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  • From: "Joanna Wolfe (919)677-0977" <wolfe AT oup-usa.org>
  • To: InterNetWorkers <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: New Study on Overwork
  • Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 08:35:05 -0400 (EDT)


This was in the InformationWeek daily:

** WORKPLACE: Surprising Findings In Overwork Study

Add overwork to death and taxes as life's only certainties, at least for IT
workers. Whether staffing up in booms and cutting back in busts, IT workers
are stretched thin. But a new study is helping to better define what
constitutes overwork. The findings may surprise some.

The nonprofit Families and Work Institute has released a survey, "Feeling
Overworked: When Work Becomes Too Much," that indicates it isn't necessarily
the workload that leads to a feeling of overwork. More relevant is the
"ownership" people feel they have for tasks. Employees are more likely to
feel overworked because they're trying to meet superiors' expectations or
because more time is needed to complete an assigned task.

They are less likely to report being overworked when the effort is internally
driven: to advance in a career, or to make more money in order to buy a new
house, for instance. In fact, Ellen Galinsky, principal author of the study,
says that a group of IT workers told her recently that they consider
themselves the overwork "poster children" for overwork. John Drake, founder
of human-resources consulting firm Drake Beam Morin, says IT is probably the
worst area for overwork. "IT is a key piece in most companies; long hours and
dedication are expected--especially in small startups," he says.

The average U.S. employee works 42 hours a week, but would prefer to work
just under 35. The InformationWeek 2001 Salary Survey finds that, on average,
IT staff work 45 hours a week plus 24 hours on call. For managers, on-call
time is roughly the same, but they're working 50 hours. On-call time is
dramatically up from last year, from around 15 hours a week. - Diane Rezendes

For more information from our salary survey, visit
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eDkO0Bc5mz0V20N810AT Read
more about IT workloads at

Backlash
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eDkO0Bc5mz0V20N820AU

A summary of the Families and Work Institute study can be found at
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eDkO0Bc5mz0V20N830AV

Regards,

Joanna

Joanna Wolfe
Manager, Business Technology Services
Oxford University Press, USA
2001 Evans Road
Cary, NC 27513
v: (919) 677-0977 ext. 5242
f: (919) 677-2654
c: (919) 244-7696
e: wolfe AT oup-usa.org
w: www.oup-usa.org

Today's URL of interest:

http://www.familiesandwork.org/OverworkPressRelease.htm




  • New Study on Overwork, Joanna Wolfe (919)677-0977, 05/21/2001

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