Overworked to death? How extreme long hours take their toll

"If you work 80 to 100 hours a week, I don't know how you can possibly take care of your health.”

So says Jelena Zikic, referring to the widespread issue of overwork in high-pressure industries where employee work extreme long hours – and can suffer the consequences.

“It’s a huge problem,” says the associate professor at the School of Human Resource Management at York University.

In May, Bank of America employee Leo Lukenas III passed away from acute coronary artery thrombus. According to reports, he had reportedly worked 100 hours per week, and he passed away days after working on a team that completed a $2-billion merger.

While there are no direct links between Lukenas' overworked status and the cause of his death, there have been various reports linking acute stress to thrombosis.

And in August, a 60-year-old employee at Wells Fargo was found dead in her cubicle, four days after she checked into the office at 7 am.

Overwork has long been a hallmark of industries like banking, where the stakes are high, competition is fierce, and long hours are often seen as a rite of passage. However, high-profile incidents such as these are putting a spotlight on the issue, and to better understand the scope of the problem — along with potential solutions — we spoke with three Canadian experts.

Culture of overwork

Overwork has become deeply ingrained in certain sectors, particularly banking, consulting, and technology, where long hours are often seen as the norm rather than the exception.

One of the main challenges for HR professionals and frontline managers is managing these excessive work hours, especially when they are embedded in the organizational culture, says Zikic.

"The first issue here to understand is that we're talking about very sector-specific… expectations," she says. "The whole organizational culture, work culture in those specific places is adapted to that type of hours… which are definitely unhealthy and lead to all kinds of health and well-being challenges."

In looking at the broader picture, the sectors with the most extreme forms of overwork often have “achievement-oriented employees,” says Matthias Spitzmuller, associate professor at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, “in part because they are very highly self-motivated, and in part because it's the culture of the organization that they're working for.”

 In this culture, people work the long hours “out of a sense of self-determination, a desire for fulfillment, a desire for advancement and growth,” he says.

“It's a complex interplay — you have got an existing culture that attracts a certain breed of employees who are, in turn, replicating the workplace practices that they see around them.”

As a result, it’s not just the employer that’s at fault, says Spitzmuller.

“But what is true is that the professional service firms, they do have a unique culture, and they also attract a special type of employee.”

Role of leadership and performance

Leadership has a huge effect in terms of modeling appropriate behaviour and defining norms, policies, and procedures, he says.

The problem is often worsened by the kinds of behaviours that leaders choose to reward.

“Do you want to celebrate the employee who is close to a breakdown and who is working 80 to 100 hours a week… as a heroic accomplishment?” says Spitzmuller.

“This is an important question regarding performance management as well. So, what is it that you're looking for, and how do you reward or penalize employee behaviours?”

He shared an example from an investment bank, where a senior manager sent an email late on a Friday night, noting who was still at their desks and how that might affect bonuses and promotions.

"The signal that it sends is that you have to be present, you have to work these long hours regardless of the output that you produce — and that's, I think, where the mistake is, if you're only looking at the input factors, as opposed to how much work gets done, and does it get done in a sustainable way?” says Spitzmuller.

Unrealistic work expectations

One of the fundamental challenges in tackling overwork is the way that the work itself is designed and distributed within organizations.

Unrealistic work expectations often stem from poor task allocation, according to Spitzmuller, referencing research by Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School, who advocates for designing jobs so that employees can complete their tasks within the allocated hours.

"If everyone needs to spend 150% of the allocated work hours, then there's just a fatal flaw in terms of how work is designed," he said.

Research has also shown that excessive hours do not translate into higher productivity. In fact, productivity tends to decline when people are sleep-deprived after long hours at work.

 "The research is very clear that 15-, 16-, 17-hour work shifts are simply not productive," Spitzmuller says.

In addition, there’s the problem of financing or resourcing the solution, says Sunira Chaudhri, litigator and founder of Workly Law in Toronto.

“When you're driving from profits by using human capital to the brink... and expending that resource as far as you absolutely can by not hiring a second person to help… therein lies the problem.”

Plus, professionals in Canada are largely exempt from overtime, which contributes to the overwork, she says: “Because employers are protected, that's why we're seeing this happening.”

Costly liability to overwork

From a legal standpoint, overwork can open employers up to significant liabilities, particularly when employees experience burnout or develop health issues due to excessive work hours, according to Chaudhri.

For one, they may then go on disability leave, either short-term or long-term.

"The employer is required to keep that person's job open to them when they return. So, there's ongoing cost in managing that situation, for sure," she says.

And the situation can escalate if the employee decides not to return to the workplace.

