Introduction: When Professional Excellence Comes at a Price
Living in the XXI century puts a lot of pressure on an individual, especially in terms of career. Employees must work not only efficiently, but extremely fast. As a result, priorities have been shifted to delivering perfect workplace performance. Hence, employees often develop workaholism. Although slacking the pace of workplace performance is hardly possible, by getting one’s priorities straight, one will be able to get rid of workaholism.
Survey and Its Analysis: XXI Century Tendencies
To evaluate the scale of workaholism within the context of the XXI-century business world, a survey was carried out in a DesignMaster Company. The questions concerned the employee’s status, his/her daily schedule, communication, health and social life. 30 people took part in the survey.
Percentage of workaholics in organizational environment
The results were rather discouraging; the survey has shown that at least 20% of the employees were workaholics, and 36% more displayed workaholic tendencies.
Reasons for people to work additional hours
Judging by the employees’ motivation, though, only 5% were defined as actual workaholics (answer c). The rest confessed to have money (43%) and deadlines (52%) as their primary motivation.
Workaholism and professional excellence: correlation
The tendency to work extra hours does not have a seemingly tangible effect on the efficacy of employees’ performance; as the results of the survey say, 28% of the people defined as workaholics had a rather low professional score. However, it should be mentioned that 11% of the people surveyed managed to attain workplace excellence.
Work, family and social life: dozing out the ingredients
According to the existing researches, one of the key effects of workaholism concerns the inability to pay equal amounts of attention to family life, social life and professional life (Living With a Workaholic—For Friends and Family 1). The survey results prove the given statement: 20% of the people defined as workaholics due to their previous answers have shown that they are unable to pay enough time to their relatives and friends, not to mention having a hobby.
Probable Solutions: Experts Recommend
Although the situation in DesignMaster seems drastic, viable solutions can be provided.
From a sociological point of view: experts say
Sociologically, the need to excel can be explained by the employees’ need to prove their worth to their colleagues, company leaders and, primarily, themselves (Snir and Harpaz 374). Thus, it will be necessary to come up with a flexible system of bonuses and incentives to reduce the workaholics’ enthusiasm.
From a medical point of view: what doctors prescribed
According to the latest researches, workaholism triggers high risks in developing the following health issues:
- Depression;
- Feeling of insecurity;
- Behavioral disorders;
- Insomnia.
In frail attempts to address these issues, a workaholic may develop alcoholism or drug addiction. Finally, workaholism has obvious bidirectional effects (Shimazu et al. 400); in other words, workaholism is quite contagious. In the given case, it is advisable that employees should be provided with an opportunity to reconsider their professional life and evaluate their goals, as well as the means to achieve them.
From a company’s point of view: unexpected response
Weirdly enough, company managers are also not quite wild about workaholics, to say the least. According to the latest researches, most companies prefer that their employees should provide high quality results, yet workaholics are not approved of (Friedman and Lobel 88).
It should be noted, though, that in most cases, employees with workaholic tendencies are often promoted to management department. However, a workaholic’s career is not going to go any further than that (Wijhe 87).
Conclusion: Learning to Get the priorities Straight
For the members of the DesignMaster to stop their workaholism practices, it will be required to introduce new corporate values and a better time management system. Putting the emphasis on quality instead of quantity, DesignMaster managers will be able to handle the workaholism issues.
Works Cited
Friedman, Stewart D. and Sharon Lobel. “The Happy Workaholic: A Role Model for Employees.” Academy of Management Executive 17.3(2003), 87–98.
Living With a Workaholic—For Friends and Family 2007. Web.
Shimazu, Akito et al. “Workaholism and Well-Being among Japanese Dual-Earner Couples: A Spillover-Crossover Perspective.” Social Science & Medicine, 73(3), pp. 399–409.
Snir, Raphael and Itzhak Harpaz. “The Workaholism Phenomenon: A Cross-National Perspective.” Career Development International, 11.50 (2006), 374–393.
Wijhe, Corine van. Understanding Workaholism. The Netherlands: Hilversum. 2012. Web.