News
The Myth of "Work Life Balance"
You would probably be forgiven for thinking that our Government is hell bent on making us work less.
First, this year saw the introduction of legislation requiring employers to take reasonable steps to ensure against fatigued workers.
At the same time, a campaign was mounted to make it compulsory for New Zealand employers to offer their workers four weeks annual holiday.
And then most recently, employers have been encouraged to provide for a healthy "work-life balance" - in essence, acknowledging a need to limit the obligations of work to allow for a person to have a healthy life outside of it.
Is all of this encouragement likely to result in a reduction of work hours for all employees? Probably not, if recent evidence from Australia is anything to go by.
The pace of life in our society is undeniably more racy than in decades past. There may be those who fondly remember the introduction of the supposedly-sacred 40 hour working week. Now, according to the Australian Review of Statistics, one in five people works longer than 50 hours a week.
It doesn't stop there.
We are apparently sleeping less than we used to - almost 20% less than our ancestors did 100 years ago. A review by the Australian Centre for Sleep Research suggests that Australia is fast approaching - or may have already passed - the point of diminishing returns in industry because of the negative effect of fatigue upon productivity.
So why are we working more than we used to? And will legislation be likely to slow us down?
There are probably a number of reasons contributing to employees' inclination to work longer hours.
First - and perhaps most simply - income pressure may be a significant motivator. For those in jobs which pay at or below the average wage, it may simply be necessary to work longer hours (either by way of overtime, or in a second job) just to make ends meet. Those employees may be unlikely to have the luxury of being able to slow down for the sake of balancing their lives.
Put simply, even though employees in this situation may acknowledge that working long hours is not good for their health (or for their families) they may simply take the view that they are required to do so because of economic pressure.
Secondly - and perhaps intriguingly - other people work long hours because they enjoy doing so, and perceive that they are made better off for it.
Of those in the Australian survey who worked more than 50 hours a week, nearly half the men and one third of the women said that they were satisfied about working long hours. Many of these people did not get remunerated for working extra hours (ie beyond the "usual business hours" of their employers).
So why do it?
For one thing, it appears that these employees internalise the objectives of their organisation, regarding it as an institutional obligation to work these hours. In other words, if you work in a place that values dedication and long hours, you will be more likely to perform accordingly.
When encouraging his staff to improve the Apple Macintosh, Steve Jobs reputedly split his employees into two teams and had them compete against each other - with significant incentive offered to the successful team. Give a person a job, and they will resent work. Give them a cause, and they just might lay down their life for it.
Further, there is evidence that suggests that working long hours boosts an employee's prospects of success in his or her career. The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey concluded that preparedness to work long hours could lead to career advancement - while, in contrast, employees who gained reputations as clock watchers would often fail to progress through the application stage for new positions.
Taken together, this evidence suggests that - despite the undeniable merit of the sentiment underlying the encouragement of a healthy "work life balance" - it may be difficult to legislate for some employees to reduce their hours of work.
A significant number of overworked employees may feel the need to continue their high rate of work simply to address economic requirements. In contrast, however, the Australian evidence suggests that many workers work long hours because they regard it as an inherent part of their job - and because it is an undeniable component of success in some careers.
Oscar Wilde once suggested that a person should do in their life what they loved, so that they never had to work at all. In a similar vein, this Australian evidence would suggest that if one's work is one's life, one should have no worries about "balancing" anything at all.
