My wife and I took a week off work recently. Nothing too fancy. We toured Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, including the Malvern Hills. We spent most of our time sight-seeing, walking, chatting over meals, reading and sleeping. Bliss! In a nutshell, we took some well-earned time out to de-stress, relax and re-charge our batteries.
When I returned to work, a colleague asked if I’d had an enjoyable break, and mentioned in passing that he had taken just 3 days of his annual holiday allowance so far this year! Just 3 days in 8 months! How can anyone possibly decompress and rest up properly in such a short space of time?
It got me thinking. Sadly, it strikes me that my colleague’s experience is becoming an all too familiar feature of the modern UK workplace. An unwelcome transatlantic import from our overworked and stressed out American cousins.
In contemporary workplace culture, not taking holidays and working long hours is often seen as a ‘badge of honour’. Rather than encouraging their staff to take time out, most corporations are complicit in encouraging such macho working practices, or at least tacitly consent to them by turning a blind eye.
‘More widgets’ is seen as an inherently good thing, even if productivity is close to zero, and it takes a disproportionately high amount of time and effort to create those extra widgets. Most corporations take the simplistic view that more of something is always better. Is it really?
The problem with our prevailing long-hours, ‘rest-when-you’re dead’ work place culture is that it ignores the hidden costs involved. Extra widgets are easy to measure. They are tangible outcomes. But the cost to companies, and society, in terms of sickness, stress, lost productivity, depression and burnout, are rarely factored into the profit and loss equation. If they were, corporations and governments might well think twice.
Like our US cousins, in spite of modern technology (or perhaps because of it), UK citizens work some of the longest hours in Europe, whilst at the same time having amongst the lowest holiday allowances. In spite of these comparatively higher inputs of time and energy, we are far less productive than many of our EU neighbours (including France and Germany), where working hours are lower!
What’s going on? Could it be, perhaps, that human beings need ‘a break’ now and again in order to remain productive? Hardly an intellectual leap, is it? Why, then, do we insist on stumbling blindly down this irrational and destructive path?
When starting my working life after leaving University, my first job was with an American recruitment firm. This was incredibly intensive and demanding work, often involving working 60 hour weeks with no paid overtime.
In spite of my obvious hard work, I still have vivid memories of my manager’s belligerent over-reaction to my audacious request for some time off over Christmas, our least busy time. The company culture was so gung-ho, so extreme, that I was viewed as lacking in commitment and ambition simply for wanting to take some of my statutory holiday entitlement; even though my employment contract didn’t allow me to carry any holiday allowance over to the following year!
I know what you’re thinking. How could I be so selfish? Taking advantage of a poor, defenceless, multi-million pound profit-maximising company. How do I sleep at night? Needless to say, my corporate benefactor and I parted ways shortly after this incident. The circumstances indicating that perhaps my employer didn’t really have my best interests at heart… or any sense of balance or proportionality whatsoever.
I now dread the day that some well-meaning boffin invents a pill that allows humans to survive on no sleep. How long before the taking of this supplement became a requirement in standard employment contracts? Call me cynical, but I’d be willing to bet you’d have approximately 10 whole seconds before hearing the impending stampede of corporate legal feet. If you were really lucky, you might just hear it a second or two before being strampled under foot by a sea of Italian leather soles and Jimmy Choos!
The long hours / ‘holidays are for wimps’ working culture is a dangerous false economy. One in which corporations, successive governments and we as individuals are all complicit.
We in the UK need to learn the lessons of our more enlightened European neighbours. These are nations that view people primarily as ‘citizens’ rather than ‘consumers’. As human beings rather than economic units of labour to be bought and sold for the lowest possible price by profit-hungry corporations.
We need to start re-thinking our assumptions about the world of work. What motivates and drives us to give our best? How do we moderate runaway, unfettered profit maximisation, and replace it with a principle of profit optimisation? How do we balance our working lives with our personal lives?
One easy first step in this direction would be for our government to show some political backbone by legislating for longer holiday entitlements and a shorter working week, say 35 hours. Other wealthy, western nations have high living standards and manage perfectly well with such policiies, so why not here in the UK?
The Corporations will not change by themselves. The profit motive is their only motive. For all their PR and spin regarding corporate social responsibility and charitable work, companies ultimately only care about rising share prices and rising profits. They are not our friends. They don’t care about our marital difficulties, bereavement issues, anxiety or depression. They will replace us in a heartbeat when we burn out. Probably with someone cheaper.
It will take genuine, sustained political will and enlightened government leadership to drive lasting cultural change in our working lives, and to send out the right signals to the business world. However, we can also ensure that we take some personal responsibility for our own physical and mental health, by taking our full holiday entitlement, and leaving work at a reasonable time.
You owe it to yourself, your partner, your family, your friends, and your employer, to ensure you take time out for rest and relaxation. Both to avoid burnout, and to ensure you remain productive. You can’t do this on 60-hour weeks and no holiday. You are human. You will break eventually.
So, what are you waiting for? Stop putting in face-time at the office. Stop answering phone calls and emails after work hours. Shut down your PC, switch off the mobile, and kick off your sensible work shoes. Give yourself some mental space, have some fun, and remind yourself what it’s like to be a ‘human’.
