Microsoft Report: 40% of Employees Check Work Email Before 6 A.M.
Work News | New Stardom
Photo by Ed Hardie
A new Microsoft report has confirmed what many professionals already feel, the workday no longer has clear boundaries. According to its 2025 Work Trend Index Special Report, 40% of employees now check work email before 6 a.m., while meetings after 8 p.m. have risen 16% in the past year.
The data, based on signals from over 31,000 Microsoft 365 users across 31 countries, shows an increasingly fractured work rhythm. Employees receive an average of 117 emails and 153 Teams messages each day, and nearly a third return to their inboxes by 10 p.m., forming what Microsoft calls a “triple peak” schedule. Interruptions come every two minutes, 275 times a day, leaving little time for focused work.
Productivity tools are part of the overload. PowerPoint edits surge 122% in the ten minutes before meetings, and half of all meetings take place during peak concentration hours, crowding out time for deep work. Ad hoc calls now make up 57% of all meetings, while weekend activity is rising, with 1 in 5 users checking work emails before noon on both Saturday and Sunday.
Nearly half of surveyed employees, and 52% of leaders, described their work as chaotic and fragmented. Microsoft’s report suggests the solution lies not in working harder, but in rethinking how work is structured. It calls for AI to handle routine tasks, freeing up time for strategic focus, and encourages companies to adopt what it terms “agent boss” models, teams built around humans and digital agents working together.
The findings come as 72% of Swiss companies surveyed plan to deploy AI agents in 2025. But without redesigning work habits, Microsoft warns, AI risks accelerating an already broken system.
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