How is asking your staff to work 7 days a week reversing productivity?

Have you seen the TV Show, WeCrashed? It’s a limited series on Apple TV about the rise and fall of the flexible workspace company WeWork, with pretty decent performances by Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. But why am I talking about this when we are supposed to discuss productivity and overworking? Well, there is a line in one of the episodes, that really hit home for me, and I believe sums up the challenges of the “millennial” generation, especially in the early 2010s. It went like this: “We can’t lose the millennials! They are the only people willing to work 80 hours a week for free beer and t-shirts.” And my first thought was: well, damn, I am so happy that those days are finally behind us.

Simply put, overworking long hours and pulling all-nighters for a job is just simply “not cool” anymore. Frowned upon even, I’d say. And there are many very obvious reasons for this. let’s just quickly take a look at some of those:

1. Fatigue: Working 24/7, and being “on call” all the time can lead to feeling constantly tired, even during regular work hours, which of course, will negatively affect one’s overall productivity and performance.
2. Decrease in morale and burnout: I have already mentioned that people are any organization’s most important assets. Burning your people out as quickly as you can, will lead to mistakes, decreased productivity, constant stress, and in the end, higher attrition. This, of course, will mean that you will need to hire new people, that will need to be trained again, which will take time, which affects the productivity of your current staff, and basically, the vicious circle starts again.
3. Lack of work-life balance: When employees are asked to work 7 days a week, it can disrupt their personal and family life, and their overall well-being. And no, this is not just an “avocado generation” thing, mental well-being is very important. Even if we just look at it from an efficiency and effectiveness point of view, happy people always perform better, which means they stay longer at the organization they work at, which in the end will result in actual savings by not needing to rehire people constantly for the same jobs.
4. Lack of creativity and innovation: Having no time off can lead to an environment where people will only want to just get the job done and get out, as quickly as they can. They will not have the drive to stay creative and come up with new and innovative approaches. And I believe politics is definitely one of those areas where creativity and innovation are most needed.

With all those points being raised above, anyone can do whatever they want in their free time, of course, and if they do choose to work (let’s say because they work flexible hours, or they have started their own project, etc.) is an entirely different story. However, the word “choice” is what’s important here. No one should be asked, or expected to do that. So let’s focus on stability instead of stress, clear and normal communication over fear and manipulation, and overall well-being, instead of coffee at 11 PM on a Sunday in your office or work home desk.

Author: Attila Kerekes

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