Over the past 10-15 years, several troublesome themes have emerged in the workplace. Among these is the assumption that professional workers (high earners) are expected to regularly work more than 40 hours in a work week. In some professions, like attorneys and accountants, there are certain times that naturally require more than 40 hours of work. For example, when a legal team is preparing a legal case or an accountant is meeting tax deadlines. But, lately, the 40-plus hours has become the norm instead of being the exception.

The National Bureau of Economic Research posted an article titled “Why High Earners Work Longer Hours”. The article concludes that many salaried workers work longer than the standard 40 hours per week in order to gain “marginal incentives”. Overtime pay is not in the mix. Instead, these workers seek the reward of earning a bonus, raise or promotion. They also look to acquire extra skills or to establish networks and contacts that could reap future benefits. These workers may also look to enhancing the prospect of keeping their current job if the firm decides to downsize.  Read more…

In looking at my career, I can honestly say that I rarely worked only 40 hours a week. My career has been in local government and most of my positions required significant work with the public and elected officials. Consequently, I needed to attend evening community meetings; and, of course, community outreach means that one has to be “in the community” at local events.

Then there was a time period between 2000 and 2007 in which I regularly worked 50-60 hour weeks because I was designing and launching a major economic development program. The success of my work resulted in a promotion to an executive management position, which in turn meant long hours. I’m not complaining. My career has provided me with valuable chances to learn and develop. 

Erin Reid, assistant professor of organization behavior at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, recently reported a work-life balance study that she performed with a consulting firm. Her study revealed some remarkable workplace behaviors. The two articles below provide insight into these workplace issues. Some of them, in my opinion, border on unethical practices. Again, I’m relating the behaviors to my public service career where falsifying a timesheet is grounds for immediate dismissal and possible legal action.

How Some Men Fake an 80-Hour Workweek, and Why It Matters

Imagine an elite professional services firm with a high-performing, workaholic culture. Everyone is expected to turn on a dime to serve a client, travel at a moment’s notice, and be available pretty much every evening and weekend. It can make for a grueling work life, but at the highest levels of accounting, law, investment banking and consulting firms, it is just the way things are….Some people fully embraced this culture and put in the long hours, and they tended to be top performers. Others openly pushed back against it, insisting upon lighter and more flexible work hours, or less travel; they were punished in their performance reviews….The third group is most interesting. Some 31 percent of the men and 11 percent of the women whose records Ms. Reid examined managed to achieve the benefits of a more moderate work schedule without explicitly asking for it…. Read more…

Why Some Men Pretend to Work 80-Hour Weeks

In many professional jobs, expectations that one be an ideal workerfully devoted to and available for the job, with no personal responsibilities or interests that interfere with this commitment to workare widespread. We often think of problems with these expectations as womens problems. To be sure, some men seemed to happily comply with the firms expectations, working long hours and traveling constantly, but a majority were dissatisfied. Read more…

After reading the articles, I found the firm’s response to Dr. Reid’s findings bothersome. She writes:

I was met with two responses: (1) a response that ‘these men’—those who revealed their lack of desire to be always available for and primarily committed to their work—were not the sort of men they really wanted anyway; and (2) a request to figure out how they might teach women to pass. The broader implication—that the organization itself might alter its expectations—was lost.

What are your thoughts? How many hours do you work in a week? Should organizations make long hours a criteria for success? If you’re a manager, how do you insure that workers are not fudging on their time sheets?