Long Hours Culture

[Legaleagle]

Do you work long hours?

If so, do you get paid for the extra hours you spend at work or do you provide them to your employer free of charge? Do you acheive more by working those extra hours than you could have done had you simply applied yourself harder during the hours you were actually contracted to work?

I am naturally lazy and value my free time immensely. My working life is a constant battle between having to be seen to be working and the desire to bunk off and do something else at any given opportunity. I tend to genuinely "work" for only about 4 of the hours that I spend in the office each day, although I am actually supposed to be there for about 8 hours each day.

I am the only person I know who is like this. Almost everyone else is compulsively present at their desk at all times as if to be absent would mark them out as a slacker and a target for redundancy. They all enthusiastically compare workloads and moan about the amount they have to do, yet my work load is no larger or smaller than theirs. I find such conversations pointless and irritating and refuse to get drawn in to the "whose more stressed" competition. I find myself being naturally very sceptical of people's motives in this respect.

I remember when the working time directives came over from Europe there were howls of protest as if it were the end of civilization as we knew it because we were no longer allowed to ask people to work more than 38 hours a week (or whatever it was).

As a Nation, are we chained to our desks by guilt and lack of imagination?
Is it time to break free of the shackles?:smiley:

[Araneus]

I most certainly do not work long hours, and if I do work a small amount of overtime (1 - 2 hours) I make sure that I am paid for it.

I find the notion that people would (or even should) work overtime for nothing absolutely mind-boggling. Unless of course they enjoy their job so much that it doesn't seem like "work", but such people must be in the minority.

[Cuddles]

I think the long hours culture is completely insane and I'm really quite glad that there are more and more regulations coming in to prevent it. I don't think it's guilt or anything like that that makes people do this though, it is mainly peer pressure and pressure from above. This seems to be especially the case for "big city" jobs like finance and law. Although you can't legally be punished for actually working your correct hours, if you don't work as much as everyone else you have no chance of promotion. There are some parallels in game theory and evolution, if just a few people are willing to work longer hours then everyone has to or they will all fall behind. This means that no-one actually gains any advantage from working long hours, but anyone that stops doing so immediately loses. It's hard to do anything about this because it is not necessarily the employers that are forcing people to work, it is internal competition, and you can't really punish employers for rewarding the people who do the most work.

There are also some jobs where it is pretty much impossible not to work long hours. Medicine for example. If doctors and nurses (and their support staff of course) actually worked their contract hours the entire healthcare system would collapse. Also, if an operation takes 12 hours then it takes 12 hours, you can't just leave in the middle of it because your time is up for the day. Obviously this is an unsual case, but it does show that simply slapping on a generic maximum working time is not the answer because some jobs just don't work like that.

I really like flexi-time and think it should be much more widespread, although it is not suitable for all jobs. I can work pretty much whenever I feel like, and as long as I put in enough hours each month no-one cares exactly when I do them.

[Legaleagle]

It's hard to do anything about this because it is not necessarily the employers that are forcing people to work, it is internal competition, and you can't really punish employers for rewarding the people who do the most work.

I think it is the employers who should look at making people stop working long hours in many cases. It is the example set by the employer that makes all the difference. Workaholic bosses encourage a workaholic employee culture in my experience.

Employers should encourage people to use their breaks and to go home on time. There is much to suggest that increased productivity more than makes up for the working hours lost by this strategy. They also end up with happier more well rounded employees.

Employers should look at employees who work long hours with suspicion. If this person cannot get the work set them done in the time available maybe they are incompetent?

So much long hours culture is more about peoples' perceptions rather than actual workloads to my mind, but I will agree with you that there are exceptions such as Doctors and some city workers who are probably genuinely overworked.

[Araneus]

I think it is the employers who should look at making people stop working long hours in many cases. It is the example set by the employer that makes all the difference. Workaholic bosses encourage a workaholic employee culture in my experience.

Worse, some employers even promote such a culture in an attempt to improve company performance without having to pay for it. Although my employer does not attempt to force people to work long hours, it is made very clear on numerious occasions that "workaholism" and willingness to work long hours (with or without payment) is what is valued in an employee.

[Melanie]

I am in the fortunate position of having a job I adore and which often doesn't seem like work at all. I often work extra hours, but the small company I work for does notice my extra effort and rewards me as far as they are able.

I agree with previous posters that in a larger company my extra effort would probably go unnoticed and unrewarded and would be taken as the norm.

However, even though I enjoy what I'm doing, I don't think it's a healthy way to operate. I suffer with Saturday migraine far too often and am too worn out most Friday evenings to even consider going out and socialising - I just want an early night.

Can't seem to quit it though!

[Mongrel]

Worse, some employers even promote such a culture in an attempt to improve company performance without having to pay for it. Although my employer does not attempt to force people to work long hours, it is made very clear on numerious occasions that "workaholism" and willingness to work long hours (with or without payment) is what is valued in an employee.
No, no - they value "team players" ;D

I've long been of the opinion that it's the American companies (with their less stringent employment laws) combined with the wholesale decimation of the unions that's bought about this sorry state of affairs.

Also some professions rely on the fact that the people aren't doing it for the money, healthcare being the prime example.

[Woodchopper]

Another issue which hasn't been raised is competition. I'm a fairly young academic. I'm under a lot of pressure to write more and more articles and grant proposals, to go to all the conferences and to do administrative work for my employer.

No one is telling me that I have to work 10 hours plus a day. But I have been doing that today (and most days) because I know that I will get more done, and more importantly if I don't other people will. And after a few years they will have much more impressive CVs than I do (published articles, grants awarded etc). And they will be the ones still in employment.

