Everybody aspires to have the perfect work-life balance. But only a few are actually able to achieve it. Knowing how many hours do you work in a year can help you find out how close you are to achieving this balance.
Working too much can also hinder an employee’s productivity. This is why it is crucial to make sure that you maintain a good balance between your work and personal life.
Salaried employees get a fixed salary irrespective of the number of hours they put in every week. This makes it important for them to know how many hours they work per year in order to calculate their hourly rate. This can be found out by dividing the total salary you receive by the number of hours you clock in at work.
Read on to learn why it is important for you to know how many hours does the average person work and how you can calculate your own working hours using a simple formula.
Importance of knowing how many work hours there are in a year
Being aware of how many work hours per year one has to clock in can be extremely advantageous. It is important for the following reasons-
- Calculate your hourly salary- You can find out how much you are making per hour if you are a salaried employee working more than 40 hours per week. The hourly salary can easily be calculated by dividing the total annual salary by how many work hours per year you put in. Make sure that you exclude any holiday and paid leave from this.
- Plan for other activities- If you wish to make time in your life for other extracurricular activities such as volunteering, exercising, or any other hobby, you need to know how many hours you dedicate to work. This can help figure out how much time you can devote to other activities without it affecting your personal or work life.
- To calculate the annual income: Estimating the total annual salary becomes easy when you have an idea of how many work weeks are in a year. This can help you plan out a budget for yourself and plan all your spending accordingly.
- Assess your work-life balance- Finding out how many hours you spend at work can help you find out if you need more vacation time, reduce the work hours and take off time for yourself on the weekends. It is important to disassociate from work to ensure that you are not overworked, and your productivity is maintained. Find out if you have a healthy work-life balance by calculating how many hours you spend at work every year and how much time to devote to yourself.
How to calculate the number of work hours in a year
Calculating how many hours do we work in a year requires following a few basic steps:
- Calculate your weekly hours- The first step to find out how many work hours in one year is to calculate the number of hours you work on a weekly basis. Know how many hours you work daily since this number would vary from person to person. Add up the hours that you work in a week, and you will have an estimate of your weekly hours. Use this to further calculate the number of hours you work in a year.
- Multiply this number by 52- The next step is to find out how many total numbers of hours you would work in the year if there were no vacations or holidays. This can be calculated by multiplying the average number of weekly hours that you calculated by 52.
- Calculate your paid time off hours: Now, you need to find out the time spent on paid time off (PTO). Your company could include all the paid time off under this or divide it into sick leaves and vacation leaves. You need to include both these figures to find out how many PTO hours you get.
For instance- If you generally take five sick days and get three weeks vacation time (15 days), the total paid time off days you get is 20. Now you need to multiply this with the number of hours you work on a daily basis to get an estimate of paid time off hours you are getting.
- Calculate your paid holiday hours- Also, calculate the number of paid holiday hours you get by multiplying your daily hours with the number of paid holidays provided by the employer.
- Add your total time off- Adding the PTO hours and paid holiday hours will give you an estimate of the total time that you are getting off. For example, if you get 150 hours as PTO and 50 hours as paid holiday hours, the total time that you get off is 200 hours.
- Subtract total time off from annual hours- The final step requires you to subtract the total time off from the figure you estimated in the second step, which was the number of hours you would work in a year in the absence of any paid holiday.
The final figure that you get after following all these steps is how many hours do you work in a year, and would vary from one individual to the next.
Formula
If you wish to find the answer to how many hours do I work a year, the method is relatively simple. The formula used to calculate the number of work hours per year is quite simple. The answer depends on how many hours the employee puts in every week and the number of holidays they get.
The formula for calculating the number of work hours per year is as follows:
(# hours per week x 52) - [(# of days of PTO + # paid holidays) x # hours per day] = total hours in a year
For example, consider an employee that works 35 hours per week and has five vacation weeks. The total hours worked, in this case, would be equal to 1645 hours per year.
How many work hours in one year is full time?
The number of hours an employee works every week determines if they are a full-time or part-time employee.
The national standard of weekly hours for full-time employees is considered to be around 40 hours a week. Some companies consider hours lesser than this (35-37) to be a full-time week. Some also provide the opportunity to work overtime, which extends the number of working hours from 40.
Full-time employees are eligible for extra benefits provided by the employer. These include a pension, health insurance, paid vacation days, and sick leaves. Part-time employees are not offered such benefits by most employers.
How to find out the number of hours worked?
In order to calculate how many hours do people work in a year, it is important for a business to know how many hours an employee has clocked in.
- The first step in doing this is keeping track of the working hours. This can be done through a computer tracking system, time cards, or a written sign-in sheet. Various combinations of these methods can also be used by businesses to keep track of the working hours of the employee.
- The next step entails choosing a time format. This could either be standard or military.
- A rounding policy should also be in place. Most companies keep track of hours in fifteen-minute increments.
- The next and final step is to tabulate these hours per week.
An employer can thus provide information on how many hours are in a full-time work year to their employees.
Average Working hours per year of Employees in Various Countries
Every country has different notions of productivity. A lot of developed countries have now regulated overtime hours. The answer to how many hours does an average person work varies in every country. Average working hours per year in various countries are as follows:
US- The average working hours of a full-time employee in the US is approximately 1,768 hours per year. This is equal to 38.6 hours per week, which is higher than in most countries.
The UK- The average working hours for a full-time employee in the UK is 1,538 or 36.6 hours per week.
Germany- This rate is much lower in Germany and is about 1,363 hours per year.
India- In India, an average full-time employee works almost 45 hours per week or 2162 hours per year. This is higher than in most countries.
Japan- The average working hours for an employee in Japan is 36.02 hours per week or 1,729 hours per year.
Canada- Canada has an average working hour rate of 1695 hours per year.
Australia- This figure is approximately 1676 in Australia.
Finland- A full-time employee in Finland, has to work around 1531 hours every year.
Sweden- In Sweden, employees have to work for 1453 hours per year.
Importance of having a work-life balance
Work-life balance has a significant effect on the personal and professional wellness of any employee. People with a healthy work-life balance have a lesser chance of having burnout or being victims of chronic stress. They come into work with a happy mindset, which boosts their overall productivity.
This not only influences the mental but physical health of the employees as well. Devoting time to constructive activities turns the employees into more well-rounded individuals.
Everybody places a different level of importance on work-life balance, but you need to know how many work weeks per year are put in by you in order to evaluate this balance in your life.
In conclusion
Your annual salary depends on several factors- the number of days in your typical work week and your hourly rate being some of them. Finding out how many hours do you work in a year will help you find out the exact hourly pay that you are receiving. It also helps evaluate the balance between work and life that you have and whether you need to change that for your personal or professional well-being.
You can also use this to make time for other activities of your liking and lead a more well-balanced and articulate life. Being aware of how many hours does the average person work will help you find out if you are giving in more hours to work and whether you need to dissociate from work to take time off for yourself.
