Workaholic and time perception - Essay Example

?Workaholics and time perception Outline Table Of Contents A. Introduction? B. Background? C. Literature Review D. Methodology E. Data Analysis F. Findings And Conclusion G. References H. Appendix – Questionnaire? Workaholics and time perception Introduction? The challenge of workaholism is one that largely goes unnoticed and unexamined in many organizations and especially in the smaller and medium sized enterprises. This is largely because it is seen as a problem that affects high powered executives in highly competitive and large organizations. Despite research that has shown that workaholism is a problem that affects not just employees in highly competitive where upward mobility is a major factor of life, not enough has been done to deal with this problem in the smaller firms or at the lower echelons of professional and non-professional employment. There is also a lack of simple and effective tools for assessing the problem in an organization and addressing it before it gets to be too big or at least flagging its existence or danger of its existence at an organization. This document shows a way of quickly assessing the problem of workaholism in an organization and ways of addressing it immediately. This process will enable an organization’s staff to quickly test the existence of the problem of workaholism in all levels of the organization, assess the size and prevalence of the problem and also suggests ways of addressing it. It utilizes the results of similar studies that have established the best tools for investigating the disorder as well as the most recognized and widely used ways to combat it that have been developed n many parts of the world. Background? A workaholic can be described as a person for whom work has become such a consuming habit that it interferes with their health, interpersonal relationships and their ability to cope socially. Workaholism is often never diagnosed as in today’s world, hard work is valued and those who work hard are viewed as just being “enthusiastic” workers to be admired rather than looked upon as being “sick”. People actually find it admirable to be described as workaholics. Those who suffer from relationships with people who are workaholics usually find it hard to come forward and so usually the problem goes unreported and unresolved until it’s too late and the workaholism has taken its toll on relationships, social interactions, family life and even physical health. Often workaholism is never recognized for the potentially debilitating disorder that it can be, sometimes with devastating impact on the person concerned, their relatives, friends and colleagues. The key to resolving workaholism related symptoms, as with all other types of addictions is recognizing the signs of it and for the person to admit that they do have a problem. One of the major hallmarks of workaholism is that despite the appearance and perception of hard work, workaholics have one major commonality – their work is rarely ever well done. There are four different types of workaholism. The bulimic workaholic often wait for “perfect” conditions to begin a task so they delay getting started on a task then find they have to rush to complete it on time, the result being hurried, sloppily done work. Relentless workaholics get an adrenaline rush from taking on too much work which they end up doing too fast for it to have any thoughtful, meaningful results. Attention deficit workaholics often attack a task with a lot of activity and then lose interest in the details or follow through part of it. The final group, the savoring workaholics are very slow and perfectionists. They often will not be able to complete tasks on time since it’s not perfect yet. Literature review There have been a lot of studies done in the area of workaholism. There have been studies done looking at all angles of the workaholism problem, such as its adverse impacts on marital and types of relationships and productivity at work (Bakker, Demerouti & Burke, 2013). The effects of workaholism on the nature, type and depth of interpersonal relationships have also been variously analyzed and studied (Aziz, Uhrich, Wuensch & Swords, 2013). A lot of studies have also been done that have tried to look at workaholism as pervasive and as debilitating as any other addiction disorder. Despite all this research, studies, surveys and evaluations there has not even been an overall agreed upon definition of what alcoholism is (Griffiths, 2011). However, one area on which all research and studies are agreed in a more or else, universal way, is that workaholism, in its various types and states, does exist and there are various recognized and acknowledged ways of determining the existence of workaholism or workaholic tendencies. Such tool as self-administered questionnaires can easily rate the danger or how close to the red-line a person’s work-life balance is (Absolute Discretion, n.d.). Common traits of the scourge or workaholism are many and varied. It includes multiple addictions – especially with money, food and relationships involved. Denial is another common trait with no person ever admitting to having a problem. Reduced or lowered self esteem is another, hence the need to look to work as a way of compensation. There is also a tendency to be dishonest, often overstating achievements and trying to minimize their failures. Another common trait with this condition is possessiveness with work, always thinking about it, always talking about it (Absolute Discretion, n.d.). The challenge has often been differentiating “hard work” from addition to work. It is a fairly subjective task to draw the distinction between these two and knowing when to draw the line is fraught with inaccuracies and lack of hard and fast rules. The fact that often addiction to work is seen as some kind of badge of valor and not recognized for the disorder that it is (Griffiths, 2011). At an organizational level, workaholism does tend to take its toll since most workaholics are not team players. They usually tend to disrupt the working habits of others in their search for opportunities to “shine” and be seen as the heroes of the work situation. Since there is no recognition given to those workers who clock out on time or seem to have found an adequate work-home time balance. Rather it is those those clock longer hours that get recognized in the workplace, which makes workaholism more of a systemic addition than just a personal one. .Methodology After the first step of conducting an exhaustive literature review, the next step is coming up with a tool that would make for a fast and precise measure of a person’s predilection to workaholism. A self administered questionnaire has been developed along the lines identified by Workaholics Anonymous. The idea of this questionnaire is to measure how much of workaholic a person is. This test would be administered by all members of staff, with the proviso that what matters is not so much the score but the honesty with which it is completed. The importance of answering each of the 20 questions as accurately as possible is important as it determines what types of corrective measures are necessary and need to be taken. The sample for this sort of exercise would be basically be everyone in