The Extra Hour Illusion: What We Really Need Instead of More Time
- mary2197
- Nov 4
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 6
Insights from SKOR's Q3 2025 State of Teams Report
We just gained an "extra hour" from daylight savings this past weekend. For most of us, it felt like a gift—a chance to finally catch up on sleep, tackle one more thing on that endless to-do list, or maybe (just maybe) get ahead on work.
But here's the uncomfortable truth that nearly 700 companies across North America just helped us uncover: The problem isn't that we need more hours. It's that we're using the hours we have all wrong.
The Manager Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight
Imagine a world where you could actually give every person on your team an extra hour each week. Game-changing, right?
Here's the reality check: 70% of a team's performance is directly tied to their manager. And 3 in 5 managers have received zero management training.
That's not speculation—that's Gallup's research, validated by what we're seeing across industries in our Q3 State of Teams Report. And it gets more interesting: when we looked at team performance data, People Leaders and Individual Contributors had the same SKOR (76 out of 100), but for completely different reasons.
Here's where it gets really interesting: individual contributors and managers are often living in two completely different realities.
A team member might feel genuinely appreciated because their manager acknowledged their work in last week's standup. Meanwhile, that same manager is beating themselves up for not doing "enough" recognition—convinced they're falling short because they haven't implemented a formal rewards program yet.
Or consider clarity: a manager thinks they've been crystal clear about priorities because they mentioned them in the quarterly kickoff. But three months later, their team is still guessing which projects actually matter most because those priorities were never reinforced, never connected to daily work.
The perception gap isn't about who's right or wrong—it's about leaders being their own harshest critics while their teams are operating with incomplete information. Managers hold themselves to impossible standards while simultaneously struggling to translate what's in their heads into actionable direction on the front lines.
The truth? An extra hour won't fix a cracked foundation. But investing in the people who lead your teams? That's a different story.
What High-Performing Teams Actually Do Differently
After watching companies navigate Q3, one thing became crystal clear: the best teams aren't working more —they're working smarter with the hours they have. And they're strengthening three specific "muscles" that transform how they operate:
1. Transparency: The Trust Accelerator
High-performing teams don't hoard information—they share it liberally. Remote teams, for instance, outscored hybrid teams by 5 points in Q3 (78 vs. 73), largely because they had to build transparent communication systems from day one.
When everyone can see what's happening, why decisions are being made, and where priorities lie, something magical happens: trust accelerates. Employees stop second-guessing and start executing.
The teams that struggled in Q3? They kept information and strategy locked in the C-suite while expecting frontline employees to "figure it out."
2. Accountability: Ownership Over Oversight
Here's a pattern we saw repeatedly: companies under 100 employees had the highest SKOR overall. Why? Close relationships and direct access to leadership created natural accountability loops.
But here's the problem: as companies grew to 250-1,000 employees, scores dropped across the board. Bureaucracy replaced ownership. People stopped feeling responsible for outcomes because... well, who really owns anything when there are seventeen approval layers?
The companies that bounced back after 1,000+ employees? They invested in intentional systems and processes that recreated ownership at scale—giving teams autonomy while maintaining alignment.
3. Healthy Conflict: The Innovation Engine
The industries that dominated Q3's rankings—Environment & Recycling (74), Agriculture & Agribusiness (74), and Consulting & Business Services (69)—share a common thread: they've normalized productive disagreement.
Meanwhile, the industries that saw the biggest declines? Manufacturing (-6%) and Entertainment & Media (-2%) both showed signs of what we call "conflict avoidance" culture. When teams are afraid to disagree, they stop innovating. When layoffs and transformation fatigue set in, people play it safe instead of speaking up.
Healthy conflict isn't about being combative—it's about caring enough to challenge assumptions and push for better solutions.
The Wake-Up Call
Here's the stat that should send shivers down every employers spine: employee engagement just hit a 10-year low.
According to Gallup, 68% of employees are drowning in work pace and volume, while 56% don't even know what's expected of them. The price tag? $438 billion in lost performance and profits.
An extra hour won't fix that. But here's what will: building teams that strengthen muscles that actually matter, including transparency, accountability, and healthy conflict.
Don't Chase the Extra Hour
As we head into the final push of 2025, with holiday pressures mounting and year-end goals looming, here's the question worth asking:
Would an extra hour per week actually help your team—or do you need to fundamentally change how you're using the hours you already have?
The Q3 data tells us something important: the best teams aren't the busiest teams. They're the teams that have:
Strong managers equipped with actual training, not just good intentions
Transparent systems where information flows freely and trust builds naturally
Healthy conflict that pushes ideas forward instead of sweeping problems under the rug
Real accountability where people own outcomes, not just tasks
This November, don't give your team another hour. Give them what they actually need to perform at their best.
Because the truth is, we all have the same 24 hours. The difference between thriving and surviving isn't about having more time—it's about making the time we have actually matter.
