Employees are working more; are they enjoying it less?
Employees are working more; are they enjoying it less?
Added physical, mental stress put pressure on wellness professionals
A recent survey by Grand Rapids, MI-based furniture manufacturer, Steelcase Inc., helps confirm what many of us have known for a long time: Employees are working a lot more these days and not necessarily because they want to.
The study, commissioned from Opinion Research Corporation in Princeton, NJ, was conducted nationally among 506 men and 506 women 18 years and older. Among the survey’s findings:
• 73% of Americans who work in an office of 100 people or more work on the weekend, either at home or in the office.
• Of the participants who said they have been known to sacrifice a portion of their weekend to work, 60% do it once a month or more, and 42% spend six to 10 hours working on the weekend.
• 53% of the respondents work more than 40 hours a week, and 32% take work home at least one night a week.
When asked how they feel about working more hours, 60% of the respondents said they "grin and bear it."
An earlier Steelcase survey released in April, adds insult to injury: It showed that office workers take, on average, only 36 minutes for lunch each day, while 40% have exchanged their traditional lunch hour for some extra time to catch up on their work.
"The five-day, 40-hour work week is gone," says George Bell, manager of workplace performance at Steelcase. "The workload has changed, which means that to stay ahead, some personal time must be sacrificed."
With each day still containing only 24 hours, a longer work day means less time for leisure activity, family, and just plain relaxation. The added physical and mental pressures of the modern work place will inevitably have their effect on employee health.
"The increased hours and pressure have very far-reaching effects on employees," notes Lewis Schiffman, president of Atlanta Health Systems. "They include fatigue, increased stress levels, increased somatic illness (physical ailments that include headaches, backaches, eyestrain, gastro-intestinal disorders), and they often create an imbalance between the employee and his or her family. "People often feel guilty about not having enough time to give to their children and their spouses, they worry more about what kinds of trouble their kids will get into without the benefit of their guidance and supervision, plus [a longer work week] diminishes the opportunities for intimacy in their primary relationship with their spouse," he continues. "Also, when they are home, because of the additional strain and fatigue, they may not have as much patience and enthusiasm to participate in family activities."
Some love the extra hours
Bell has a slightly different take, noting that in addition to the 60% of respondents who said they "grin and bear" the long hours and the 12% who said they "hate it," 21% actually said they "love it."
"Something interesting you can draw from this survey is that there is a real strong integration and merger between work and life. The lines that were pretty hard and fast years ago are blurred," he notes. "You might infer that if a high percentage of people grin and bear it,’ that may have a negative implication on morale. But it would be a stretch to say morale is down because of this."
Bell says that personally, he enjoys the added flexibility this "blurring of the lines" gives him. "We have decoupled work from a place per se, so you have the freedom and flexibility to decide where and when to work. The hours aren’t important; what is important is control. If I can get up early on Saturday and work a couple of hours, it allows me to go out with my son or play golf. That’s the beauty of technology."
Of course, others respond that the flip side of technology is that you are always available, and therefore, always at work. This drive for optimal productivity, whether employer- or employee-driven, can reach a point of diminishing returns, insists Lauve Metcalf, MS, FAWHP, who heads her own Tucson, AZ-based wellness firm called Organizational Health Consultants.
"Just because you work longer hours, are you really more productive? It takes a lot out of you just to survive in this environment, let alone produce," she says.
"Many studies have indicated that productivity goes down after eight hours," says Schiffman. "Additionally, a fatigued employee is not able to be as effective in problem-solving or in delivering great customer service, both of which wind up costing the employer."
A matter of personal responsibility
While wellness professionals can certainly help make things easier, Metcalf says employees must also take personal responsibility for having a healthy balance in their lives.
"If you are in a workaholic environment, you have to self-regulate yourself," she insists. "You must decide how much effort to put into your job responsibilities and how much time to put into taking care of yourself through wellness choices. If you don’t, you will ultimately be a much less effective performer, or down the road you will end up unhealthy, which will take its toll on the company from a health care cost standpoint."
Metcalf relates her own experience as part of a working group at a nearby university. "Within my group, we have two secretaries, and we’d pile up work on their desks each morning and expect them to get it done," she recalls. "One always worked late, tried to do all the work, and was always overstressed; she did not perform well. The other said, Sorry, that work load is not acceptable but I can have it done by the end of the week.’ We said, OK.’ If she hadn’t told us what she did, we would have had expectations that were unrealistic."
Employees must ask themselves if they are getting the right amount of sleep, eating properly, exercising, and taking time to meditate, says Metcalf. They should also ask themselves the following questions: "Am I balanced from a work and family standpoint?" "Is my job and its environment a good place to go to work?
"Employees also need to be good family members and community members it’s not all about work," Metcalf stresses. "Some of our role as wellness providers is to enlighten employees and create awareness within that environment."
If the company culture is counter-productive from a wellness standpoint, there are some things the wellness professional can do to change it, says Metcalf.
"First, find out what the written and unwritten rules of the company are," she recommends. "Then, start to put together an ideal model for the company. Maybe you can begin by dressing down in summer or taking Friday afternoons off. Consider courses in time management and stress management, and effective communication."
Getting management buy-in
Of course, she admits, management support is critical. What if the boss doesn’t like the idea of more time off? Metcalf offers this strategy: Ask top management what they would do if they had to choose between hiring two twins one healthy and one with a number of health risk factors. "There’s really no question who they would choose they always choose the healthy twin," she says. "So if they buy into that, ask them to think about the employees they have now; wouldn’t they want them to be as healthy as possible so they could be more productive?"
The next step, say Metcalf, is to point out to management that if they want the employee group to be healthier, they should adopt your wellness goals. Then, implement some pilot programs in every department to make sure they will work, and share those successes with the rest of the company.
(See story for things you can do today to help stressed-out employees optimize their health, p. 111.)
[Editor’s Note: For more information on trends in employee work attitudes, contact: George Bell, Steelcase Inc., Grand Rapids, MI 49501. Telephone: (800) 333-9939. Or, contact Steelcase on the Internet at: http://www.steelcase.com.]
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