"What often happens is that when someone burns out, not only do they avail themselves of those resources, they often don't want to go back to the work environment," Chaudhri says.

In such cases, employees may seek medical advice that the work environment is no longer suitable for their health, leading to further legal action.

"What you see many executives doing… is they assert a constructive dismissal and/or a discrimination claim on the basis of failing to accommodate a disability," she says.

Under Canadian law, specifically the Human Rights Code, employers are required to make inquiries if they observe signs of disability or deteriorating performance due to overwork.

However, many employers avoid making these inquiries because they do not want to acknowledge the underlying issue, says Chaudhri.

"They want, of course, this person to continue working," she says, but this failure to inquire or accommodate can lead to significant legal penalties, including claims for constructive dismissal, human rights violations, and punitive damages “for forcing an individual to work in what most would find to be an intolerable working environment.”

Better hiring decisions

Given the complexity of overwork and the factors driving it, solutions are unlikely to be simple or quick. However, all three experts pointed to potential strategies that could help mitigate the issue.

For one, hiring. Many professional service firms and investment banks specifically target employees who have an inner sense of insecurity that makes them want to work excessive hours, says Spitzmuller, “because that gives them the sense of validation and recognition that they otherwise wouldn't have.”

As a result, HR departments should try to a better handle of that, he says.

“It's very important to understand the context in which this is occurring… starting with the type of employees that you're bringing in into an organization.”

Then it’s about trying to develop a healthy sense of work-life balance, says Spitzmuller, “that does not pit employees against each other or against their best self, consistently trying to repeat the personal best of the number of hours that they've worked in previous weeks.”

Regular check-ins with employees

Chaudhri suggests that HR departments carry out regular check-ins with employees to assess their capacity and stress levels.

"Capacity is a very nuanced issue, because I think the employer and employee will have very different views of an employee's capacity," she says. "It's not like every employee is made the same way."

Having conversations about capacity during mid-year check-ins or annual reviews could help both employees and employers address overwork before it becomes a critical issue.

"It's a really good way to encourage a conversation around overwork and to address it in a more systematic way, rather than reactively," Chaudhri says.

A lot of the responsibility is on managers to understand the best ways of dividing tasks and how teams work most effectively, says Zikic.

“Part of improving how we feel at work and issues related to overwork is how the jobs are divided and distributed.”

Monitoring tools: solution or band-aid?

In recent years, some organizations have turned to caps on 80-hour weeks and timekeeping tools as a way to monitor and manage excessive work hours. Bank of America, for instance, has introduced a timekeeping tool to track how long employees are working.

However, Chaudhri cautions about the “unintended consequences” of this approach.

 Employees may perceive these tools as instruments of control rather than mechanisms for protecting their well-being, she says.

"What do employees think? They think, 'Well, all my time is being counted for — I better work harder, I better do more.' They don't actually believe that those tools are being put in place to protect them.”

Spitzmuller also doesn’t think these tools make much sense.

“You're essentially adding an additional tool of control. And I think if you want to move towards healthy workplace practices, you should de-emphasize control mechanisms.

“You should work towards the culture where you trust your employee to take the right decision in terms of how many hours they should be working, and where you have got leadership that also models the appropriate behaviour.”

Taking tech to the next level, there are also wearable devices that monitor biometric data, such as heart rate, sleep patterns, activity and social communication, says Zikic.

“Some employers are going to that direction in terms of trying to change the work culture and providing employees with these devices in order to have hardcore data on their wellbeing.”

Disconnecting from (over)work

One of the legal frameworks aimed at addressing overwork is the "right to disconnect" law, which has been adopted in parts of Canada.

While new laws may help in setting boundaries, more needs to be done, says Zikic.

“It is really this culture of overwork, in many places, that is an established norm. And so that mentality of what's okay or what's expected of you as an employee is very, very hard to change,” she says.

"I think we will only start changing the mindset of leadership and the industry in general, such as banking, especially investment bankers, when we know that the firm will be liable in creating the overworked culture.”

It’s also possible that the younger generations entering the workforce, particularly those in industries like consulting and banking, will push back against extreme long hours.

"When I talk to our MBA students, they oftentimes say, 'I don't want to work 60 hours, therefore consulting job X or job Y is not suitable for me,'" says Spitzmuller.

There is potentially something different around generations and their expectations of work, says Zikic, noting that younger workers are more likely to prioritize their well-being and seek roles that offer better work-life balance.

"Are they going to say no to certain requirements in work? Are they going to leave jobs when they feel that some other aspects of their life, or things that they like to do outside of work, are not being satisfied?"