We are working in a way that’s not sustainable. We’re doing too much work at too many hours of the day. We all have way too much to do.
Researches Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen came to this conclusion after spending 5 years (pre-covid) observing workers at a Fortune 500 company and implementing a major experiment to improve work-life balance.
Below, we’ll cover why work can be so bad and how can we fix it.
Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do about It, by Erin Kelly (336 pages)
Rating: 4/5
Who should read it: Anyone interested in a better work experience for themselves or their direct reports
Summary
The authors spent 5 years hanging out at a US-based Fortune 500 company they call “TOMO,” where they observed / talked to (white collar) workers and then tried an experiment to improve work-life balance.1
As mentioned above, they found employees to be overworked and generally burned out - a condition they call “overload.” This was obviously bad for employees, who ended up stressed and unhappy - but was also bad for employers. Why?
First, it results in lower work product quality. As opposed to coming up with thoughtful and creative solutions, overworked employees simply become “processors,” focused on getting things done and staying afloat
It also leads to workers having lower job satisfaction, which can make it hard to recruit talent
Workers who deal with meaningful overload are more likely to quit their jobs
Overload, according to the authors, happens for a few reasons:
There is an increased emphasis on financial performance, leading companies to cut costs by laying off workers and moving others offshore. This makes hours worse for the remaining onshore workers as they 1) have more work to do and 2) must train and coordinate with offshore workers in very different time zones
In this environment, employees are afraid to lose their jobs and worried they won’t be able to find a similar one, so they work even harder
Employers are incented to have their workers work longer hours given they are salaried and not paid overtime
To address it, they try implementing a program called “STAR” at TOMO. STAR meant:
Teams individually agreeing on norms of working in the office / from home, with an understanding that people could work flexibly (and wouldn’t have to explain themselves if they did)
Focusing on results and output as opposed to face / work time and eliminating low value tasks
Promoting support for people’s personal / family lives
STAR ended up working - there was no measured difference in performance, and the STAR groups ended up with:
Less turnover than other teams
Less psychological distress
More time with their kids if they had them
Interestingly, people in STAR didn’t end working less hours - they simply had more flexibility and were able to make integrate work more smoothly into the rest of their lives.
The ending is kind of a bummer, though: TOMO is acquired by a more traditional company, which resists STAR and eventually kills it.
Takeaways
I thought the book was fairly engaging and interesting, with lots of rich commentary and learnings. A few takeaways / thoughts for me:
Some lessons to be a better manager:
Focus on outputs as opposed to inputs - is the key work getting done?
Focus on people’s lives outside of work - how can you enable them to live a fuller live more broadly? (e.g., maybe working around when they’re with their kid or like to exercise each day)
Assume flexibility is the norm - in many work environments, you need to ask for permission to work remotely from your manager. Even if a manager is accommodating, many people will be hesitant to ask to do anything that is a deviation from the default or norm.
This book reminded me of the book “I Know How She Does It,” which is the best book I’ve read on work-life integration (while addressed to women, it’s helpful for anyone trying to balance work, life, and family). Like here, the key takeaway is about flexibility and moving around work to fit within your life - which the author calls the “mosaic” approach (you might go for a walk with your friend in the morning for exercise / social time, take some time in the afternoon to be with your kids, then do more work later at night, for example). But on the other hand, one risk that comes with this approach is that work becomes “leaky” as boundaries are blurred, making you feel like you are working all the time. How do you navigate this tension? A couple of ideas:
First, acknowledge and own tradeoffs. If you are working a demanding job that requires more than 40 hours a week and want to spend meaningful time with your kids, you will likely have to trade off free time (e.g., work at night as opposed to watch TV, exercise early AMs as opposed to afternoon when you’re with kids). Knowing exactly what you are sacrificing can make you feel better about it or at least more in control of your situation
Do one thing well - the time when work feels “leakiest” for many of us are when we’re trying to multitask - like answering work emails while watching your kids. In general, I’ve found it more effective (when possible)2 to focus on one thing, whether that’s childcare or work. Checking your work email when going for a walk with your kids can be counterproductive - you are less engaged with your kids, and you are unlikely to be able to write a thoughtful response to an email while trying to prevent a 2-year old from running away from you. And if you’re working, just try to focus on work - which admittedly, is not always easy, as I discussed here (control-f for “procrastinate”)
I am curious how this changes post-covid - does the Great Resignation change this? Millennials actually work fairly hard, but how will Gen Z impact things as they enter the workplace? Employers are obviously trying to retain talent now with raises and perks, but I’d argue that some of the STAR techniques would also be a powerful lever for talent attraction and retention. But changing a company’s working style and culture is really hard! I imagine it’s easier to offer employees expanded mental health benefits than address the underlying issues which cause workers to be more stressed and anxious in the first place
While it might seem excessive to codify some policies which seem to make sense (allow people to be flexible), the authors make the good point that policies allow people to avoid the “boss lottery,” where who you get as your boss meaningfully changes your work experience (and quality of life, by extension)
While work life policies are often focused around working parents (especially mothers), the authors also make the fair point that they help everyone - younger workers and those without families often feel burned out as well, and might have other obligations that we don’t know about (e.g., taking care of an elderly relative). And even if they don’t, they’re just as deserving of having lives too. In this way, making a blanket policy is effective, because in some workplaces, the implied norm might be “you can leave early and work from home IF you have kids, otherwise you don’t have an excuse,” which isn’t necessarily healthy.
What Else I’m Reading
Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working From Home. A book on the “future of work post covid.” One of the key ideas is that we need to actively cultivate more of a life outside of work if you want to work less - otherwise, work can slowly expand to define you entirely and envelop your life. Interesting if you haven’t read much on the subject, but as someone who’s read a bunch of “future of work” pieces recently, didn’t find much incremental. Some overlap with Overload.
Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres Really fun book where writer / critic Kelefa Sanneh covers the history of 7 musical genres: Rock, R&B, country, punk, hip-hop, pop, and dance. One of the best parts about it is how enthusiastic and appreciative Sanneh is about all the genres - he took a year off of college to work at a record store - which made me want to immediately listen to some of the artists you’ve just read about
This book is primarily focused on white-collar knowledge workers. Blue collar workers face different (and more serious) challenges - see my piece on the food / grocery industry for some examples.
Of course, with many jobs, there are times you will need to be “on call” and do something work related at the exact time you’re with your kids. The writers of Overload might say suggest managers explicitly communicate what those times are and stress to their direct reports that they are not the norm.