The culture of presenteeism is going to destroy British staff | Archie Bland

It’s the middle of the doing work day, and you’re at your desk. A person is paying you to be there. But instead of the crucial business you’ve been tasked with, you’re studying the Guardian.

Associated: Working longer hrs increases stroke threat, significant study finds

Screw the boss, you may possibly say: I want a break. However, however, it would seem that even slacking at function may possibly not be doing you any excellent. A comprehensive new examine has proven that people who function very extended hours encounter a 33% increased danger of stroke. Nor is this the 1st proof of the wellness hazards connected with overwork. No wonder you need to switch off for a bit.

Here’s the striking issue, although: the dilemma diagnosed here is not doing work tougher: it is functioning longer. A lot of the danger is related with bodily inactivity, and the review does not differentiate in between the worker completing a spreadsheet and the one particular liking Facebook photographs of babies. The danger doesn’t lie in what you’re sitting there doing. It lies in the fact that you’re sitting there at all.

It is greater to look occupied and have a stroke, we truly feel, than to get issues accomplished then switch off.

Oh dear, you fret, we’re all going to keel over. Then you flip to yet another story about the UK’s enormous productivity dilemma and wonder how on earth we’re going to resolve that. And then you think about possibly doing a spot of perform ahead of lunch.

It surely doesn’t take a presentation from Heather in HR to stage out the absurdity of this. It is intuitively clear that the longer you are anticipated to drudge, the significantly less productive your drudgery is most likely to be. And this isn’t just a hunch: there is a sturdy correlation in between nations working longer hrs and being significantly less productive.

And but we remain instinctive presenteeists. Anecdotes in the NYT investigation into Amazon’s functioning culture this week may possibly have been excessive – no time for slacking off there – but particular components sounded acquainted for several of us, specifically the late night emailing. It is better to look hectic and have a stroke, we truly feel, than to get issues accomplished then switch off.

How to repair this? Properly, for an enlightened employer, it wouldn’t be so difficult. Have an automated hometime reminder from the CEO pop up on each and every screen when six o’clock rolls about ban electronic mail soon after 8pm except in genuine emergencies. When a person finishes a project early, reward them with the afternoon off.

At the moment, this utopian situation appears unlikely. We continue to be in the grip of a political narrative that heralds the strivers and scorns the shirkers David Cameron was reported to have manufactured an opt-out from the doing work hrs directive a single of his goals in renegotiating our membership of the EU. And if our leaders are not ready to declare that the 1am email need to go unanswered, it is tough to see any person else carrying out so. They may well start off by reforming their own culture – for there are handful of workplaces a lot more addicted to this macho nonsense than Westminster. But I really don’t suppose any of them will be studying this. They are all as well bloody hectic.

The culture of presenteeism is going to destroy British staff | Archie Bland