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Give work’s bad habit of ‘hustle culture’ the boot this new year

Our relationship with work has become increasingly unhealthy and prevailing culture of overwork is as bad for business as it is for employees

The 'always on' hustle culture of the modern workplace is draining for employees and counterproductive for employers. Photograph: iStock

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Olive Keogh
Thu Jan 11 2024 - 10:00

“It’s not you, it’s me,” is the loaded one-liner that often precedes the break-up of a big romance. However, when it comes to working relationships, “it’s not me, it’s you” might be a more accurate reflection of what causes employees to quit.

Organisations tend to put their best foot forward when hiring. Carefully honed corporate messages can be irresistible to prospective candidates, especially if the job or organisation has a particular appeal for them. But once inside, the picture can look very different. That’s when the attitudes and behaviours that really underpin an organisation are experienced full on with no filters.

Chatting to one thirtysomething over Christmas, it quickly became clear that the dream job she thought she’d landed a few years ago had turned out to be nothing of the sort. She’s now so completely disenchanted with her employer that she’s reluctantly become a “silent quitter” (someone who stops going the extra mile) as she plots her next move.

What’s really bugging her is how the company’s innocent enough sounding commitment to “a strong work ethic” turned out to mean a routine 12- to 14-hour day and sometimes longer if the work involved different time zones.

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The “opportunity to travel” meant seeing the insides of airports before dawn and late at night while the “chance to run your own projects” translated as doing the work of two and sometimes three people with no back-up and no extra pay.

Initially, she took it all on the chin accepting the cultural quirks and management foibles as part of the induction process. She went above and beyond to prove to her managers that they had made the right decision in hiring her. But after about 18 months, it began to dawn on her that this was the shape of her working life for years to come unless she changed job.

The final straw was being assigned to a manager who pushed and pushed, sent texts and emails 24/7, imposed unnecessary and often impossible deadlines and never showed an ounce of appreciation for projects completed and business won.

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In truth, there’s only so much research a candidate can do to get a sense of whether an organisation’s promise is aligned with what it’s really like behind the lines. In working life as in love, relationships go sour and sometimes it’s better to walk away before the situation saps so much energy that making a move becomes harder and harder.

Unfortunately for our thirtysomething, that’s exactly what’s happened. She is now so tired and fed up that she lacks the drive to psyche herself up to job hunt. What she is adamant about, however, is that her next job will actually have a work-life balance.

Malissa Clark, an associate professor of industrial and organisational psychology at the University of Georgia, is a leading authority on workaholism. She says our relationship with work has become increasingly unhealthy and the prevailing culture of overwork is as bad for business as it is for overburdened employees.

“Technology tethers us to our work through smartphones and ‘productivity’ apps such as Slack and Teams,” she says. “The majority of workers regularly check their email on their smartphones, which never leave our side even after work hours or on vacation, [while] the rise of remote work means work and family spheres are no longer separate, blurring boundaries between work and home,” she adds quoting Andrew Barnes, co-founder of 4 Day Week Global who puts it succinctly: “We’re not working from home, we’re sleeping in the office,” he says.

Clark doesn’t pull her punches, arguing that workers are “plagued by this overwhelming need to put work at the centre of their universe”. The net result is record levels of stress and burnout. In her opinion, today’s always-on “hustle culture” is a bad habit that needs to be kicked fast.

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“New technologies such as AI will further improve our efficiency and productivity, allowing us to accomplish tasks in less time. And leaders and organisations have a plethora of high-quality tools and resources at their fingertips to assess and improve worker wellbeing in their organisations. We do not need to work ourselves literally to death; there is another way,” says Clark whose book, Never Not Working, was published last year by the Harvard Business Review Press and is a salutary read for anyone who thinks they may be letting work rule their lives.

In the book, Clark delves into the myths and realities of workaholism and suggests how organisations can stop enabling the practice and how individuals can tackle their own overworking.

Overall, humanity is working fewer hours than ever before, yet Clark says there is ample evidence that workaholism is on the rise. And it’s not just about the number of hours worked. “Workaholism also involves that feeling in the pit of your stomach that you can’t rest, that you ought to be working all the time and feeling guilty and anxious when you’re not working,” says Clark.

Despite what people might think, workaholics are not more productive, she adds. They suffer as a result of their excessive and compulsive working as do those around them, making them less than ideal employees.

Signs that someone needs to review their working behaviour include obsessing about work, constant busyness, overcommitting, not knowing one’s physical limits and being so invested in work that taking time off can prompt depression and even an existential crisis.

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