IS LONG WORKING HOUR A BIG REASON FOR DISENGAGED EMPLOYEES IN AN ORGANIZATION?

IS LONG WORKING HOUR A BIG REASON FOR DISENGAGED EMPLOYEES IN AN ORGANIZATION?

Almost a decade ago, a Gallup study indicated that "actively disengaged" employees, who are fundamentally disconnected from their jobs - were costing the U.S. economy between $292 billion and $355 billion a year. The estimates based on Q12 survey said that the disengaged employees were less productive, more stressed, less loyal and more insecure.

Schmidt et al's influential definition of employee engagement was "an employee's involvement with, commitment to, and satisfaction with work." This definition used data from Gallup’s Q12 survey. Clear and mounting evidences suggest that employee engagement is a really big deal. The buzz phrase of employee engagement is said to be a heightened emotional connection of an employee with his/her organization.

Since the dawn of industrial era, we have been questioning why management surveys goes on, or why is employee engagement tracked again and again. We know that employee retention will be difficult with disengaged employees. In relation to the various reasons for disengagement like- job dissatisfaction, bad boss/workplace, monetary issues, too little coaching and feedback, few growth opportunities, work life imbalance and loss of trust & confidence one reason which encompasses a lot of other issue is long working hours.

 I was going through an article on the recent speech given by the new IT advisor to Thailand’s Prime Minister. One of the top 50 influential people of Asia, Mr. Narayan Murthy has said that disengagement of the employees can also come from working for long hours (say more than 8-9 hours of work). People who work such long hours turn cranky, irritable and complaining. They commit potential errors at work due to fatigue (caused by over time). He has brilliantly compared these kinds of employees to a toddler who doesn’t sleep because he doesn’t want to miss the fun when guests come in to his place. And then ruin his and his parents’ night because he is worn out by that time. He gets up due to night mares, grows irritable and thus makes his parents suffer.

We are not programmed devices that we can work and respond 24/7. We need to spend time with our family, need to eat healthy, take rest and should not refrain ourselves from rest because we do not want to miss what is going on in the company. The grim situation of disengaged workforce cannot be just tackled by asking your employees whether they are satisfied or not. It is by the measure that employees must take in order to save themselves from under or non performance, which is an end result of ‘employee disengagement’.