Review nº 6

Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Source: www.nytimes.com
Date of publication: July 27 2008


Review nº 6: Article ‘Working Long Hours, and Paying a Price’

Nowadays working people, particularly those who work in first world countries, seem to be addicted to work. But there are many reasons for this to happen, and this is the topic been dealt with in the article ‘Working Long Hours, and Paying a Price’ from the New York Times.
In the last two decades many salaried employees have experimented an increase in their working hours. The most highly paid workers are twice as likely to work long hours as the lowest paid. American workers have been ambivalent about working hours, while in the previous centuries workers demanded shorter work hours, today some employees are drawn to challenging, demanding work and the outsize financial rewards that can follow. But in spite of that most of them said they loved their work. A professor of economics sustains that people convinced themselves that this is what they should do while living in a world of conspicuous consumption. Still long days at work are very hard for employees to maintain a healthy lifestyle, causing problems like obesity and also due to neglected personal issues, employees are unlikely to perform at their peak. Some managers are already trying to do something about it. For example, in Sprint Nextel employees are allowed to fill prescriptions at work and help with travel planning. There are also incentives to stay active at work, like covered pathways between buildings. Other companies pay for consultants emphasized the inefficiency of multitasking, the need for adequate sleep, exercise and a healthy diet, and the importance of scheduling time for restorative personal priorities.
The article talks about the current exhausting situation of salaried American employees at work and provides some ideas to companies so that they can cope with them. Quoting the author: “There’s a view that the longer you work, the better you are” ... “But that’s not true at all”.
In conclusion, working long hours under stressful conditions has negative consequences for the workers’ mental and physical health. This causes a reduction in their performance at work, so managers must help employees to get more done in less time.