Hey, check out this great article and it’s lively debate from viewers on inc.com
http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/stop-working-more-than-40-hours-a-week.html
My view is when you set up your own business/project or are in sync with the purpose of the business, then long hours are no hassle at all. The people that are most negatively affected by long hours are employees. Those who are there just to have a job and pay the bills.
It can be tough changing a work culture that takes 60-70 hours a week as the norm but, if you want to extend your career, (and this IS about you, after all) it’s important to look after yourself. Putting effort into work/life balance, reducing stress through the body basics (good sleep, eating and exercise), having a regular social life separate from work personnel and support at home will make a massive difference to how you cope and are effective at work.
Right now I’ve been doing a lot of research on Advertising and Media agencies. When I asked what the biggest problems were, by far and away the most frequent answers were long working hours and being treated unfairly which resulted in Stress and Burnout figures far exceeding most other industries.
I checked in with The Communication Council, an association funded by Australian ad and media agencies, and they came back with some startling figures from their Annual Salary Survey. In 2011 an average of 31.52% of total staff resigned. This is up from 24.86% in 2010.
Redundancies were down but, hey, who needs to pay out redundancy money when you can pretty much bet the employee will resign within the next 12-18 months or so?
Is it any wonder there is a lack of available talent in this industry?
So as more employees filter out to other creative industries or simply go freelance where they can choose their own working conditions, media and ad agencies will be forced to take a serious look at how they operate and if there are alternative ways to get the work done and retain their staff.
I’m doing what I can in this area by offering a new set of services.
- A facilitation to open up communication between staff members, get them talking clearly and in sync with the company purpose.
- Stress management training as a 1/2 day or full day course. I am also writing an online course so you can take the course spread over several weeks in bite size lessons.
- Executive coaching to support management. A happy productive manager is more likely to lead a happy productive team.
- Redundancy coaching available to help get over the deep rejection and look forward to new opportunities.
These services not limited to media and ad agencies. If you know someone these services can help, by all means share the page with them and get them to give me a call.
I can’t change the whole industry, but I will do what I can even if it’s one person at a time.
Annabelle