As the boundaries between office hours and off hours continue to
blur, one in three American employees report being chronically
overworked, according to a survey released Tuesday.
Slightly more workers forfeit some of their paid vacation time --
and two in five work while on vacation -- in part because they can't
escape their demanding jobs.
Overwork in America, a 54-page report issued by the non-profit
Families and Work Institute, underscores the irony that the very
factors giving companies a competitive edge and healthy bottom line
-- technology, multitasking and globalization -- may be undermining
their workers' physical and emotional well-being.
``Technology has made staying in touch instantly much more
available. That creates the expectation of an instant response,''
said Ellen Galinsky, president of the New York research institute.
``How many times have you seen people at parties with their
BlackBerry? Or sitting in church with their BlackBerry?''
And you can bet they're often answering work e-mails.
The study, based on phone interviews with 1,003 U.S. wage and
salaried employees in October and November, shows that one in three
workers is in contact with co-workers, supervisors, customers or
clients at least once a week outside normal business hours.
A year and a half ago, when Albert So was principal engineer at a
Mountain View-based game developer that had at most 15 employees, he
routinely skipped dinner and didn't get home in time to tuck his
newborn son into bed.
His boss called him at home on nights and weekends, urging him to
drop what he was doing -- including his father's birthday
celebration -- and fix a glitch. He didn't have to leave the house
but said ``that hid the problem.''
Skipping vacation
And So never took advantage of his 15 annual vacation days
``because nobody else did.''
The 33-year-old is happier now that he works elsewhere. But
others remain miserable. Employees who toil without enough down time
to rest and recover make more mistakes, exhibit poorer health and
show more symptoms of clinical depression, the study stated.
Also, 39 percent of intensely overworked employees say they are
angry at their employers for expecting so much of them, vs. only 1
percent of employees who have low levels of overwork. And 34 percent
of extremely overworked employees often resent their co-workers who
don't work as hard, compared with 12 percent of employees at low
levels of overwork.
While the percentage of people who feel overworked hasn't changed
since the institute conducted its initial study in 2001, Galinsky
said, the reasons people give for why work environments feel
stressful have shifted. While workers have more flexibility with
their schedules, their bosses also demand more of them, particularly
to compensate for recent layoffs.
Santa Clara County employers have slashed about 200,000 jobs
since the height of the dot-com boom five years ago.
Galinsky said: ``People who have experienced job insecurity and
people who've seen a lot of downsizing are more likely to be highly
overworked'' -- 42 percent of employees at companies where payrolls
have been pinched vs. 27 percent of those where head count hasn't
slipped.
While rank-and-file employees may not have much choice,
executives may also succumb to work overload -- although they may
deny it.
100 hours a week
Rand Morimoto, president of Convergent Computing, spends more
than 100 hours a week bolstering the image of his Oakland-based
Internet security company, which has 65 employees. Even though he
receives 30 vacation days a year, he uses only five of them -- for
Christmas and a few other special occasions.
``The tough part about vacation is I work twice as many hours
before I leave on vacation to prepare to go,'' he said. ``And then
when I get back, I work twice as many hours to catch up.''
Despite Morimoto's non-stop schedule, he doesn't consider himself
``overworked.''
``I work for myself, and I choose to work as hard as I do,'' he
said. ``In this economy, you've got to work hard to keep your
job.
``I choose to work my butt off.''
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