2 days ago
Parents, is it worth dying for a pay cheque?
We spend a lot of time at work.
According to the Ministry of Manpower, Singapore workers spend 43.3 hours at work per week, among the highest in Asia.
As economic, geopolitical and technological clouds gather, it is no surprise that people are putting in longer hours at work, to get more face time with their bosses, in an effort to increase job security.
With longer hours on the job, workers are experiencing more stress and mental health issues in coping with work, family and commitments, such as the care of older parents.
The 2018 bestseller by Stanford Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer poses a timely question. His book, Dying For A Paycheck, asks whether it is worth it for workers to lose their health, and possibly their lives, in pursuit of a monthly salary.
Prof Pfeffer makes the case that long hours, economic insecurity and the conflict between work and family can be toxic to employees.
He accuses corporations of pursuing profitability at all costs by squeezing the maximum productivity from their workers. In doing so, companies are hurting employee engagement, increasing worker turnover and destroying workers' physical and emotional health.
The deleterious effects of workplace stress on health are so severe that doctors have assessed that unemployment and increased job demands have a greater effect on worker deaths than the inhalation of second-hand cigarette smoke.
According to the book, work-related health risks are systematic and can be linked to cardiovascular disease, poor mental health and suicide.
Interestingly, the book has a Singapore connection. Professor Joel Goh from the National University of Singapore collaborated with Prof Pfeffer to quantitatively research the linkage between work and health, and the impact on premature worker death.
Using data from the United States, Prof Goh, who was pursuing his PhD at Stanford University at the time, estimated that there are 120,000 additional deaths a year attributable to workplace-related stress and poor management practices of companies, half of which could have been prevented.
Prof Goh describes the dire situation of workers in a paper cited by the book: "layoffs, job loss and unemployment adversely affect physical and mental health and mortality... the financial stress resulting from the loss of income, and also separation from the social identity of being productively employed and social isolation from co-workers".
I recently spoke to Prof Goh about his research. He believes that his work makes the argument for employer culpability, and that it is worthwhile for employers to invest in practices to support their employees' psychological and social well-being.
Like Prof Pfeffer, he believes that healthy workplaces are good for business. Of the different work environments between Singapore and the US, he said: "The current environment in Singapore is tough. Issues like unemployment, underemployment and economic insecurity plague workers in Singapore too, not just in the US."
There is a big difference between Singapore and the US, in that healthcare coverage is more universal here, which takes some stress off the table for many local workers.
It looks like the stress from the disruption and displacement of jobs does not look to be abating any time soon.
To continue being there for our children, what should parents be looking for in their workplace?
Job control
In the book, Prof Pfeffer shared that in Britain's civil service, government servants of higher rank had a lower incidence of mortality from cardiovascular disease.
The study discovered that higher ranked civil servants had more control over their jobs and more discretion over how their work was done.
So, even with greater job demands and work stress, job control turned out to be an important predictor of whether a civil servant would eventually get cardiovascular disease. Job control even beat out smoking as a predictor of disease onset.
Putting this link between stress and job control into practice, parents should consider choosing employers that allow them to have more autonomy and job control.
In many workplaces, it is the supervisors that generate the bulk of the work stress as part of the immediate work environment that a worker is in.
Paying attention to interviews with hiring managers can help parents to identify bosses who might be micromanagers or even those who are unfriendly to families.
Making informal reference checks of possible supervisors can be helpful as well. If all else fails, checking a potential boss' social media footprint to see if there are red flags could prove to be invaluable.
Bullying behaviour is often discoverable via a systematic pattern of comment on social media, especially among high-profile bosses.
Open discussion
Parents should consider having open discussions with the family about work stress and the challenges faced at work.
Frank discussions allow the children to be involved in what is happening at work and, where possible, how it affects the family's finances.
As my boys were growing up, I often discussed what would happen if I were to be fired from work.
During the global financial crisis of 2008, when our family was based in the US, I would share what was happening in the global financial markets during family dinners.
The kids were still young at the time - six and three years old - but I wanted to prepare them for any eventualities.
I also assured them that we had savings tucked away and that we had the resources to tide us through until a new job appeared on the horizon, if anything unexpected happened.
I fondly remember the extra hugs at the time, as my sons' way of showing their support and encouragement during a difficult time in my life.
Instead of making them anxious, I think that going through that difficult period as a family has given them greater resilience in managing their own financial affairs. It has also provided them a perspective on how they can cope with their own professional lives, should they get fired at some point.
Good employers
Employers need to be part of the change. In Prof Pfeffer's book, he writes that "if we changed workplace practices and environments to reduce stressful conditions, employers would no longer be damaging, even killing, their people".
Employers need to take workplace safety seriously. Physical conditions like lighting, noise and temperature make a huge difference to the well-being of workers.
Besides keeping the environment safe, more can be done to create a conducive setting for work. As an example, there is a link between sound and blood pressure. Good employers can provide sound protection, or noise-cancelling headphones, to create a space where productive work can take place.
Companies need to consider upgrading their health plans to make employee wellness a central priority.
Increasingly, progressive employers are adding mental health benefits into their overall health benefit package, to create the right conditions for employees to thrive.
Over a typical employment career, a worker could spend more than 90,000 hours at work.
Given how much time we will spend at work, it is so important that we parents choose employers and workplaces that are healthy, happy and fulfilling. Because it is not worth dying for a pay cheque.
