That’s what they hear from the employees.  “Pay me more - work me less“.

Owners and senior leaders think employees should be happy to have a good job. 

Human Resources knows that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but there can be no doubt that today’s employees are working longer hours than they did 25 years ago.  And it’s having an impact on today’s workers.  Consider the following:

• Over the past 25 years, the combined weekly work hours of two earner couples with children under 18 at home increased 10 hours per week, from 81 to 91 hours.  Worse yet, 97% of these couples are not content with respect to their high levels of time commitment to work.
• People between the ages of 30 and 49 are the most likely to work long hours.
• Baby boomers expressed a feeling of being more overworked than employees in other generations.
• One in three American employees is “chronically overworked”.

I tend not to spend a lot of time on the issue of pay with my Employee Hold’em clients.  The issue is pretty straight-forward and doesn’t require a lot of advanced analytical techniques.  Here goes:  In order to recruit qualified applicants to your organization, you have to PAY A FAIR WAGE.  You pay too little and nobody will come to your front door.  However if you pay way too much, you’ll never be able to kick your marginal workers out the back door.

Fair pay.  What a novel concept.  So, do some research on what your competitors do, get a hold of a good salary survey, look at your job levels and pay bands, and make sure you are being fair and equitable with your workers.  EZ Sneezy.

OK, so let us get back to the overworked side of the equation.  Consider these…

• 25% of men and 10% of women work more than 48 hours per week
• From 1970 - 2002, the average employee’s workweek increased 20%
• Three in ten managerial and professional employees work at least 49 hours per week

And then there is this one…

• Four in ten employees who experience high levels of “overwork” say they feel very angry toward their employers versus just 1% who experience low levels of “overwork.  And we all know that Employees Quit a Boss, Not a Company!   And none of us want employees that feel very angry toward their employer.

The American Institute of Stress (no kiddin’) estimated that stress-related illnesses cost American employers $300 billion per year.  This doesn’t include the “presenteeism” time; the time the employee is at work, but not really functioning in a satisfactory capacity.  Whether it is pressure from overwork or underlife, today’s employees find it more and more difficult to create an acceptable balance between their career and family obligations.

We don’t rob Peter to pay Paul.  We rob from ourselves to give to our bosses and our family.