The Cost of Overworked Employees
Is it fair for employers to expect people to work on the weekends?
Recently a chairman of a multinational company has advocated for a 90 hour workweek. While that might seem insane, some of these attitudes to work point to an underlying mindset that work is our identity, and that we somehow need to prove our value and worth by how industrious we are.
This attitude is a losing proposition for the bottom line and for people.
For one, we are now managing knowledge workers. Ideas and insight don’t follow a 9-5 schedule!
We are not just cogs in a wheel anymore, we are problem solvers, we are not grappling with complex challenges that we need insight for.
Creativity and innovation require us to think differently, to connect seemingly disparate dots, and one of the best ways to do that is to step away from a problem and let it incubate.
Companies like Google don’t just have bright, colorful campuses to attract talent, it’s also an effort to create space for people think differently and imagine something novel.
Secondly, overwork leads to more mistakes and more turnover. While it might feel like there’s progress and movement in a busy office with employees clocking in late hours, ultimately that doesn’t necessarily improve productivity. It’s just your brain creating the illusion of control and security. Data around the 4 day workweek confirms this: 4 day work weeks reduced turnover by around 57% and boosted productivity by anywhere from 33-40%. People have also reported more job satisfaction, and reduced work stress. The experiments repeatedly show that people can complete their tasks within 80% of working time. Focused, prioritised work is always more productive!
Finally, this attitude that work is our identity leads us to neglect other parts of our lives. Simone Stolzoff in his book, ‘The Good Enough Job’ talks about the danger of making work our identity. Many of us have been there at one time or another. Our relationships suffer, our energy starts to wane, and at some point we hit a wall. This doesn’t just impact us as individuals, it also makes us poor citizens.
There’s a study by John Darley and Daniel Batson that demonstrates this point. The researchers had 67 seminary students deliver a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Some of the participants were instructed to hurry and told they were expected a few minutes ago. Others were told they had a few minutes before they needed to be there for the sermon.
Along the way, the participants encountered a man slumped over and clearly in distress. Of course the researchers were nearby watching. 63% of the participants who had time stopped to help, but only 10% of the participants in a hurry stopped. These participants were rushing to share a parable about helping others, and in that rush, they were too busy to help. It’s bonkers! But I know if I were part of that study, I probably wouldn’t have stopped.
We are putting the cart before the horse. Work is meant to enable us to lead better lives and build a better and better world. But we’ve made it a question of our self-worth and we’re losing ourselves in the process. It’s time to start reimagining the space work takes up in our lives, and it’s time we created space to invest our insight and creativity into the work we do and not just our hours clocked.
