Ashleigh sits on her sofa after a long day, relaxing into the cushions. She turns on the TV, only to hear Microsoft Teams bling from the other room. Lifting her mobile into view, she sees the time – its 7:30pm. Dominic is asking for the document for the new project – his deadline is tomorrow and he wants to get this finished.
She sighs, and Ashleigh heads back to her desk, sending the link to Dom so he can crack on. She glances at her inbox, 13 messages unread since she signed off an hour ago. A few replies won’t take long, she thinks. Before she knows it, she glances at the clock and its 11:15pm. Having forgotten to eat, she grabs a packet of crisps and goes to bed.
The alarm dings at 5am. Given her late finish, she skips her morning exercise, and spends the morning despondently scrolling Instagram, when her phone lights up with an email from an international colleague who is a few hours ahead. Before she knows it, Ashleigh has skipped breakfast and is knee-deep in her day’s work.
This is the ‘new normal’ for a huge portion of our workforce. The millennial workforce was, pre-COVID, already competing harder for jobs. Because the retirement age keeps creeping up, there are fewer jobs and so when they eventually land their job, they are under so much pressure to perform to try and avoid the inevitable redundancy. Promotion opportunities can be thin on the ground and standing out is challenging. And so they become the Ashleighs and Dominics – the Workaholics.
There is also a disturbing new trend of Presenteeism. COVID-19 has shown us that staff can work from home when they are showing symptoms of COVID-19, but this has seeped into ‘If you are unwell, work from home’. In an article published last year by Canada Life, the first lockdown is blamed, assumed to be the culprit. Now, as the pressure is higher than ever for the workplace to reduce sickness absence, 35% of the workforce have continued to work while feeling unwell.
A staggering 41% of 26-34 year olds have said they try to work when sick, compared to just 20% of the workforce over 55.
The fact is – Workaholism is a public health concern. Addiction to work can lead to depression, anxiety, OCD and even sleep disorders. Where sleep is disturbed, we already know this can increase the risk of hypertension, strokes, heart attacks, chronic pain, immune deficiencies, memory loss and even fertility issues.
Recovery from this is not as simple as ‘take a week off’. Employers need to create rules and guidance to ensure staff are able to set healthy boundaries to preserve their sanity in the workplace. This could include providing work laptops and phones rather than requiring employees to use their own, and allowing these to be turned off when the working day ends. Many workplaces now also have staff wellbeing programmes to make sure that staff are able to access support with mental health, physical health, eye care and other support pertinent to a healthy work/life balance. It is also imperative that employers support their managers in encouraging teams to take their annual leave regularly, and to stay away from work during this time. However, since many employees keep their devices at home, enforcing this can be challenging.
Many companies are investing in workplace coaching, leadership development, and team development programmes to nurture their people. These programmes focus on a range of things tailored to the team, such as resilience, boundaries, general wellbeing, gratitude and mindfulness practise, and improving interpersonal communication. This in-depth exploration is indeed effective and addresses more than the individual, but the team and the system and culture within the team.
While somewhat reactive, these techniques are seeing some incredible results – none of us could have really pre-empted the negative impacts of the pandemic. We can only hope these methods tackle the core issues to prevent further stresses on the workforce, the NHS and indeed the individuals affected by workaholism.
