By: Madeleine McKenzie

 

Would you rather work a long 50-hour week or go on vacation to the Bahamas? To most people, the answer is obvious. They would rather go on vacation, of course. But their actions tell us otherwise.

According to a study conducted by Glassdoor in 2017, 55% of Americans use only half of their work vacation days. And to make matters worse, 66% of Americans surveyed reported that they still work while on vacation.¹ These statistics are only the beginning of the story of overworked America.

Americans tend to think overworking is necessary for success, but evidence suggests that working fewer hours increases productivity, and working fewer hours is possible.

The Story of Overworked America

One of America’s core values is hard work. Ever since the founding of the country, the idea has been promoted that success comes through hard work. The concept of hard work is the essence of the American Dream. Work lies not only at the heart of American identity but also at the heart of personal identity.

In 2019, Derek Thompson, a writer for the Atlantic, explored the idea of identity and work in his article titled “Workism is Making America Miserable.” In the article, Thompson says, “The economists of the early 20th century did not foresee that work might evolve from a means of material production to a means of identity production. They failed to anticipate that . . . for the college-educated elite, it would morph into a kind of religion, promising identity, transcendence, and community.”² That is exactly what work has become for many professionals—an identity, a purpose, and a calling in life.

One such individual is Katelyn James, an entrepreneur and owner of one of the top photography education programs in the United States. In a recent Instagram post, she stated, “I actually told [my husband] once that vacation didn’t sound as fun as having a full week to crank out my to-do list.”³ She makes it clear that the comment stemmed from her belief that overworking was crucial to her career. She hung her identity and worth on her ability to achieve results and feared that taking a break would ruin her chances of success.

Unfortunately, she is not alone. Americans across the country have that same belief. Professionals tie their identity and worth to their work, which drives them to work harder and longer hours. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the average number of hours full-time employees work is over 40 hours a week.⁴ Additional research done by Gallup found that 25% of salaried employees reported working more than 60 hours a week.⁵

Americans are expected to work 9–5, five days a week, along with extensive overtime. Vacation days are few and far between. We believe so strongly in our overworked lifestyle that we have built it into our society’s structure and systems.

Our overworked lifestyle comes with costs. Research has found that significant effects of overworking include stress, lack of free-time, poor work/life balance, tiredness, fatigue, obesity, lack of attentiveness, insomnia, depression, diabetes, etc.⁶ The World Health Organization also found that “working 55 or more hours per week is associated with an estimated 35% higher risk of a stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease, compared to working 35–40 hours a week.”⁷

We may think that overworking increases success, but stress, poor work/life balance, fatigue, lack of attentiveness, and heart failure are not success. The reality is, we would be much more successful if we worked less.

The Power of Working Less to Increase Productivity

Economics professor John Pencavel of Stanford University found that productivity per hour declines sharply when a person works more than 50 hours a week. After 55 hours, productivity decreases so sharply that working more is pointless. Those who work 70 hours a week accomplish an equivalent amount to those working only 55 hours per week.⁸ Several companies took this research to heart and discovered that rather than pushing their employees to work more, they needed to push them to work less to increase productivity. The results have been astonishing.

In Japan, Microsoft ran a pilot program where they instituted a four-day workweek for the summer, but their employees still received their normal, five-day paycheck. Microsoft saw a 40% increase in productivity over the summer they ran the program. They also saw other benefits including lower electricity costs (falling by 23%) and lower printing costs (printing 60% fewer pages).⁹

Microsoft isn’t the only company that has seen increased productivity from fewer working hours. Bolt, an eCommerce solutions company, also implemented the four-day workweek. When the CEO, Ryan Breslow, surveyed his team after the three-month experiment, he found that 86% of employees were more efficient with their time, 85% of managers hit their key performance indicators, 84% of employees improved their work-life balance, and 80% eliminated unnecessary meetings.¹⁰

These companies are just two examples of how working less increases productivity for both individuals and companies. We may think that we need to work more to be productive, but as the evidence shows, the opposite is true.

The Cultural Revolution Against Overworking

If we want to stop overworking and increase our productivity, we need to have a cultural revolution against our overworking mentality. Individuals need to recognize that their success and identity don’t depend on working longer hours. Businesses need to buy into the idea that vacation days and shorter workweeks won’t hurt their bottom line. The government needs to see that time off will boost rather than harm the economy. Our beliefs and systems need to change. We can look to other countries for inspiration.

