Company adds 'focus hours' to remote work day, railroading schedule and forcing employees to work after hours

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JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor
Apr 20, 2026 9:00 PM EDT

What happens when a policy that was supposed to help actually hurts? 

This happens more often than you would think. Sometimes we get ahead of ourselves and implement something before we realize the full ramifications of it. The real-world effects of something are usually pretty different from its theoretical causes. This is especially true in the workplace. Sometimes, higher-ups make decisions without regard for how they will trickle down the line. They're too removed from the consequences of their decisions, so lots gets lost in translation. That's what happened here, where a policy that was supposed to help workers ended up hurting them. In remote work situations, it's best to embrace the sense of flexibility. Putting too many restrictions on it just ends up hurting them in the long run. 

Remote workers thrive on flexibility. It's best to accept that it's different from an office job and should therefore be treated differently. Employers can't control their workers the way they can when they report to an office every day. If you're a boss and you want that level of control, then you should probably offer up an in-person workspace. There should also be a level of trust that doesn't get broken when you're in these situations. Hopefully, your employees are trustworthy. If they're not, then you have a bigger issue at play. That's what happened here, when a group of employees was trying to navigate a new policy while also honoring their previous work. 

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  • A remote worker uses their laptop at home
    via Corinne Kutz

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • My company added a "focus hours" policy and somehow made remote work worse.

    so our company went fully remote in 2020 and it's been fine for years. good output, people generally happy, no major issues. then about six weeks ago HR rolls out this new "focus hours" initiative. the idea is that between 10am and 12pm every day, no meetings, no slack messages, just heads down work. sounds reasonable on paper right. here's the thing. they also kept all the standing meetings. so what
    via Prism_Shift7
  • actually happened is that all the meetings that used to be spread across the day got compressed into the afternoon. my tuesday used to have maybe two or three calls. it now has five, back to back, starting at 1pm. i finish the last one around 5:15 and then try to do actual work.
    via Prism_Shift7
  • the "focus hours" themselves have become the time my manager sends me long slack messages that start with "not urgent, just flagging for focus hours" and then contain three questions that are absolutely urgent. i've started just not answering until noon which is apparently what we're supposed to do but feels weirdly confrontational.
    via Prism_Shift7
  • i raised this in our team retro last week and my manager said the policy "needs time to bed in." which is fair enough i suppose. but i genuinely had better focus before they introduced the focus hours becuase at least then the meetings were somewhat spread out. anyway. just wanted to share because i saw the laundry post and thought i'd contribute something slightly less positive for balance.
    via Prism_Shift7

  • Commenters gave their opinions and takes.

    Lost-Design-83... My old company did something similar where they banned all meetings on Tuesdays. I think people paid attention for maybe a month before going back to their old ways because again.. you wouldn't think it would railroad the schedule but it really does.
    via Lost-Design-83

  • Having time and space for “deep work” is a necessary thing at most jobs. It's hard to focus on anything when you're constantly interrupted by meetings and messages. Being pinged throughout the day means that you're always on alert, making it more difficult to sink your teeth into the necessary tasks of the day. So the idea of a “focus break” sounded like a positive one. The problem was that not everyone was respecting it. And it actually ended up making the schedule more difficult to manage. Keep reading to see what happened in this story and see what workers wanted to do about it. 

  • electric_shocks They are sabotaging people who finish their jobs and leave early. Just another way of ruining remote work.
    via electric_shocks
  • A remote worker takes a call from his kitchen
    via May Gauthier

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Afraid_Quail_3... My department tried that. No meetings Monday or learning hours on a Friday. Problem is it only applied to our department. So other departments didn't have to participate and still scheduled meetings during those hours that we needed to attend. Dumb policy.
    via Afraid_Quail_3099
  • Huge-Abroad13... My prior company tried to implement a no internal meeting day (Wednesday for example). Staff were complaining that they never had time to do work because there were too many meetings and this is what was attempted.
    via Huge-Abroad13
  • It was a complete bust within two weeks lol. The same people who were complaining they had no focus time were the ones who wanted to start scheduling meetings on Wednesdays. lol
    via Huge-Abroad13
  • FrequentShopp... Focus hours are technically good, seems the issue is everyone universally trying at the same time just adds friction. I as well as many I know that are remote block random
    via FrequentShopper183
  • times, maybe it's even just 15 minutes after a meeting, maybe it's one hour in the morning, another in the afternoon, as focus blocks. so that we don't have meetings scheduled. We also have a no meeting day as well, it's use more as a "try not to do this" but if you need to it's no biggie
    via FrequentShopper183
  • positivelycat My boss tried putting all the low level management on no meeting Fridays. Sounded great but it did not reduce meeting it made it harder for staff to find time to speak with us cause everyday but Friday we were already in meetings. I was not even to ser up one on one on Fridays ..
    via positivelycat
  • jimmyjackearl Somebody in HR has too much free time on their hands.
    via jimmyjackearl
  • Evening-Ad5765 So what you're saying is you're doing 2-3 hours of work for every 5-6 hours of scheduled meetings everyday. Checks out. That's corporate for you. Also why remote work usually helps productivity as it natural allows more focus time for real work.
    via Evening-Ad5765
  • The volume of standing meetings indicates a terribly run process. But that's what it is.
    via Evening-Ad5765
  • The_real_bandito I thought "focus hours" was supposed to be for the last hours of the workday not mid day? It should be done that way for the same reason OP stated.
    via The_real_bandito
  • SandwichEmerg... Lol it sounds like like this heard this idea, thought it was a good one, and slapped it in without thinking. I personally am a big fan of Focus Time but it loses most of its purpose when you mess up the rest of the day with meetings.
    via SandwichEmergency588
  • The purpose is to have less meetings and a dedicate block of time to work on tasks. Maybe they are rolling it out in phases and they will start to cut meetings. I did this at one company where Thursdays were no meeting days. You could still
    via SandwichEmergency588
  • call or message people but it was a day where no meetings were scheduled. Then I went through and started cutting meetings. Most I consolidated or created a replacement meeting that was half the time to start to claw back more time. I couldn't just go
    via SandwichEmergency588
  • cold turkey for the engineering teams but I could phase meetings out over time by cutting back the time and forcing us to be more efficient.
    via SandwichEmergency588
  • quietcodelife the compression is always the tell. if all the meetings just moved to the afternoon instead of disappearing, the problem was never the meeting slots - it was that nobody was willing to ask which meetings actually needed to exist. a "focus hours" policy can't fix a culture that hasn't bought into async as the default. you're just rearranging the same furniture.
    via quietcodelife
  • Dry-Aside4526 Can they at least move the hours to maybe after lunch? 10-12 is literal prime time for work!
    via Dry-Aside4526
  • powered_by_eur... Meetings in general are bad. Why not just "hop on a quick call" to adress things as thee come up?
    via powered_by_eurobeat

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