the organization since one of the findings of the numerous studies is that workaholism is not just limited to a certain cadre or range of employees or professions. It can be identified at all levels of employment in an organization and cuts right across the workforce. Like any other addiction-like propensity a workaholic has some or all of these features: salience, where work becomes the single most important activity or thought, mood modification where the workaholic gets a “high” or “buzz” from work, tolerance, where more and more amounts of work are required to achieve the mood modifying effect, withdrawal where there is an unpleasant feeling when unable to work because of any reason such as illness, vacation etc, conflict not only with others but also with activities and even the individual himself and finally relapse where repeated workaholic practices are repeated (Griffiths, 2011). Data analysis Once the data has been collected and all the Questionnaires have been completed then the next stage of the study takes place and that is the analysis part where the Questionnaires are scored. The way this is done is that the numbers of “Yes” answers on the Questionnaire are counted and the n multiplied by 5. Once this is done, then each of the employees’ scores is looked at with the following scoring pattern. Anyone scoring from 0-54 is not work addicted, anyone with a score of 55-69 is mildly work addicted, while anyone with a score of 70 to 100 is adjudged to be Highly Work addicted. These scores would thus determine the types of interventions required. One intervention that can immediately be taken is the exposure of employees to literature about Workaholism and an awareness program that includes staff being made sensitive to the effects and dangers of workaholism, including vigilance and being able to realize when one is on the verge of becoming a workaholic (CIGNA Behavioral Health, n.d.). Important too is the equipping of all employees with knowledge of how to deal with someone who is addicted to work and how to recognize the symptoms in workmates colleagues, friends and relatives as an important step in controlling the situation and minimizing the number of staff who suffer from this condition (Barr, n.d.). It is important that workaholism is given the same kind of prominence as other workplace issues such as sexual harassment, corruption and others as its effects on the working conditions and on workers can be just as – if not more – disruptive, especially due o its insidious and difficult to recognize nature. Findings and conclusion This document thus shows a simple and effective tool for assessing workaholism problem in an organization and also identifies a few strategies and ways of dealing with it. What are the next steps one may ask? One of the tools to deal with workaholism that have been known to work is the starting of Workaholics Anonymous self help groups much along the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous. These groups have been known to help not only those dealing with workaholism but also those dealing with workaholic friends, relatives and colleagues. Workaholics Anonymous has also come up with a 12-step program that has been designed to combat this problem (Workaholics Anonymous, 1995). The tool identified here can be administered every six months or after every year as a useful preventive measure to have a more pro-active approach to dealing with the problem of workaholism. It is important to realize that this is a problem that is very real and which does need to be treated when necessary, especially given that one of the other tangents that workaholism may lead to is other addictive behavior such as abuse of alcohol or other substances to deal with work-related pressures (Glicken, 2013). It is important to look upon workaholism as a real problem that organizations need to stand up and recognize, and, more importantly, deal with in a simple but effective manner. References Absolute Discretion. (n.d.). In Workaholics, work addicts, overwork, relationship stress. Retrieved April 26, 2013, from http://www.absolutediscretion.net/Workaholics.html Aziz, S., Uhrich, B., Wuensch, K. L., & Swords, B. (2013). The Workaholism Analysis Questionnaire: Emphasizing Work-Life Imbalance and Addiction in the Measurement of Workaholism. Retrieved April 26, 2013, from http://www.ibam.com/pubs/jbam/articles/vol14/No2/Article1.pdf Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Burke, R. (2013). Workaholism and Relationship Quality: A Spillover–Crossover Perspective . Retrieved April 26, 2013, from http://www.ibam.com/pubs/jbam/articles/vol14/No2/Article1.pdf Barr, F. R. (n.d.). In Chained to the Desk: A Guidebook for Workaholics, their Partners, and Children, and all the Clinicians who treat them. Retrieved April 26, 2013, from http://www.frumi.com/images/uploads/chainedtothedesk.pdf CIGNA Behavioral Health . (n.d.). In Are You a Workaholic?. Retrieved April 26, 2013, from http://www.cignabehavioral.com/web/basicsite/consumer/educationAndResourceCenter/articleLibrary/other_addictions6.pdf Glicken, M. D. (2013). In The TRUTH About Workaholics. Retrieved April 26, 2013, from http://www.careercast.com/career-news/truth-about-workaholics Griffiths, M. (2011, October). Workaholism - a 21st-century addiction. the psychologist, 24(10), 740-744. Retrieved April 26, 2013, from http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=24&editionID=206&ArticleID=1927 Workaholics Anonymous (1995). The Twelve Steps of Workaholics Anonymous. Retrieved April 26, 2013, from http://www.workaholics-anonymous.org/pdf/Twelve_Steps_of_WA.pdf Appendix - Questionnnaire How Do I Recognize I am A Workaholic? 1) Are you usually more excited about work than anything else? 2) Can you sometimes charge through all your work and other times find it impossible? 3) Do you take work home? Do you work on weekends and Holidays? 4) Do you like talking about your work more than anything else? 5) Do you work in excess of 40 hours every week? 6) Do you turn even simple hobbies into ventures for making money? 7) Do you always take complete responsibility for all the outcome of your work efforts? 8) Have your relatives and friends given up you ever being on time? 9) Do you regularly take on extra work because you fear that it won't otherwise get done? 10) Do you find yourself underestimating the amount of time a project will take, then find you have rush to finish it? 11) Do you strongly think its okay to work long hours if you love what you do? 12) Do you usually get impatient with people who have priorities other than work? 13) Are you normally afraid that if you don't work hard, you will lose your job or be seen as a failure? 14) Is the future a constant worry for you - even if things are going well? 15) Do you usually do things energetically and competitively - including play? 16) Do you often get irritated when people ask you to stop working to do something else? 17) Have your long working hours hurt your family and/or other relationships? 18) Do you think about work even while driving, when going to sleep, or when others are talking? 19) Do you often work or read during meals? 20) Do you believe that having more money will solve all the problems in your life? Total Number of Questions Answered Yes: _________ Read More