Should you hop onto the trend?

Whether you are an early bird or a night owl, it's worth a try. If we dissect the 24 hours of a regular workday, we spend nine hours working and another eight hours sleeping, leaving a mere seven hours for ourselves. These precious waking moments are often consumed by essential tasks like grooming, meals, household chores, and commuting. Therefore, if we can manage to spend time on personal wellbeing first thing in the morning, we can leave work on time and disconnect.

This emerging trend might particularly be an antidote for those who feel drained after work, yet wrestle with guilt for spending the off-duty hours to wind down and not doing anything productive. Embracing this trend could be a way to regain autonomy and mental clarity in your life.

There are myriads of benefits for waking up at daybreak. There are usually fewer distractions in the ungodly hours, leading to sharper focus and perhaps better decision-making throughout the day. By devoting time out of your morning to self-care and personal growth, you'll get a sense of accomplishment which could empower productivity throughout the workday.

The backbone of this trend is building a solid evening routine. Early rising doesn't mean sacrificing sleep. It's important to get at least 7 hours of sleep every night. Sleep deprivation could lead to grave health risks, including stroke, asthma attack, depression and mental illness. A final caveat is that not everyone is a morning person. Don't be afraid to hit the snooze button if you need extra sleep that day. Find a productivity hack that works for you.

How employers can support employees

Unlike "lazy girls jobs" and "quiet quitting" trends, employers can reap benefits from this trend. By supporting this trend, employers can cultivate a happier, more engaged, and ultimately more productive workforce.

One way to facilitate this is by providing flexible working arrangements. Remote work options, for instance, alleviate the burden of commuting and enable smoother transitions between work and personal time. Meanwhile, offering flexible hours empowers employees to manage their schedules more effectively, enhancing work-life balance and overall satisfaction.

On top of offering flexibility, HR professionals can be creative in work perks to support employee wellbeing. We are seeing a trend where employers go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach and tailor their perks to address the unique needs of different employees. For example, offering childcare support and onsite daycare for working parents; and tuition reimbursement for workers in student loan debt.

Related: Employers prioritize wellness over the cost of benefits, new study finds

Beyond work perks, this is also a good opportunity for employers to reflect and reassess their team members' workload. If an employee consistently feels overwhelmed at work, it's a red flag for employers. Merely implementing a self-care routine would not suffice in the long run. Employers must address the underlying issue, ensuring that goals are realistic and workloads are manageable.

Coming back to the opening question: "Do early birds always catch the worms?" No worms are worth catching if the bird is burnt out. The future of work lies not in a rigid "early bird" mentality, but in creating personalized schedules that optimize focus and energy, whether that means conquering tasks at dawn or tackling them under the cover of night. For night owls, this trend may evolve into "5-to-9 after the 9-to-5". Ultimately, the key to catching the worm is understanding what works best for you.

Similar to other TikTok work trends, this "5-9 before the 9-5" trend may fade away eventually. Moreover, the underlying message of prioritizing wellbeing is here to stay as the emphasis on work/life balance has been chiseled into the brains of the modern workforce.

James Neave, Head of Data Science, Adzuna