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Guardian sustainable business ... How the ‘first-in-last-out’ ethic is creating a culture of overwork

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Guardian sustainable business How the ‘first-in-last-out’ ethic is creating a culture of overwork In order to thrive, businesses should focus more on what is actually being produced at work rather than how long employees spend at their desk

Years of research shows that consistently logging too much at the office harms both productivity and the quality of one’s work. Years of research shows that consistently logging too much at the office harms both productivity and the quality of one’s work. Photograph: Jaimie Trueblood/AMC/AMC/Lionsgate We’ve all heard the common success story, that of the successful lawyer, banker, businessman or doctor who counsels young professionals that an extreme work ethic is the key to success. Billionaire businessman and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg echoed this sentiment in his assertion: “I am not smarter than anybody else but I can out work you – and my key to success for you, or anyone else is to make sure you are the first one in there every day and the last one out to leave. Don’t ever take a lunch break or stop working.” Overwork is the price we pay for success, or so the story goes. While tech companies like Amazon and Facebook are notorious for long work hours, overwork is actually widespread across many different occupations, both high and low paying alike. There is no doubt that working long hours in short sprints is sometimes necessary. But years of research shows that consistently logging too much at the office harms both productivity and the quality of one’s work. For certain jobs, such as those in the medical or industrial fields, overwork raises the prevalence of accidents and mistakes that can be costly and dangerous. This was a major reason Henry Ford cut the workweek to 40 hours back in 1914, and saw profits and productivity soar. Why are Americans spending too much time at work? Read more Office staff that are overworked spend time doing increasingly meaningless tasks and tend to get lost in the weeds, eventually becoming unproductive. Stanford University economist John Pencavel found that a worker’s output drops sharply if he or she works too much. In one study, employees who put in more than 70 hours of work a week accomplished little more than those who worked 56 hours on a consistent weekly basis. In other words, those extra 14 hours were a complete waste of time. If we know the consequences of overwork, why do businesses think it’s a good strategy? Employers face fixed costs per employee, which means that inducing one employee to put in long hours, even if they are less productive, may be cheaper than hiring a second employee to split the work. Rising inequality is another factor in this equation. As businesses have downsized their labor force over the past several decades, a trend exacerbated by the recession of 2008, spending extra time at the office felt like a small price to pay for those who remained. Research shows that overwork is especially prevalent within many occupations that have the biggest gap between their highest and lowest-paid workers, including business and finance, the legal profession, and computer and mathematical science. And while some of these workers are well compensated, there are many more that are putting in an increasing number of hours without seeing any increase in pay. sustainable business sustainable business sustainable business Sign up today and receive exclusive member newsletters, networking opportunities, member-only discounts and more. Click here As a greater number of people began putting in longer hours, overwork became embedded in certain workplaces and organizational cultures. And, while the advent of technology allowed more flexible schedules for many workers, it also blurred the boundaries between work and home. Because evaluating the productivity of creative or knowledge workers is difficult, many managers consciously or subconsciously use long work hours and face time at the office as an evaluation metric rather than more concrete deliverables. A study of one firm by Boston University’s Erin Reid found that managers couldn’t tell the difference between their workers who were working 80-hour weeks, and those who just pretended to work 80 hours (while actually working much less). Both groups did well in their performance reviews. In contrast, those employees who were transparent in their need to work fewer hours were marginalized and received lower performance reviews regardless of what they accomplished. That’s why we need a cultural shift. The Obama Administration’s decision to raise the overtime income threshold gives some hope that things will change for certain workers. But policy reforms can only go so far. It’s hard to contemplate that any worker will suddenly cite “productivity” and leave the office before their colleagues do without the explicit approval of their boss. Businesses, then, must lead the way, and there are a number of companies that are doing so. Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for example, locks the doors at 6pm and bans employees from working from home because, as CEO Rich Sheridan says, “tired programmers start putting in lots of bugs”. Similarly, Leslie Perlow of Harvard Business School did an experiment with the Boston Consulting Group and found that mandating predictable, required time off resulted in higher employee satisfaction and retention. For these kinds of shorter work hours to be successful, of course, businesses must change the way they evaluate performance and focus on results and not hours. It’s important that these companies do not apply these policies on a case-by-case basis, which often backfire for those who take advantage of them, primarily women. That is because those who receive this “special treatment” are often resented by colleagues, or seen as less competent. Businesses who truly want to combat overwork, therefore, must implement and enforce policies that apply to everyone. That begins with ditching the hours-as-productivity model. Managers should instead focus on what is actually being produced rather than how long somebody stayed at work, at least for professional workers. That also means helping employees set realistic deadlines, and then getting out of the way. Giving workers more autonomy over their work results in greater efficiency, and results in more engaged, happier workers as well. These five tech companies are trying to solve Silicon Valley's diversity problem Read more Managers must set an example and protect non-work time by limiting their own after-hours communication, and mandating more regular work hours and vacations. They should also clearly define this non-work time, and not leave it to their employees to set boundaries. In fact, telling employees to take as much time as they need may actually result in people taking less time off, as they tend to fall back on the expectation that “good” employees are the ones that work the hardest. With all due respect to Mr Bloomberg, most of us have responsibilities outside of work that make it impossible to fulfill this “first-in-last-out” mindset. And even if we could, it’s clear that doing so not only wastes our time but also the time and money of our employers.