Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do about It

by Erin L Kelly, Phyllis Moen

"Contemporary ways of working are not working, even for professionals and managers in what used to be considered "good" jobs. Companies are responding to global competition and pressure from financial markets by adopting management practices and staffing strategies that push workers to do more and more with less and less. New technologies facilitate always-on availability, normalizing 24/7 job expectations. This new intensity spawns chronic stress in the form of overload - feelings of too much to do and too little time to ... Read More

"Contemporary ways of working are not working, even for professionals and managers in what used to be considered "good" jobs. Companies are responding to global competition and pressure from financial markets by adopting management practices and staffing strategies that push workers to do more and more with less and less. New technologies facilitate always-on availability, normalizing 24/7 job expectations. This new intensity spawns chronic stress in the form of overload - feelings of too much to do and too little time to do it. Kelly and Moen argue this way of working is both unhealthy and unsustainable. Employees burn out, quit, or lack the time or energy to bring their best contributions to their jobs. Organizations lose out along with individuals, families, and communities. This book moves beyond familiar tropes about 'work-life balance' to argue that the problem lies not in the effort to 'balance' but in the very nature of contemporary work. Overload harms workers of all genders, ages, and life stages as well as the bottom lines of corporations. What can be done? Kelly and Moen draw on five years of research, including a major field experiment, in a Fortune 500 firm to describe a new approach to making work more sane and sustainable. The initiative, called STAR, prompts imaginative yet feasible changes (or work redesigns) that improve employees' health, wellbeing, and ability to manage both their personal and their work lives. They find the firm also benefits through increased job satisfaction and reduced turnover"-- Read Less