The Case for Designing Work Around Circadian Rhythms

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Business, Hbr, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Strategy, Business/management, Management, Communication, Harvard, Entrepreneurship, Business/marketing, Leadership, Marketing, Finance, Economics, Teams

4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are you a morning type, a night owl, or somewhere in between? And what about the people on your team? When do they feel most energized and productive? Stefan Volk, professor of management at the University of Sydney Business School, says that leaders need to pay more attention to their own and employees’ circadian rhythms because they have a big impact on performance. While forcing everyone into the same schedule can lead to conflict, mistakes, and burnout, carefully planning tasks around individual energy peaks enhances collaboration not only during overlaps but also when people are apart. He offers practical advice on how to get all chronotypes working well together. Volk is author of the HBR article "Tapping into Your Team's Circadian Rhythms."

Transcript

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0:39.8	I'm Alison Beard.
0:56.6	And I'm Adi Ignatius, and this is the HPR IdeaCast.
1:06.9	Adi, when do you do your best work?
1:09.7	You know, I generally have a lot of projects moving forward at once.
1:13.6	I'm tending to fires all day.
1:15.6	It's often at night after hours when I carve out time and do what's probably my best focused
1:21.6	work.
1:22.6	I don't recommend this because it eats into my so-called real life, but I do find it necessary.
1:26.6	Okay, so it sounds like you and I
1:28.9	might be the same. I tend to sleep in. I wake up, I grab a coffee, and then I hit my stride
1:35.6	mid-morning, and I can work through the afternoon and also really, really late into the night
1:40.9	if I need to. So this means that you and I probably have similar circadian rhythms.
1:46.3	That's the internal clock that determines when we feel most awake and energized and engaged
1:52.5	and when we don't.
1:53.7	And that's what we're going to talk about today.
1:55.8	Why leaders need to pay attention to their own rhythms and the rhythms of everyone on
2:00.7	their teams to better
	...

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