Live Free Or Die Hard Part 1 - Chandramowly

Live Free or Die Hard – Choice of an ‘Extreme Job’ Competitive pressure and the dangerous allure of “extreme jobs” are becoming a global trend, affecting organisations, home, family and life, writes M R Chandramowly in a two part series. PART I

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former police officer John McClane finds a position with Homeland Security chasing dangerous computer hackers. He discovers that a group of hackers have struck at the vulnerable United States computer in-

frastructure and are systematically shutting it down, beginning with the traffic light system. As they move on to crash banking networks and the stock market, the indices plummet and America’s economy becomes crippled. As usual, McClane gets caught up in the middle of the excitement and pulls out

all the stops and matching wits with the terrorists, and stops them before the entire nation collapses to its knees on the anniversary day of its independence.” That is an “extreme job” in a movie. The “extreme job” of McClane doesn’t remain a fictitious movie story, if we open up to the worklife imbalance stories of the highly paid employees who are holding on to ‘Extreme Jobs’. What do you see in a bedroom of an ‘extreme’ jobholder? A focus group conversation was sprinkled with half-joking reference of Four in Bed, these days. Oneself, one’s partner, and two

BalckBerrys. One of the biggest mystery about the mankind is “They sacrifice their health in earning more money and spend all that money to regain their lost health.” And in that process they neither retain their money nor regain health. Successful professionals are working harder than ever. The higher you go on the corporate ladder; your earnings shall also become higher. Also your responsibilities. One has to work six to seven days in a week in multiple locations, some times travelling most of the time. How would a typical workday be? It all starts as

soon as the person wakes up in the bed after a late night sleep, post evening dinner party. Bed coffee is sipped along with the headlines of business and economic news. Breakfast is eaten thinking about the impact of what has been read. Both affecting business as well as personal life. What is the shape and scope of high-impact jobs of these days?

Research findings “Centre for Work-Life Policy”, a New York based nonprofit organisation has done a qualitative research to get at the attitudes and motivations that lie behind the extreme work model (The dangerous allure of the 70-Hour work – HBR – Dec 2006). In their research in 2004 they discovered that one challenge facing women was a trend towards more extreme work in corporate managerial positions. Extending their research, they interviewed top 6 per cent of earning managers as well as 14 focus groups of 1564 employees in the US, Canada, Europe, Middle East and Europe.

jority of them (56 per cent) work 70 hours and 9 per cent work 100 hours or more. 55 per cent claim they have had to cancel vacation plans ‘regularly’ – and no one is forcing them to do it! One of the survey participants did not remember the last time he had a vacation. The survey reveals that the employees in this extreme work model are not burned out and bitter professionals but love their jobs

Why they do it? Holders of extreme jobs indicate what motivates them to work long, stressful hours. They answered the survey question, “What are the main reasons you love your job?” in multiple responses:

with a cheapest labour cost advantage. Companies in US squeeze as many hours of work as possible considering the fact that “nonexempt” professionals do not earn overtime pay in the US.

Effecting life Extreme jobs may be deeply alluring, but they are not certainly cost free. 77 per cent of the women and 66 per cent of the men surveyed said they couldn’t properly maintain their homes. One executive disclosed that the furnishing he has in his flat at South Kensington for years is a mattress and a sleeping bag. Health is also an issue. Majority do not get enough sleep and don’t do enough exercise. Significant

ogy. When you are in a meeting, you might wait for one hour to respond to e-mail. This is not acceptable now with the advent of BlackBerrys and cell phones. 59 per cent of the respondents said that the technology has lengthened their working day and encroached on family time. “BlackBerry thumb” is a new ailment now and Hyatt hotel spas now offer a “BlackBerry hand massage”. Extreme Jobs affects the well-being of children resulting in children watching too much television, act out of discipline due to lack of attention, eat too much of junk food, have too little adult supervision and underachievement in schools.

What is Extreme? The surveys under the research define specific jobs, which were considered extreme. Survey respondents were those who work for more than 60 hours a week, who are high earners and hold positions of these characteristics: The jobs which are unpredictable flow of work, fast paced work under tight deadlines, availability to clients 24/7, Responsibility of profit and loss, large amount of travel, large number of direct reports, responsibility of mentoring and recruiting and physical presence at workplaces, ten hours a day. The research data reveals that 62 per cent of high earning individuals work more than 50 hours a week, 35 per cent work more than 60 hours a week, and 10 per cent work more than 80 hours a week.

Vacating vacations A 60-hour week translates into leaving the house at 7 am and getting home at 9 pm five days a week. The hours are even more punishing and ma-

nStimulating/challenging work gives me an adrenaline rush (90 per cent Men – 82 per cent Women) nHigh-Quality colleagues (52 per cent - 43 per cent) nHigh compensation (43 per cent - 28 per cent) nReceive recognition for work (37 per cent - 42 per cent) nPower/Status (23 per cent 30 per cent).

Competitive pressure Competition has become more intense, both at the level of the individual professional and at the level of the corporation. The merger mania, flattened hierarchies, promotion pyrexia put people against one another. The threat of losing jobs in the West is moving up with the increase of the young Turks from India and China who are found smarter and hardworking

numbers overeat, consume more alcohol or rely on medications to relieve insomnia.

A global trend “In Japan, the workplace is still heavily dominated by males and long hours are the norm. In India, work-life balance is seen as a luxury issue for a growing middle class of professional workers and economic development is perceived as more urgent than social well-being and people issues. In the US, there has been a “hands off ” government policy toward this issue, leaving it completely up to the private sector to handle.” - (Work-life imbalance – a global problem getting worse – Tony DiRomualdo)

BlackBerry Thumb Extreme work is also the result of devises from modern communication technol-

Big goals In a workshop on “Execution” I asked the participants “What are their three big life goals?” On funneling individual answers, we got three major aspects, Bigger Job, Fatter Salary and More Happiness. On analyzing, we found that bigger jobs are somewhat related to fatter salary.But, majority disagreed with the aspect of fatter salary resulting more happiness. What’s the reality? People are working harder creating wealth. Do they have time to enjoy their fruits of labour? No, says the survey. Indians spend more hours in office compared to their counterparts in the world. Number of hours executives spend in offices annually: Mumbai - 2205, New Delhi - 2121, Shanghai - 1969, Tokyo - 1954, New York - 1869 and London - 1782. A study of 79 Indian Firms reveals the results of work stress. 71 per cent of executives use foul language. 21 per cent resort to physical action. 8 per cent suffer nervous break down. Most of them suffer the impact of stress on their personal life, affecting on their children because of parenting difficulties. There is an alarming growth of alcohol consumption. Along with the rise of creating wealth, what is rising along? Instability, obesity, cardiovascular problems and diabetics. There are 41 million diabetics in India with majority of type II that has resulted from “Life style”. The expected cases of cardiovascular diseases are 64 million in 2015 compared to the existing 38 million (2005). What’s going wrong? What’s the root cause? Let us understand the roots in its mini and mega spectrum.

Perpetual principle World is a system of holistic continuous processes. So is Life, man or management. Holistic means, the interrelatedness. It’s like a thread holding number of beads passing through the center of each one of them. No bead can be separated in the chain. It is the intertwined nature of time. Today’s stem has the roots of yesterday and fruits of tomorrow. They are inseparable in their state of living. This principle is cosmic and universal .

Part II of this article will feature in the next edition of DH Avenues. The author is former corporate vice president - HR and currently HRD and Leadership Competency Building Consultant. E-mail: [email protected]