We all need a break from time to time.
The longer I am in the work force, the more I hold this to be true.
To those of you who love your jobs enough to not be working them, I salute you. Some people do love their jobs enough where it does not feel like work to them.
But for most people, work is not life.
One of my favourite sayings is from blogger Natalie Edwards: “You weren’t born to just pay bills and die.”
In 2017, just under 7 million Canadians were working 40-hour work weeks, according to online statistics from www.Statista.com. Another 2 million worked over 40 hours a week.
I do not know the culture of the more-than-40-hour-work-week employees. The statistics do not illustrate whether this comes from pressure from employers, people’s love of their work or good benefits.
However, in other countries, people are finding this kind of behaviour destructive.
In Japan, people are dying from being overworked.
In 2016, 21.3 per cent of employees in Japan logged 49 hours of work a week, accumulating over 80 hours of overtime a month, according to the White Paper report on karoshi, or death by overwork.
With people dying from working too much in Japan, should that not be a sign that being overworked does not pay?
Look at the Netherlands, where workers have the shortest work weeks, at an average of 29 hours a week.
Before the thought pops into anyone’s heads, this is not a sign of laziness, but a sign of knowing the benefits of shorter work weeks.
More and more studies are being done that show that people who work shorter weeks live more productive lives and are healthier than people who are overworked.
Shorter work weeks also mean that more people can join the workforce, according to a report from the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics.
While the short work week is not a perfect system, neither is one where people are over worked.
In Canada in 2016, 25 per cent of people quit their jobs because of stress,
and another 17 per cent of people have considered it, according to a survey done by Monster.ca, an employment website.
We all experience stress on the job, but if people are at the level of quitting their jobs, these are not the minor stresses that everyone experiences.
For a lot of employees, trying to get ahead in a career while still trying to remain mentally healthy can be stressful.
“Working Canadians are under a lot of pressure on the job – this, coupled with personal commitments and a desire to advance professionally, may be creating a heightened sense of stress at work,” said Angela Payne, general manager for Monster Canada in an article about the study. “For those starting out in their careers, saying yes to opportunities can be second nature. But the work can add up fast, which may impact stress levels.”
This level of stress is not only bad for employees, but also bad for employers who have to deal with loses in productivity and staff retention.
Things are not going to get better unless employers start having these discussions.
