Working from home didn’t solve it; it just added some new forms of stress. American white-collar workers and those blue-collar workers facing increasing demand have their own stress issue. We’ve long known about Japan’s many cases of karoshi, a term translating to "death from overwork." Note the above picture. Karoshi had plagued Japanese society for decades. Japan started to notice a few years ago when a worker, who routinely put in 100 hours a week, just keeled over and died. The story created nationwide outrage, leading to the approval of the 2018 Workstyle Reform Act, outlawing employees from working more than 45 hours of overtime in a single month. But for Gen Xers in particular, they have developed some equally nasty “work habits” that are killing them and ending long marriages.
Writing for the March 26th FastCompany.com, Shalene Gupta, takes us into this less-than-optimal world: “Headspace, a digital mental health company, just published its sixth annual report on the workforce state of mind. The report uses survey data from over 2,000 workers in the United States and the U.K, along with nearly 250 HR leaders and over 200 CEOs, about their emotional and physical health at work. The aim is to track the latest trends in workplace wellness. Here are the report’s key findings:
“Work stress doesn’t end at work: On the contrary, it follows you home and ruins your life. According to the report, 77% of respondents said that work stress negatively impacted their physical health and 75% said it caused them to gain weight… Work stress hurts our relationships: A whopping 71% of people said work stress ended their relationship. Gen X employees were more likely (79%) than any other generation to report that work stress has led to a breakup or divorce… And our personal lives: Meanwhile, 37% of employees say work stress has caused in a mental health challenge such as suicidal ideation or substance use.
“Work can be a force for good: Workplaces don’t have to erode mental health. Over half of respondents said work had positively impacted their life by finding a community of like-minded people, while 48% said it improved their confidence and 44% said it helped them feel less lonely.
“Managers can hurt: 97% of employees said their mental well-being had been negatively impacted by their manager in the past year. About 43% said their manager did this by treating team members unequally, 41% said their manager failed to respect working hour boundaries, and 40% said their manager set an unreasonable workload.
“Or help: However, nearly 60% of employees reported that managers had a positive impact on them by being flexible about projects or scheduling when they had personal issues. While 48% of employees say they’ve turned to a manager for mental health support, only 24% of managers are required to take mental health training.” Whew! Meanwhile, there is an equal if not opposite push in the United States towards a four-day work week. Max Zahn, writing for ABC News, June 1, 2023, tells us that the movement is beginning to catch on, sort of:
“A host of countries and U.S. states have moved toward a four-day workweek or considered doing so, Juliet Schor, an economist in the Boston College Sociology Department who studies the issue, told ABC News… Spain, Iceland and South Africa are among the nations that have implemented a trial of the four-day workweek for select companies and workers.
“A six-month experiment in the United Kingdom, which involved 61 companies and about 2,900 workers, resulted in a continuation of the policy for 56 businesses or 92% of the employers, according to a February report from advocacy group 4 Day Week Global… Belgium imposed a law in November that requires employers to offer full-time workers a right to request a four-day workweek… ‘We're seeing more countries take steps, Schor said.
“At the state level, lawmakers in Massachusetts introduced a bill in April that would provide employers with a tax credit if they shift at least 15 workers to four days a week without cutting their pay. In January, legislators in Maryland introduced a similar bill before rescinding it months later… In California and the U.S. House, lawmakers have introduced bills that would set the standard workweek at 32 hours.” Excited? That more than a few unions are suggesting that they will ask for this in future collective bargaining? That workers who can opt for this seem better rested and happier? Don’t hold your breath… as least yet. Even as the March 7, 2023 Scientific American presents a showing that, “Working four days instead of five—with the same pay—leads to improved well-being among employees without damaging the company’s productivity.”
Curt Steinhorst, writing for the March 3, 2023 Forbes, disagrees: “It is not surprising that employees are working too many hours and burning out. During the pandemic, businesses were forced to accommodate the flexible, hybrid schedules of their employees. As it turns out, workers loved having options. In an effort to reduce stress and provide more flexibility, organizations such as Panasonic, Kickstarter, and even some school districts are considering implementing a four-day work week.
“While flexibility and reduced stress are important goals for managers of knowledge workers, there are several reasons why a four-day work week may not be the right solution. Three reasons why the 4-day work week won't solve burnout long-term: 1. It doesn't address the core issue of how we work, just how many days we do it. 2. It still measures work by time. [Not output] 3. The high achiever will ignore it, and the low achiever will take advantage of it… [Instead, he suggests:]
“Provide employees with flexibility and autonomy to get their work done how and when they need to. Set expectations for certain hours when everyone must be available, and grant autonomy for the rest of their time. Establish asynchronous workflows to ensure flexibility is possible.
“Measure performance by deliverables and output, not by hours. This is hard to do without clarity of deliverables. This free roles and responsibilities tool from Focuswise is a template for clarifying deliverables in each role to help accurately measure performance. Do the hard work to clarify what you expect from each role and define what each person is responsible for. Then measure performance based on those expectations.” So, what do you think?
I’m Peter Dekom, and I work mostly from my home office, and while the hours are long, the commute and having a cat to pet seem to make up for it.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment