![]() As automation has eliminated many manual jobs, workers’ roles have become harder to define. The nature of job roles has also changed in that time, points out Klotz. That change has “eroded the rights and bargaining power of employees”, she says. By 2020, that had halved to about 6.6 million, according to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. In the UK in 1980, for example, union membership was 12.2 million. Instead, several factors have combined to create these conditions, she explains.įirst, the declining power of trade unions catalysed the shift. It's hard to pinpoint a precise moment when this change happened. And these expectations are now so embedded and internalised by workers that many fear if they don’t go above and beyond, they’ll, at best, never get promoted at worst they’ll be labelled slackers. They should be putting in extra hours and effort in order to get noticed or promoted”. Now, workers are expected “to be engaged, enthusiastic and motivated. “There’s been a growing intensification of work,” explains Katie Bailey, professor of work and employment at King’s College London. “When the foreman wasn't looking, they'd 'bing' this person, which means to punch them really hard on the arm to send a message not to make the rest of them look bad,” says Klotz.īut in the century since that study was carried out, major changes to work, culture and how careers feed into our identity would likely see those same workers react very differently. But 100 years ago, those people were the exception rather than the rule, not least because they were given short shrift by colleagues.Īccording to The Hawthorne Studies, which analysed workers at an electrical plant in Chicago from 1927 to 1932, employees on the production line who worked faster than the rest of the group were labelled ‘rate busters’. “There have always been people who want to get ahead by looking good at work,” says Anthony Klotz, an organisational psychologist and associate professor at University College London’s School of Management. And with Covid-19 triggering millions to revaluate their work-life balance, this is a status quo that some are no longer willing to put up with. Though it brings clear benefits for organisations looking to increase productivity, for workers it can breed stress, resentment and burnout. The reality is that a workplace culture that requires employees to go the extra mile has developed over several decades. It’s sparked a wildfire discussion, central to which is the idea of how normalised it’s become to expect workers to do more and more in the first place. This reality has been laid bare by the quiet quitting phenomenon, where disengaged workers refuse to work beyond the hours and tasks they’re paid to do. And though for some, that extra effort is about getting one step ahead in their career, for others, it feels like a built-in, minimum expectation from their employer. ![]() Whether it’s staying late, working through the weekend to perfect a project, or showing up no matter what, many employees routinely put in more hours and perform more tasks than their job description sets out. She says that “perhaps from an in-built fear that doing anything below a certain standard will put my job in jeopardy”. ![]() Now working as a head of sustainability and senior account director at a communications agency in London, the feeling of needing to go above and beyond has stayed with her throughout her career. ![]() “In one very memorable incident, I slipped while running for the train in the rain, and turned up to the office with bloody scratches and a swollen lip for a meeting that I felt I couldn't miss,” remembers Gudka, now 31. She’d come into the office while visibly unwell, she says, and spend hours trying to meet “impossibly high standards” on first drafts of work. Ever since Jhanvi Gudka secured her first job in public relations at 22 years old, she’s always gone that extra mile.
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