|
Married to the job |
|
|
By Ray Williams » Over-achieving professionals are being urged to reassess their priorities as an all-consuming work ethic sends relationships with family and friends into a downward spiral.
More and more people today are working harder than ever before, taking on endless additional responsibilities and earning a lot more than their counterparts in earlier times.
And it is these individuals who bring into clear focus the question of work-life balance.
A hundred years ago, the pundits were forecasting that technology would not only do away with household chores, but provide us with unlimited leisure. That prediction has not come to pass.
Instead, the work ethic has been elevated to unprecedented heights, which reinforces the low value and worth attached to family, parenting, and building community amid a radical redefinition of the nature of work.
Madeline Bunting, in her book Willing Slaves – How the Overwork Culture Is Ruling Lives, a study of the workplace, reveals that:
- Between 1977 and 1997, full time employees in the United States increased their weekly average hours by 0.5 hours, to a 47.1 hour work week
- North American workers average about 10 days of holiday a year, in constrast to Britain, where the average is 25 days, and Germany, at 30 days
In the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force study in the December 2006 issue of Harvard Business Review, authors Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce outlined their conclusions about America’s obsession with work. They state that professionals are working harder than ever and that the 40-hour work week is a thing of the past.
In fact, the 60-hour work week is commonplace. Hewlett and Luce say 62% of high-earning individuals they studied worked more than 50 hours a week and 35% worked more than 60 hours. Most respondents indicated they worked on average 16 hours a week more than they did five years ago.
The study also noted that vacations are shrinking, with 42% reporting they take 10 or fewer vacation days a year, which is less than they were entitled to.
Are these extreme workaholic professionals unbalanced, and in need of rescue? Hewlett and Luce say the majority of respondents indicated they love their jobs and work extreme hours because they want to. They don’t see themselves as victims, and are often characterized as Type A personalities.
Arlie Hochschild, in The Time Bind writes that as home and families become starved for time, overworked people avoid going home and choose ‘more attractive’ social venues associated with work. For many, home and family become associated with stress and guilt, while work becomes a haven.
While extreme workaholics are not complaining, 69% of those in the Hewlett and Luce study said they would be healthier if they worked less, and 58% said work got in the way of strong relationships with children and spouses.
The conclusion drawn from this complex, multi-faced issue? Work-life balance centers on some basic beliefs and principles:
Family life: Successful parenting requires energy, time, patience and tolerance. Family time must be flexible and adaptive, and not just scheduled bits around work.
Home: The concept of the home needs to be seen as a creative place that reflects a sense of place, an extension of ourselves, a place where we can be free with our emotions, rather than a place for the bare essentials of storing our stuff, sleeping and eating. This takes time to create and sustain.
Friendship: The art of friendship requires a combination of affection, tolerance and patience and sense of constancy in difficult times. Yet when our work-life balance spirals out of control, often friendships, along with healthy habits such as exercise, are the first things to suffer. Several studies in the United States and Britain show that people are seeing less and less of their best friends. Yet, as our extended families become fractured, close friendships become even more important.
Community: Like family, home and friendships, our local communities depend on our time and energy to function effectively and spontaneously. If we lose that vital life-work balance then the many activities the neighborhood is responsible for are marginalized and community life declines.
As Hewlett and Luce observe, the attributes that give a workplace an advantage in recruiting and retention can change dramatically. And the culture that celebrates an extreme ethos today may tire of it overnight.
At minimum, senior executives should think carefully about the behaviour they are rewarding and encouraging.
•Ray Williams is executive vice president of Premier Career Management Group in Vancouver and president of the International Coach Federation of Vancouver.
|
|
|
|
