It could also be a shift in how we structure our weeks, with more regularly occurring meetings weighted toward the start of the week. Whatever is causing the shift, one thing is clear: the resulting boost in the following days more than compensates for the slow start.
How to Embrace Flexibility for Your Team
If you want to give your team members the autonomy to work on projects at a healthy pace, there are some steps you can take to allow them breathing room and more room for creative inspiration. Here are four tips for managing your team without micromanaging how they spend their days:
- Keep the Big Picture in Focus: Your team members’ value should be measured in weeks, not days. Shift your focus to the overall contributions your team members make instead of what they accomplish in a single day.
- Advocate for reasonable workloads: Creative work is complicated to quantify, but what most will tell you is that inspired projects come when creatives have breathing room to think and draft more than one version.
- Allow for more asynchronous work: Project management tools allow you to collaborate better outside of meetings, making it easier to work on your own schedule and find the efficiency that works for you.
In conclusion, while Monday productivity may be lower than other days of the week, this does not necessarily mean that employees are slacking off. In fact, overall productivity is on the rise, which suggests that teams are finding healthier, more sustainable ways to engage with their work. This trend may be indicative of a shift in work culture, one that values autonomy and flexibility over rigid deadlines and micromanagement. If you want to encourage your team to be productive, it’s important to focus on the big picture, advocate for reasonable workloads, and allow for more asynchronous work. By creating a supportive and understanding work environment, you can help your team thrive and achieve their goals.
About RoboHead:
RoboHead is a project management platform built for creative and marketing teams that gets everyone on the same page and allows you to focus on creative work that drives your company’s growth. Learn more at RoboHead.net.
About the Index: RoboHead 10000 tracks marketing activity in real-time across industries, geographies, and company sizes during a given time period. In order to account for continuously adding new users, the raw data is averaged by two ratios, involving users and accounts, in order to normalize the resulting data. At the beginning of the year for each time period (daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly), 100 has been assigned as a constant, so that all future data for that period will be measured against that relative value.