Countries around the world are encouraging people to work fewer hours. Iceland experimented with allowing employees to work less between 2015 and 2019 by allowing participants to shift from a 40-hour week to a 35-hour week. Results indicated positive impacts on productivity and wellbeing.¹¹ Japan is encouraging businesses to shift to a four-day workweek so that people will have time to take care of their families, be involved in the community, and tackle the country’s declining birth rate.¹²

Most recently, the United Arab Emirates became the first country to formally implement a 4.5-day work week to allow employees to devote more time to their family life, friends, education, healthcare, community, and recreational activities.¹³

Working less doesn’t just mean shorter work weeks. It also includes more vacation days. Data from the Center of Economic Policy and Research has identified the number of vacation days mandated in various countries around the world. As the chart below shows, countries such as Spain, Germany, and Austria all require over 30 paid days off a year. The United States has zero required vacation days.

Figure 1

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States is the only country in the group that does not mandate paid vacation.¹⁵

America clearly has a long way to go in combating our culture of overwork. But if countries around the world are reducing working hours, we can reduce the number of hours we work, too. To change our mindset about work and to increase our productivity, the government needs to support and encourage people to take time off. Businesses need to grant adequate vacation days and, when possible, implement shorter workweeks. Individuals need to value and use the time off that they are given. Change is never going to occur if we keep wasting our vacation days.¹⁶ Taking the time off that we already have is crucial to the cultural revolution against overwork.

Our culture of overworking isn’t going to change overnight. But change needs to start somewhere, and it starts with us. The solution is as simple as taking your vacation days and leaving work early. Try it out—you will be more productive.

Notes

1. Amy Elisa Jackson, “We Just Can’t UNPLUG: 2 in 3 Employees Report Working While on Vacation,” Glassdoor Blog, Glassdoor Inc., May 24, 2017, https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/vacation-realities-2017/.
2. Derek Thompson, “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable,” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, February 24, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/.
3. Katelyn James, “@katelynjames,” Instagram, February 16, 2022, https://www.instagram.com/katelynjames/?hl=en.
4. “Charts Related to the Latest ‘American Time Use Survey’ News Release,” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019, https://www.bls.gov/charts/american-time-use/emp-by-ftpt-job-edu-h.htm.
5. Lydia Saad, “The ‘40-Hour’ Workweek Is Actually Longer—by Seven Hours.” Gallup.com, Gallup, August 29, 2014, https://news.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-hours.aspx.
6. Bhairav Prasad and Charu Thakur. “Chronic Overworking: Cause Extremely Negative Impact on Health and Quality of Life,” International Journal of Advanced Microbiology and Health Research, 3, no. 1 (2019), https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bhairav-Prasad/publication/333746827_Chronic_Overworking_Cause_Extremely_Negative_Impact_on_Health_and_Quality_of_Life/links/5d01e43f92851c874c624b24/Chronic-Overworking-Cause-Extremely-Negative-Impact-on-Health-and-Quality-of-Life.pdf.
7. “Long Working Hours Increasing Deaths from Heart Disease and Stroke: Who, Ilo.” World Health Organization. World Health Organization, May 17, 2021, https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2021-long-working-hours-increasing-deaths-from-heart-disease-and-stroke-who-ilo.
8. John Pencavel, “The Productivity of Working Hours.” Economic Journal, 125, no. 589 (2015), https://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.aspEbscoContent=dGJyMMTo50SeqLM4xNvgOLCmsEqeqLFSr6a4SLeWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGuskyurK5IuePfgeyx43zx1%2B6B&T=P&P=AN&S=L&D=eoh&K=1559792 
9. Bill Chappell, “4-Day Workweek Boosted Workers’ Productivity by 40%, Microsoft Japan Says.” NPR, November 4, 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-says-4-day-workweek-boosted-workers-productivity-by-40.
10. Marguerite Ward, “A Fintech Startup Saw a 30% Spike in Job Applications after Switching to a 4-Day Workweek. A Top Exec Laid out Its Blueprint.” Business Insider, February 1, 2022, https://www.businessinsider.com/how-bolt-made-change-4-day-work-week-top-exec-2022-1.
11. Sara Al Mulla, “The World of Work Should Embrace Shorter Working Weeks.” Gulf News, January 16, 2022, https://gulfnews.com/opinion/op-eds/the-world-of-work-should-embrace-shorter-working-weeks-1.84964260.
12. Sara Al Mulla, “The World of Work Should Embrace Shorter Working Weeks.”
13. Sara Al Mulla, “The World of Work Should Embrace Shorter Working Weeks.”