Effects of long working hours on Americans

The research paper focuses on the association between long working hours on employee health. America is among the top European nation in the world known for overtime jobs. Workers extend the normal working hours per week (40) to 50 per week (BORG & KRISTENSEN 1999). The study further focused to get to know the reason behind overtime job in the U.S. After the investigation the study affirmed that in America, there are no set rules to govern the minimum and maximum working hour employee is needed to work. Employers also take advantage over this to allow employees to take up extra shifts. According to psychiatrists spending more time working leads to various health issues such as mental problem, social problems. The main aim of machine Invention was to replace manual labor to save time and increase production but it also, makes employees overstay in the workplace.

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According to research done by the economic thinktank, Washington Center for Equitable Growth the aim of the study was to look at why most Americans workers put such long hours in the job, as a result, it affects the employee health and economy of the organization. The research comes up with the following result connected to overworking. Well paid jobs are associated with a case of overworking. 30% of legal workers and mostly employees from management Professions work for more 45 hours per week, they closely followed by the farmers and employees who work in the forestry and fishing industries. And are represents by 20%. Engineers, architectures, and business also are among in the list. All the information discussed above was a data which was collected by current population survey of America n households. According to my view of economic inequality and that feeling of being financially insecure can be the main reason for the culture of overwork.

Reason Why Overworking Is Bad For Employee Health and the Company

Some employees prefer overtime jobs so that at the end of the day or end month they will take home some good money (Coruso, 2016). They will take up extra shifts and are the last individual to leave the workplace. Extra working hours put employee health into a great risk and also the company will be affected. According to (Sohail & Rehman, 2015) employees who work for more than the set standard time of seven-eight hours will not only affect their health but also, the organization will be affected in one way or the other. Below are some health problem related to overworking.

The research paper presents the negative impacts of overworking. According to the research study, the following problems were found to affect both the workers and the organization ZAPF et al., (1996)

Negative Impacts of Overworking on Employee Health

Lack of sleep. Extending the working hours results in less sleep. According to the foundation of national sleep association, an average adult needs at least 7-9 hours for enough sleep. Research shows that in America, most workers get 5-6 hours of sleeper night. Also according to the report. Workers who work for 50 hours per week get less than 5 of sleep every night on working days. Lack of sleep causes the following health problems which include; weight gain, increased stress, fatigues, and sometimes memory loss. It is recommended to find enough rest during weekends. Take your time and get enough sleep time of not less than 9 hours because it will help to recover.

Cardiovascular Complications. Spending more hours at workplace will increase the risk of being affected by serious heart disorders, like heart attack, hearts disease, and cases of diabetes insipidus. Workers who work for more than 10 hours per day have higher chances of cardiovascular complications. According to the research, these are the kind of people who take an overtime shift, and they will also work while they are sick. Heart-related diseases can be prevented by taking heart-healthy meals (lean meat, fish a lot of veggies and fruits).

Work life balance. Work-life balance is a plan that helps the employee to balance personal life and professional life. It is important because it helps the employee to create time for family and vacation while along with business travels and making a career. A lot of pressure in the workplace will make employees not to get enough time to spend with family and friends. Providing that time is essential as it will increase productivity and job satisfaction.

Stress and depression caused by long working hours will cause stress especially when you're dealing with the challenging job, it is not good to work for more hours. Effects of stress will cause serious heart diseases, high blood pressure, and mental problems.

Negative Impacts on the Organization

Overtime jobs will cause negative impacts to the organization and this is the reason that why they are struggling to achieve overall goals and objectives. They operate from a perspective that, overtime jobs increase production and profit. The study opposed this notion because of the following reason. ZAPF et al., (1996)

Increased Accident Cases. When employees over work incidents of Workplace accidents are common. The reason behind this is that workers are stressed and tired increasing chances of workplace accidents. The organization is affected by workplace accidents because it pays hospital bills and compensating the injured employee.

Reduced Production. Production definitely decreases because tired and stressed employees cannot be motivated to improve production. The company put itself in the high-risk position of losing clients. Tiredness in employees lead to poor quality products and as a result, customers will be dissatisfied. For a company to remain competitive customer satisfaction is all that is needed.

Increased Absenteeism. Too much working hours will lead to absenteeism because of fatigue and poor health. In other words, fatigue and health problems make employee sometimes to fail attending jobs because they feel it's good to take time off. This is a major problem to the organizations because of unnecessary expenses of replacing them

Increased Turnover Rates. Turn over as a result of a lack of work-life balance and fatigue because of excessive working. Work-life balance is essential because employees are given time to spend with family and friends. Work-life balance also reduces health problems caused by stress, more engagement which leads to high company performance and employees will be more mindful.

Solutions

Companies need to come up with appropriate ways on how to reduce the above negative impacts because it affects employees and the organization. According to (Sohail & Rehman, 2015) they recommended that through the following solutions, the company can reduce overtime problems. They include the following;

Managing overtimes. There are direct and indirect issues related to long working hours, therefore. Employers need do the following to deal with overtime problem; by having adequate workers will reduce labor shortages, reviewing rules and procedures which encourages overtime and developing a strategy on how to improve production during the normal workweek.

Choosing an appropriate level of Overtime. Appropriate level will depend on a number of factors, like whether to payout employees an overtime money, recruitment and training costs, and health and safety issues.

In conclusion, it is evidenced that overworking employee suffer a wide range of health complication. Including stress, vision problem, mental and fatigue. Lack of work-life balance also affects employee social life. Employee lack enough time to spend with their family which might result in marriage breakups. Also, the company performance will be affected, that is reduced production and customer dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction is a serious problem and organization need to prevent the same to avoid losing loyal customers. Coming up with clear rules and procedures like managing overtime will give you a solution.

References

BORG, V., & KRISTENSEN, T.S (1999). Psychological work environment and mental health among traveling salespeople. Work and stress, 13, 132-143

Caruso, C. C. (2016). Possible broad impacts of long work hours. Industrial health, 44(4), 531-536.

Sohail, M., & Rehman, C. A. (2015). Stress and health at the workplace-a review of the literature. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 6(3), 94.

ZAPF, D., DORMANN, C., & FRESE, M. (1996). Longitudinal studies in organizational stress research: A review of the literature with reference to methodological issues. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. 1, 145-169