We would all be better off if we all just relaxed a bit. But as long as one person is prepared to work an extra 10 hours a week then every one else feels that they have to be as productive. Qualification inflation sets in, you have to do more and more just to be average....

[Cuddles]

No one is telling me that I have to work 10 hours plus a day. But I have been doing that today (and most days) because I know that I will get more done, and more importantly if I don't other people will. And after a few years they will have much more impressive CVs than I do (published articles, grants awarded etc). And they will be the ones still in employment.

That's kind of what I was getting at. Some people will always do lot's of extra work for whatever reason, whether it is just enjoyment or because of ambition. As long as just a few do so, everyone else is forced to just to keep up so they don't look bad in comparison. It is not always the employer's fault (although it may be in some cases), it is simple competition, and it isn't really possible to stop it.

OK, you can pass laws to make it illegal for people to work long hours, but how can you possibly catch all the employers that don't actively prevent people from doing so? And even if you somehow can, how can you stop people working at home or in their breaks?

It's simple game theory. When all peacocks have a big tail, none of them get's any advantage from it, but any peacock that decides to have a short tail has an immediate disadvantage. If everyone decides to have a short tail then everyone benefits, but as long as just one grows a long tail, all the others are forced to do so so they don't lose out.

[tkingdoll]

I run my own business and work anywhere between 12-18 hours a day, seven days a week. Sometimes I work 48 hours straight, albeit with little breaks, but it's not rare for me to not go to bed.

You people have it great :D

[Araneus]

I run my own business and work anywhere between 12-18 hours a day, seven days a week. Sometimes I work 48 hours straight, albeit with little breaks, but it's not rare for me to not go to bed.

On the other hand, the success of your business is also your personal success, and if you work hard enough you may be able to reap the rewards. The success of my employer's company won't give me anything more than a couple of hundred pounds annual bonus (if anything), and if I worked 18 hours all I would get is a modest overtime payment.

I'd love to have the business acumen, energy and dedication to run my own company, but I don't.

[Legaleagle]

I run my own business and work anywhere between 12-18 hours a day, seven days a week. Sometimes I work 48 hours straight, albeit with little breaks, but it's not rare for me to not go to bed.

You people have it great :D

Goodness, I just can't imagine what you would do for a living to have to work those hours. Ever thought of a career change;)

My old man was a workaholic and I almost never saw him as a kid, the only childhood memories I have of him are of family holidays when he used to turn up grumpily and grudgingly and then gradually unwind over the course of a fortnight until by the last few days he was actually pretty good company. Then when we got back home he would disappear off again working all hours.

When I got a bit older he used to drag me into work with him during the school holidays and I would have to do odd jobs around his office but generally just sit around bored to tears. I suppose he thought it would instill the work ethic into me. It had precisely the opposite effect and my whole outlook now is one of determination never to waste my time simply "going through the motions", trying to be busy all the time, as if to be idle was against the law or contrary to some sort of moral code.

I guess I have been lucky in career choices which have got me to a point where I don't need to work long hours, or be seen to be working long hours, to be successful. But then maybe it's my determination not to have to work long hours that has got me to that pint (I mean "point", Freudian slip there):ponder:

[wollery]

I have the best job in the world.

Nobody cares how many hours I do, or even if I go to the office, just as long as I produce some work now and again. And then they pay for me to go to interesting places all over the world to tell other people how wonderful I am and how great my work is. ;D

[tkingdoll]

Goodness, I just can't imagine what you would do for a living to have to work those hours. Ever thought of a career change;)



It's a new business (a year old), so it won't always be this way.

I'm in that marvellous period of rapid expansion. Work is coming in faster than I can get the infrastructure in place, so I end up doing a lot of it myself. Plus I've been very, very lucky and had some extremely high-profile projects lately.
I love it really, and yes, I do get to reap all the rewards as the only shareholder :D

[Sgt Badass]

A year ago I was a freelancer and now I am a business owner in a company with six staff. The people working for us are wonderful and it appears they enjoy their work immensely and yes, sometimes they work long hours.

It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately you sometimes can't fit everything into a 9-5 day and flexibility is the key.

Should there be a working time limit? Yes, but not to the detriment of business, it needs to be flexible.

An argument levelled at business is that if there is too much work to do then you should get more staff, however it's never that easy. Work very often comes in peaks, it's difficult to level it out (although we do try) and so every now and then some extra work is needed. It would be crazy in today's competitive world to expect a company to take on the extra overhead of a staff member that was only working 40% of the time.

tkingdoll: the novelty of those hours will soon wear off! Take it from me, by far the best feeling ever is when that work you used to do is done by someone else while you spend your time in forums like this!!!

[Araneus]

It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately you sometimes can't fit everything into a 9-5 day and flexibility is the key.

The problem is that "flexibility" is often used by business owners as a euphemism for "You must sacrifice your entire personal life to the needs of the business, and expect nothing in return". This presumably isn't the case in every company, but whenever I hear that word I assume that a demand for largely-uncompensated sacrifice is imminent.


Should there be a working time limit? Yes, but not to the detriment of business, it needs to be flexible.If you mean that employees who are willing to work the extra hours should be free to do so, then I agree with you. However, this should always be on a voluntary basis: companies cannot just demand that employees give up their free time unless this was agreed as part of their contract.

[Sgt Badass]

Totally agree with all of that.

We've just had an instance where a customer dropped a bombshell on us at the end of the month. They wanted us to work late and over the weekend to get something done.

Not how it works in our place. In order to keep the customer happy I *could* have asked, nay demanded the staff stay late. I *could* have asked if they wanted to work over time and I *could* have hassled them to come in early this morning.

I've worked for many companies where 'the customer is always right'. This is wrong. Customers aren't your most important asset, your staff are. Unfortunately many businesses don't see it that way. Losers.