The Australian Government’s Department of Human Resources released its annual report last May and a shocking figure was revealed. Its full-time workers took an average of 16.25 days of unscheduled leave last financial year, an increase on the year before.
This might come as a surprise to many Australian women who have been experiencing the opposite: longer hours and fewer days off, increasing year to year.
“It started with people coming in an hour earlier to get a few extra things done. Now most of my team gets in before 8am and often they’re still there past 6:30pm,” says Christine Harmond, a design support officer at a medium-sized Sydney company.
The trend is Australia-wide. Only 47 per cent of people take all their allotted holiday days, clocking an average of 1690 hours per year at their workplaces.
“I hear women describe this sort of near-obsessive commitment to work with increasing frequency,” says Dr Peggy Drexler, a US-based professor of psychology and expert on workaholism. “It makes sense. These days, more and more women are embarking on, and staying with, careers that are personally fulfilling, identity making, and, yes, lucrative.”
But could being a ‘workaholic’ actually make you less efficient?
Andrew Ford is the director of Social Star, an Australian personal brand management agency. He coaches business professionals on streamlining their lives and believes that many Australian women are ‘killing themselves’ at work. “I have seen corporations where women try to be more like men, they work long hours and act tough.” They’re staying late, making poor food and lifestyle choices and in the long term, it’s their careers that are suffering.
In the end, many women find that something has got to give.
“I am a hard worker but I constantly feel like I have to prove myself. Once the benchmark has been raised, it just keeps getting higher,” explains mother of two Harmond. “I see people here, both managers and junior staff, burning the candle at both ends. I don’t think it’s healthy.”
Ford, author of corporate guidebook Creating A Powerful Brand, goes into the various consequences of workaholism he has seen while coaching business professionals and discusses what women can do to make sure they don’t fall into this trap.
- Less productivity: “When I was working for global corporations I saw lots of busy people who were working many hours, but unproductive hours,” Ford says. “At one particular large IT company, compliance work for each manager was 80 per cent of their role – those that broke the ‘rules’ and focussed on productivity were less compliant but actually got ahead of those who did what they were told.”
- Poor lifestyle choices: “When I worked a late shift, I always ended up eating takeaway rather than a healthy home cooked meal,” Harmond explains. “If your highest value is work, there are many areas of life that require attentions such as health, spirituality, education, family and friends,” Ford says. “I do believe too much focus on one area of your life can negatively impact your career as you don’t have balance or perspective.”
- Strained relationships: Overseas, the American Journal of Family Therapy took a snapshot of family life. It looked at the impact of workaholic parents on their children and, according to Drexler, “the news isn’t good. In one study, adult children of workaholic fathers experienced more depression and anxiety and a weaker sense of self.” “Workaholics often go months without seeing friends; put their marriages on cruise control, much in the way that alcohol might do for an alcoholic or sex for a sex addict,” Drexler explains.
- Worsening physical health: A number of studies show that workaholism has been associated with a wide range of health problems, such as insomnia, anxiety, and heart disease. Harmond says that one of her colleagues confessed that even when he went on holidays with his family, he constantly thought about work, to the point where he was unable to sleep, unwind or relax. “He returned more stressed than when he left,” she says. “I could see that it was unhealthy.”
- Increased stress: “When workaholics aren’t busy working, or doing something to promote their work, they feel anxious and guilty,” says Drexler. “Work is who they are, and how they define themselves. For many, it’s how they develop feelings of self-worth.” Ford agrees. “If the work they are doing is unfulfilling and not assisting them to move towards their ultimate goal they will feel stressed and dissatisfied. Particularly if the work conflicts with an important value such as family or relationships.”
- Inability to focus on the “big picture”: Drexler says, “Todays’ female employees are among the first generation to have been raised by mothers who placed importance not just on a job, but a career. For many of these women, the slide into workaholism seems almost predisposed.” “I see it all the time at work,” Harmond says, “people who overwork often fail to think about longevity – they’re so busy focusing on a set of tasks that they burn out.”
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, while it may seem as if Australians are working longer hours than ever, our average actual hours worked have decreased over the past three decades. However, the average actual hours worked by full-time and part-time employed people have steadily increased.
When does hard work become workaholism?
In the study Workaholism a 21st-century addiction, researcher Mark Griffiths looks at workaholism and compares it to other addictive behaviours.
“The real difference between healthy excessive behaviours and addictions is that healthy behaviours add to life where as addictions take away from it,” he says. Just because someone works 14 hours a day does not make them a workaholic, “it could perhaps be argued that all true work addicts work excessively but not all excessive workers are addicted.”
Ford says, “I believe it is too blunt a comment to say women who are workaholics has a negative influence on their lives. I feel a better question is to review what they really want to achieve in their lives and if this high work rate is supporting this process.”