Our Health Economist analysed a random sample of 500 executives, like yourself, who undertook an Executive Health assessment with Ford Health. These executives are at senior manager level or above, and come from diverse national and multinational businesses across Australia. The businesses represented include professional services, mining, resource and energy; construction and engineering; agribusiness and technology sectors.
We analysed data on work hours, self rated work performance scores, self-reported stress as well as objective stress, anxiety and depression scores. This provided a snapshot of what impacts upon work performance at an individual level in corporate Australia, during a time when many are under pressure to produce more with less.
The First Surprise
The number of hours worked does not necessarily have a significant negative impact on the psychological wellbeing, or self rated performance, of the majority of executives.
Work Hours and Stress/Performance Ratings
Regardless of work hour category (<40 hours, 40 to 50 hours, >50 hours) over 80% of executives did not have clinically significant stress, anxiety or depression. That does not mean that they did not experience stressors. However, it does reflect that
the majority felt capable, and showed themselves capable, of dealing with those stressors – regardless of the number of hours worked.
Long working hours (working more than 50 hours a week) are not significantly correlated with clinical stress, anxiety or depression in this cohort.
Similarly, using a self-rating tool, over 85% of executives rated their work performance in the previous month as being good or better, regardless of hours worked. Long working hours, using these categories, do not have a strong adverse impact upon work performance.
However, a word of caution. In our experience, the majority of executives who fall into the “greater than 50 hours” category will work 50 – 70 hours a week. What we find in practice is that once an individual works more hours than 70 hours, there is
likely to be a sliding scale of negative impact upon wellbeing behaviours and relationships.
In particular, those who work more than 100 hours a week on a regular basis do experience significant stress/anxiety or depression, rate themselves lower on the performance scale and have more identified health risks.
So, working more hours does not extrapolate simply or directly to improved performance. There are limits. In addition, the executive working population we see generally have a degree of choice and flexibility in their hours and their jobs, and will generally like what they do. All of these factors will also moderate the impact of long working hours.
The Australian Work and Life Index 2014 report revealed that managers, and those who work longer than 48 hours a week, have a high self rated work/life interference score when compared to other occupational groups. However, our data suggests
that this does not always necessarily lead to stress or poor performance.
As we will explore in future articles, you and your executive colleagues have expressed that it is WHAT happens in those working hours, rather than the hours themselves, that has the biggest impact.
It is how this interference is managed by the individual that makes the difference.
Interestingly, the group of those who work less than 40 hours a week had the highest percentage of individuals experiencing stress, or with low self-rated performance scores.
Some suggest that those who are stressed or unhappy self-select roles that are less time demanding. However, included in this group will be part-time executives (often female) who try to meet fulltime work demands in part-time hours, whilst juggling
home and family responsibilities. Consequently, I believe this category is too diverse to draw significant or simple conclusions between working hours and performance or stress.
So, what does adversely impact upon work performance? And what can we do about it? Our data analysis did reveal some key factors and these, along with suggested management strategies, will be the topic of discussion in this series of articles.