To sum up: executives expect to get even worse at their jobs. Give 'em a pay raise!
The Sandwichman ___________________ Overtime losing its appeal
Carol Kleiman, Chicago Tribune
Published June 16, 2005
Working overtime--and getting paid for it or being able to take comp time--is a good opportunity for some workers who say they need the extra cash or the earned leisure.
But many workers don't like additional hours for any reason at all because, they say, overtime wears them out, causes stress and reduces their time off for their personal lives.
And there's one expert who says overtime probably isn't necessary in the first place.
Chris Ortiz is a quality engineering supervisor for a manufacturing company in Winston-Salem, N.C. Ortiz designs business and manufacturing processes "to achieve greater productivity"--and thereby to reduce the need for overtime work. Since 1999, he has focused on workplace problems; his specialty is redesigning the eight-hour workday.
Ortiz, author of "40+: Overtime under poor leadership" (AuthorHouse, $24.95), stresses that "bad, inefficient management" usually is the reason overtime is needed in the first place. The industrial engineer, who has a staff of 25 people, points out that a closer look at the need for overtime reveals that the emperor--in this case, the manager--is indeed naked.
"There are instances where you do need overtime, for instance to expedite a huge, unexpected order, but in most cases, with good time management and balancing workloads, overtime can be avoided," said Ortiz, who also gives lectures on the subject. "The problem is an inability on the part of mangers to identify skill sets and avoid time crunches."
He says the problem is that in corporate America, "every quarter has to be better than the one before, so there's a huge drive at the end of each quarter to make shareholders happy--and the result is that employees have to work far longer hours in relatively unorganized situations."
And overtime is not harmless. "It causes family problems because you're not at home," said Ortiz. "It causes stress because you're not allowed to enjoy the fruits of life."
Many employees, he notes, automatically say yes to overtime. "People are afraid to say no, they're scared because the company hangs their jobs in front of their faces," he said.
Ortiz says a good manager should know what his employees' interests are outside of work and try to accommodate them. On those "very small, brief moments" when he needs someone to work overtime," Ortiz makes sure time off with pay is offered at the same time as the request--not an order--to work.
In a previous job, the engineer worked as an efficiency expert at a company where, at the end of the each year, employees worked 18-hour days, resting on cots and then returning to the job. That went on for 30 days straight.
"It was due to inefficiency and we fixed that," he said.
Ortiz's own disillusionment with overtime arose when he met his future wife in 2000 and wanted to spend more time with her. "I was single, happy, making a lot of money and didn't care about the hours," said the engineer, who now is married and has a child. "But very quickly I wanted more time off."
He didn't get it and had to leave that job, which required 12-hour workdays, taking work home and skipping lunches.
His advice for employees who are asked to work extra hours: "Recognize what you're giving up and decide if that overtime is going to hurt the things that really are important to you in life."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/jobs/columnists/chi-0506160124jun16,0,7974736.column
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Technology and Working Life Posted by David Appell at June 16, 2005 01:54 PM in Business.
Technology is supposed to make our lives better, isn't it? More capable, more efficient, accomplishing tasks in shorter amounts of time. And what's the point of that? A more civilized life, I thought -- more leisure, more time for oneself and for friends and family.
Except it's not looking to be that way. A distressing new report from a group called OfficeTeam looks at trends in office life over the next 10 to 15 years. They found that "technology will continue to reshape the workspace," but it's not exactly the kind of reshaping that technology-especially wireless technologies-were supposed to bring:
-- Forty-two percent of executives polled said they believe employees will be working more hours in the next 10 to 15 years. Only 9 percent said they would be working fewer hours.
-- Workers will stay in touch with the office while on vacation.
-- Travel will be reduced, and telecommuting will increase. But workers will be under increasing stress and strain to "adapt quickly to change, work smarter, increase productivity and perform duties outside of one¹s job description." Sure, that works for some workers, primarily younger workers. But does it work for everyone?
"As a result," the study concludes, "flexibility and adaptability will be sought-after attributes in employees at all levels." That sounds to me like code word for "you¹ll do it our way or hit the highway."
Sure, wifi, cell phones, videoconferencing, and the developments of the next decade enable us to do things we couldn¹t do before, and part of that is an overall benefit. Heck, some of it's even fun. But Americans work hard enough and vacation little enough as it is. If the cost is yet longer hours and fewer true vacations, is the price really worth it? Worse, do workers really have any choice about it?
http://archives.trblogs.com/2005/06/technology_and_1.trml?trk=nl