|
By Paul J. Rosch, M.D.
President, The
American Institute of Stress
Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry
New York Medical College
Originally published in the Health and Stress, the newsletter
(June 2005) of The
American Institute of Stress
Several surveys have shown that work pressures are the major source
of stress for U.S. adults and that stress levels have progressively
increased over the past few decades. Some of the reasons for this
include job insecurity and studies showing that Americans are working
longer hours, taking fewer vacations and have less leisure time
to unwind.
The International Labor Office reported in 2003 that working hours
in the United States exceeded those in most other developed countries,
including Japan. In addition, over 15 million Americans were working
an evening shift, night shift, rotating shift or other irregular
schedule that was dictated by their employer.
A 2001 survey conducted by the Families and Work Institute had
previously revealed that one-third of U.S. employees reported that
they routinely felt overworked. Major contributors to this were
the lack of, or inability to take advantage of, a vacation and that
leisure time had to be spent on chores that could not be done during
the work week. The report generated so much media interest that
it was decided to repeat the study in greater depth every four years.
The second study, released in March by the Institute, was titled
"Overwork in America: When the Way We Work Becomes Too Much."
It found that 44 percent of U.S. employees were overworked "often"
or "very often." Respondents indicated that in the
past month they were either frequently or very frequently:
a) Overwhelmed by the amount of work they had to do (27 percent).
b) Didn't have the time to step back and process or reflect on
the work that they had been doing (29 percent).
c) Had to work a lot of overtime (26 percent).
Being overworked was defined as a value of over 2.7 after averaging
the answers to these three questions on a scale of 1 = never to
5 = very often. Only 29 percent of all respondents replied that
they had "rarely" or "never" experienced any
of these three problems.
When employees were separated into high, mid and low levels of
being overworked, there were clear differences between work-related
as well as personal problems. The high overworked level group
were more likely to make mistakes at work, feel angry at their employers
for expecting them to do so much, resent coworkers who didn't work
as hard as they did, have higher stress levels, be depressed or
have health problems, or be neglectful with respect to caring for
themselves. The breakdown on this was as follows:
-
20 percent of those reporting being highly overworked say they
make a lot of mistakes as opposed to none (0 percent) in those
who experienced low levels of overwork.
-
39 percent of those experiencing a high degree of overwork
say they felt very angry toward their employer in contrast to
only 1 percent in the low overwork group.
-
34 percent in the highly overworked group versus 12 percent
in the low overwork group say they often or very often resent
their coworkers.
-
Half the high overwork employees report their health as good
compared to two-thirds of the low overwork group.
-
Only 41 percent of those who experience high overwork say they
are very successful in being able to take good care of themselves
versus 68 percent of the low overwork group.
-
Only 8 percent of the low overwork cohort had high levels of
depressive symptoms compared to 21 percent of those who were
highly overworked.
-
36 percent of the highly overworked group are highly stressed
compared with only 6 percent who experience low levels of overwork.
These last two observations are of particular interest since the
World Health Organization reported that by 2020, clinical depression
will outrank cancer and follow only heart disease as the second
leading cause of death and disability in the world. In addition,
in Galinsky's 1999 "Ask The Children" report, which launched
the Work and Families Institute, when asked their one wish to
improve how their mother's and father's work affected their lives,
most children wished their parents would be less stressed and less
tired.
The Institute's latest study found that the feeling of being overworked
often stemmed from an inability to complete an assignment because
of having to work on too many tasks at the same time and/or frequent
interruptions. These problems are increasing because "in many
organizations there is simply more work to do with less time
and fewer people to do it."
Almost nine out of 10 employees experienced one or both of the
following pressures. "My job requires that I work very hard"
and "I never seem to have enough time to get everything done
on my job." When responses to these questions were averaged,
54 percent of employees who felt highly pressured on the job fell
into the highly overworked category compared to only 4 percent of
those who felt low levels and 18 percent who experienced moderate
levels of being pressured.
Another contributor is having to do tasks that are perceived as
having little value or a waste of time, like "having a meeting
to plan a meeting to plan a meeting, etc." Overall, 29 percent
of employees strongly or somewhat agreed that they spent a lot of
time doing things that are unnecessary. Over half of those who said
they had to perform a lot of such low-value duties considered themselves
to be highly overworked in contrast to only 25 percent who didn't
have this complaint.
Women were more likely to be overworked than men were. This might
seem counterintuitive because men tend to work longer hours; they
are more accessible to employers during non-working hours and work
in areas that are more prone to being overly demanding. However,
women reported that their jobs required multi-tasking much more
often than men did, which may be a crucial factor.
When women and men with equal multi-tasking jobs were compared,
gender differences disappeared, suggesting that more multi-tasking
may explain the greater likelihood for women to be overworked.
Gary Craig's
| 