Employees adhering to the old-style conventional wisdom that urges them to keep their noses to the grindstone hope their hard work will pay off. But they might be wise to heed a more modern take on how to approach work: Slow down and guard your health. 
The concept of “binge working” is getting a lot of attention as more and more employees trying to advance in their careers willingly put in extreme hours. Sometimes binge workers aren’t even trying to leap to the top; they just want to stay employed. They think—perhaps mistakenly—that they have to work what’s been shown to be dangerous hours just to ward off the pink slip in a 24/7/365 era of work.
Binging is bad for your health
Whatever the reason—ambition, fear, or something else—many employees don’t work long days under orders from the boss. Instead, they do it on their own. But with news reports chronicling tragic instances such as the case of a 21-year-old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern who died last August in London after marathon work sessions, it’s time for the human resources department to take stock.
Recent headlines and social media buzz are giving HR—the team tasked with helping employers promote a healthy work-life balance while at the same time fostering increased productivity—a lot to consider.
In 2012, Forbes magazine reported on the binge work phenomenon, pointing to a study reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology showing a significant increased risk of heart disease among people who work long hours. More news accounts tell of other health effects associated with overwork, including depression, diabetes, and possibly an increased propensity for dementia in later life. In addition, the World Health Organization has labeled stress “the health epidemic of the 21st century.”
A recent discussion on a LinkedIn group for HR professionals asked the question, “Is binge working the new norm?” Dave Sumner Smith, CEO at Next Dimension Media, an independent operator of LinkedIn groups, started the discussion with a post mentioning concerns about health and family when workers log extremely long hours.
One participant in the discussion, Josh Bersin, principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP and founder of Bersin by Deloitte, cited research on what he terms “the overwhelmed employee.” Deloitte’s 2014 Human Capital Trends Study identified overwhelmed workers as one of the biggest challenges uncovered in the company’s research.
Overwhelmed employees are “dealing with the flood of information, text messages, tweets, emails, meetings, and conference calls every day,” Bersin wrote in a March 11 article posted on LinkedIn. He claims research shows that today’s professionals “can only focus for 7 minutes at a time, after which we change windows or check Facebook!”
The Deloitte research should be “a wakeup call for us as individuals as well as for business and HR leaders,” Bersin wrote. “We need to change the way we live and change the way our organizations work.”
Change begins at the top
Bersin says leadership is key to solving problems associated with overwhelmed employees, and his research shows that 86 percent of the businesses included in the project call “deepening their leadership pipeline” an urgent or very important issue. He says the research shows that “when we feel disengaged or overwhelmed at work, much of the problem comes down to the management environment.”
Bersin says leaders need to think about how people are recognized and evaluated as well as the opportunities they’re afforded to contribute. Leaders also need to consider how well they are able to coach, develop and inspire people. “Our research shows that the qualities of high-performing leaders have changed: today’s leaders need to be hands-on, inspirational, creative, and inclusive,” he wrote.
Bersin calls engaging today’s workforce an “epic” challenge. “We as workers are going to have to learn how to deal with the ‘overwhelming’ amount of information, distractions, and technology in our lives. We have to learn to slow down, focus ourselves, and prioritize,” he says, adding that HR and business leaders “have to wake up to the challenge.”
I hope you were not really writing this at 5 a.m.