Do Americans Work Too Hard? - Research Paper

Introduction

The American economy may have grown in the past years, but most of its citizens are prepared to bust. There is no much that is heard about that, with the national public relations machines praising the expansion of the American peace in history. However, behind the closed doors of apartments, the ranches and the others houses of the actual citizens who contribute a lot to the American economy, the tale is different, a contrast of what the PR keep trumpeting about. This is because the lives of these folks and their families together with their leisure time have all been consumed by constant work. When most Americans are asked the real situation on the ground, they tell stories of desperation from worn out workers- the working hours range between 50-60 hours in one week without a letup. Earlier on, Japan was the industrialized country whose workers were most overworked, but the United States has surpassed them to lead this trend. Cumulatively, each year the Americans work two extra weeks longer than the Japanese and eight weeks longer than the Germans.

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Moreover, the Americans get an average of mere nine-day paid leave after the first year of employment (and this is all dependent on the employers). In contrast, the Australians and Europeans have vacations that are provided by law, and these vacations range between one month and one-and-half months which is better compared to the Americans' nine days (Golden, Lonnie & Gebreselassie, 2007). Therefore, Americans are the most overworked people in the world, and there have been campaigns to try and resolve this trend.

Working for long hours actually, produces negative results for both the workers and the companies they work for. Most managers like to put their employees for long hours and work for them, provide responses to their emails instantly and anytime, and the employees willingly sacrifice their nights, vacations and weekends to attend to the work requirements without complaining. In these equations, the underlings have minimal control because the overwork affects all the employees, from top-level managers to the casual laborers. This version states that employees overwork due to their employers. Another reason for overworking among employees; which affects even the senior managers, is primarily because the economy forces people to do so. These economic forces are the wreckage brought about by the eddy currents that originate from the financial incentives by the government, corporate culture, and the advancement of technology. Essentially, there is no one controlling workers, but the overwork is a reaction to weighty factors beyond the workers' control. According to research conducted, it suggests that no matter the reasons for working for long hours, overwork does not give justice to workers. For those employees who are beginners, overwork does not produce more output. According to a study by Erin Reid (2015), managers were unable to differentiate between those employees who had an 80-hours-a week work and those who pretended to work for those hours. Although managers awarded penalties to those employees who worked for fewer hours, Reid was unable to find any evidence that these employees did less work or any indication that the overworking workers did more. Evidence shows that there is no neutrality in overworking because it hurts the workers and also the companies these employees work for. According to a study by Marianna Virtanen, it was found that overworking lead to negative results to employees- Lack of enough rest hours, diabetes, depression, etc. These outcomes are too dangerous to employees on their own. Again these results are detrimental to the bottom line of the company, and they pop up in the form of employee absenteeism, increased cost of insurance and also turnover (Virtanen, 2011). Therefore, employers should note the results of overworking employees lead to real and significant costs that are incurred due to overwork.

The question of whether working for 40 hours a week is ideal is an important consideration that human resource managers need to ask themselves. This is because the schedule maintained in offices can have significant impacts on productivity and employees engagements and the turnover. According to Robert Owen(1817), he argued that labor ought to consume maximum eight hours, recreation to consume eight hours and rest to take eight hours in one day (Hatcher, 2013). Most industries had adopted the eight working hours by 1990, but most employees worked even on Saturdays. This trend continued up to 1926 when Henry Ford did away with one day required for work from the employees' schedules. This meant that employees would work for shifts of eight hours a day for five days a week- what is called 40-hour workweek. Ford noted that the worker's productivity increased when they worked for 40 hours a week compared to when they worked for 48 hours weekly. Due to his success brought about by this change, many companies all over the country were inspired and started adopting the 40-hour work week schedule. Hence, working for 40 hours per week is a good employee schedule basing this argument on the success achieved by Henry Ford.

Conclusion

I strongly agree to the opinion that there should be ceiling mandated by law on the weekly working hours because if people work for more extended hours each week, they will become worn out and tired which results to decrease in productivity of these employees. It is even more advisable to work a few hours a week (those hours mandated by law) because it assures productivity increase and also ensures that workers are performing their duties to the best of their abilities. Also, the ceiling legally mandated provides that those companies that are greedy do not take advantage of those employees in need of money (Irvine, Helen, & Natalie, 2006).

The issue of changing the employment laws to give employees more time to relax is welcoming. There are several reasons why the code should be reviewed to provide the worker with more time to relax. One of these reasons is that when employees spend more time at workplaces, they are left with less time to sleep, and insufficient sleep dramatically affects the employee performance (Kalleberg, Arne, Barbara & Ken, 2000). A recent study done by Harvard indicated that inadequate sleep (less than six hours) costs the companies in America $63.2 billion each year and this was due to reduced productivity. Again, giving employees more vacations proved beneficial. According to a survey conducted by Ernst & Young accounting firm found that for every ten vacation hours taken by employees, their end-of-year ratings on their performance recorded an 8% improvement (Hochschild, 1997). Also, those employees who took vacations more often were unlikely to quit their work. Therefore, the law should be altered to give employees more time to relax, and this will result in increased rates of economic growth.

Works Cited

Golden, Lonnie, and Tesfayi Gebreselassie. "Overemployment mismatches: the preference for fewer work hours." Monthly Lab. Rev. 130 (2007): 18.

Hatcher, Tim. "Robert Owen: a historiographic study of a pioneer of human resource development." European Journal of Training and Development 37.4 (2013): 414-431.

Hochschild, Arlie. "The time binds." WorkingUSA 1.2 (1997): 21-29.

Irvine, Helen J., and Natalie Lucas. "The globalization of accounting standards: the case of the United Arab Emirates." (2006).

Kalleberg, Arne L., Barbara F. Reskin, and Ken Hudson. "Bad jobs in America: Standard and nonstandard employment relations and job quality in the United States." American sociological review (2000): 256-278.

Reid, Erin. "Embracing, Passing, Revealing, and the Ideal Worker Image: How People Navigate Expected and Experienced Professional Identities." Organization Science. 26.4 (2015): 997-1017. Print.

Virtanen, Marianna, et al. "Long working hours and symptoms of anxiety and depression: a 5-year follow-up of the Whitehall II study." Psychological medicine 41.12 (2011): 2485-2494.