Edited by Thorpe Benefits from original article in Canadian HR Reporter , June 2001

Through recessions and downsizing, businesses have evolved to become lean, mean, productivity-driven machines. As a result, employees are required to work harder, longer and perform at a higher rate of productivity. In a report, the Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health identified longer work hours as a top contributor to workplace stress. This is pushing a lot of employees over the edge and costing the Canadian economy billions of dollars in lost productivity.

Vacation Time

Even when Canadians do take vacation, the quality of it is in doubt. According to Nora Spinks, president, Work-life Harmony Enterprises, a Toronto-based research and consulting firm: "One of those things that we are seeing more and more of is interrupted vacation time, unfocused vacation time where people either check their voice mail or check their e-mail while on vacation, or they get interrupted by the workplace while they are on vacation. Either way it can be quite negative."

Coping with Time Off

Employees often struggle with dealing with the voids created by vacationing employees. The prospect of managing these absences can seem daunting, but by looking at other countries that have longer vacation leaves, employers can draw upon their work models for solutions. "For example, in France where people take five-week vacations, you become used to managing these absences," said Anders Hayden (author of Sharing The Work, Sparing the Planet). "You have people who can fill in, you have more sharing of information, more workers who have a variety of skill sets who can fill in for absences. And you have workers who know what to do with their free time."

Who Can Spare the Time?

In Canada, being entitled to vacation time and having the time to take vacations are two entirely separate things. In a July 1998 Globe and Mail study, 58 percent of people surveyed said they planned to take a summer holiday - down from 76 percent in 1992. The number of people taking their vacations is on the decline largely in part because there is no one to fill in while on holidays. "It's really not a vacation when you have to work overtime for the next 10 days when you come back to catch up. For some people it's just not worth it to go on vacation. They'd rather work right through. It's less stressful," stated Spinks. "For the individual, it is a question of quality of life primarily," said Hayden. "It goes beyond issues of vacations, but to work time. Getting away from the long-hours model that we seem to have embraced in recent years has a lot of potential to improve the quality of life of people."

Taking its Toll

Stress is notorious for causing high blood pressure and cardio-vascular disease. The Japanese have coined the term "karoshi" - death from overwork.

It is important to understand that in Canada the impact of work stress is evident.
In a Statistics Canada survey, Overview of the time use of Canadians, released in November 1999, one-third of Canadians aged 25 to 44 - three million people - indicated that they consider themselves to be workaholics. More than half of this age group felt that they did not have enough time for family or friends, and just fewer than half felt that their feelings of stress would not change in the future.

A separate Statistics Canada survey released at the same time found that people who did experience longer hours of work were suffering from poorer health. Longer hours of work were associated with increased weight gain, smoking and alcohol consumption.

Damage from overwork can manifest itself also in terms of lower productivity, lower moral and a lower quality of work.

"We are seeing a huge rise in short-term disability, stress leave, illness and injury rates, and turnover - people are just leaving because they have just had enough," offered Spinks. "Employers are paying for it in sick leave, prescription drugs, turnover, productivity, short-term disability. They are already paying for it, it's just out of control."

Choosing What is Important

According to Hayden, it is a question of how employers choose to take advantage of labour productivity advances. The bottom line is that employers have time versus money choices.

"We can produce more in every hour of labour every year. Generally, we get a two percent productivity advance every year," said Hayden. "If two percent more production and consumption (increase) is possible every year, two percent reduction of work time with the same pay is also possible."

The rewards of choosing increased production are obvious and immediate: increased production results in increased output that results in higher sales. However, the rewards of choosing increased time are equally valid although they are more long term.

"If you take a serious look at working time, work hours, time off, career breaks, and we manage it effectively, it will eventually cost us less than what we are currently paying," said Spinks. "The return on that investment and the return on those savings will be significantly higher than if we let things continue as they are."