Are you a work narcissist?

Suzi Jotwani
General Manager
Develop Resolve

We all know someone who seems always to be at work when the rest of the team arrive and still there when we leave, available any hour of any day, and sending emails at 2am. Why do these obsessively hard workers work so hard? It may not necessarily be for the money, or because of fear of failure.

If someone you know feels that they are irreplaceable, that no-one can do their job as well as they can, that they can't turn off and are available 24/7, that there is never a good time to take that well-deserved leave, or that it is necessary to sacrifice themselves to work so that others can live a better life, they may be experiencing ‘Work Narcissism'.

Work Narcissists can be addicted to the positive reinforcement that comes from the respect and admiration of bosses, clients, customers, and colleagues, and the buzz that comes with positions of power[1]. A preoccupation with success, power, superiority and admiration can make the workplace a powerful source of this positive reinforcement, and it becomes hard to let go and go home.

These days, our ‘smartphones' connect us to the workplace permanently, and email can be accessed anywhere, anytime, lending itself to obsessive checking from home in the evenings and on the weekends.

Work narcissists and other work addicts contribute to the more than two billion hours of unpaid overtime that Australians gift to employers each year. Recent research by the Australia Institute values this effort at $72 billion a year[2].

Of course there are many reasons why so many of us are working longer hours and find it difficult to go home at a reasonable time. We're not all work narcissists, but I'm sure most of us recognise some of the symptoms.

There are those of us who freely admit that we are control freaks, who think delegating work to others will just mean having-to-rework-the-job-to-get-it-right-so-why-bother, “Really, it will be quicker if I do it myself…”

Being permanently connected by phone and computer can make us feel that we are in a constant state of ‘workplace arousal', and make it very difficult to switch-off, even when we are with family and friends. We can feel the subtle pressure when our work colleagues decide to stay on and keep working on that big project, making it difficult to head off while they are still hard at it. Others like to save up annual leave as a buffer against retrenchment.

Nearly half of the people surveyed in the Australia Institute research felt that unpaid overtime is ‘expected' or ‘compulsory', and slightly fewer said overtime was ‘not expected' but also ‘not discouraged'.

There are consequences to spending long hours at work. Health and relationships suffer. If we let it, work can invade all the spaces we live in. We should all be mindful of our reasons for why we work so hard, and consider whether that is the lifestyle that we really want to have. What would life be like if we put as much effort into our relationships as we put into working hard?

An environment that enables employees to work reasonable hours without risking health, relationships or career is the responsibility of managers and employers and individuals.

Make the holiday season a time to take care of yourself, your family and your friends.

Warm wishes,

Suzi

[1] Bernard Salt, www.sbs.com.au/shows/thenest/detail/1/articled/3846 (accessed 21/11/09 )

[2] AAP, November 18, 2009

© ResolutionsRTK 2009