Yesterday, Japanese media broadcaster, NHK, announced that one of their own journalists had suffered from karoshi or 'death by overwork' at the ripe old age of 31. [1]
Broadcast journalist, Miwa Sado, had worked 160 hours of overtime in a single month before suffering congestive heart failure. Let's do the math on that - 160 hours divided by 30 days is an extra 5.3 hours every single day. Even if her base hours were only 10 a day, 7 days a week - which is the threshold for overtime in many Japanese companies - that's over 15 hours of work every day without break or holiday. [2, 3]
A similar case at Japanese advertising behemoth, Dentsu, involved Matsuri Takahashi, a 24-year-old female graduate of Tokyo University, Japan's Harvard. She was a new company recruit who had passed her 6-month review with flying colors, but in her last 3 months, she had been pressured into working 105 hours of overtime a month, prompting her to jump to her death from her company dorm on Christmas Day 2015. [4] Did I mention that Dentsu was one of those companies that don't count overtime until after you've clocked 70 hours a week? It was, so you can imagine this woman's state of mind when she wrote on social media that she was mentally and physically shattered after having only slept 10 hours the week before her suicide. [5,6] Writing on Twitter, she confessed, "They're making me work Saturdays and Sundays again. I seriously want to end it all. It's 4 am. My body's trembling. I'm going to die. I'm so tired."[7]
In 1991, another Dentsu employee committed suicide after averaging only 2 hours of sleep a night while working every day for 17 months straight. [8]
Interestingly, the Japanese Ministry of Health has discovered that the Japanese are getting even less sleep now than they did at the height of the Salaryman's global prowess in the 1980's. Digital technology means that employees are now expected to be available at all hours. [9] But the rise in work hours has not positively correlated to a rise in corporate fortunes.
In response to these high profile cases, Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe has said that "Workplace reform isn’t just a societal issue, it’s an economic one as well. If we revise overtime rules, we will improve work-life balance, making it easier for employees — including women and the elderly — to work.” [10]
SENSELESS FROM A PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND BUSINESS VIEWPOINT
All of these cases are incredibly tragic, but even if we view them from a hard-nosed business perspective, they make no sense whatsoever. We all know that lack of sleep blunts a person's decision-making ability, making them in some cases comparable to someone who is legally drunk. [11, 12] Would you want to own shares in a company full of employees who were making decisions while under the influence? And how do you feel about a company spending millions training staff up who then die of congestive heart failure or diabetes-related complications [13] or having sleep-deprived staff manipulate costly equipment? We know how that worked out for the Exxon Valdez and at Chernobyl. [14] But there is also a social cost to overworking employees -- someone has to pick up the medical bill at the end of the day, either in the form of higher insurance premiums or cost to the government healthcare system.
I hear you say, "This can only happen in Japan. It would never happen here."
Are you sure about that?
KAROSHI HAPPENS HERE TOO
The Japanese Ministry of Health compiled a report on karoshi in 2016 which showed that over 20% of Japanese workers were at risk of death from overwork, but 16% of Americans, 12.5% of Britons and 10% of French and Germans also were. [15] In fact, the death of 21-year-old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern, Moritz Erhardt, in 2013 after a 72-hour work binge in London underscored the fact that it can, in fact, happen in the west, too. [16]
We all know that there is a sweet spot where human productivity sings -- and diminishing returns after we go beyond that spot. Optimizing staff productivity should be at the heart of every company's policy.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: SET BOUNDARIES, MANAGE EXPECTATIONS
But what do you do if your own company doesn't believe in this?
It's important to set clear boundaries while also managing expectations about what you will deliver and keeping track of your contributions. When meeting with your boss, strategize ahead of time, taking into account their goals, while also bringing evidence of your performance and contribution.
If your boss insists on longer hours or responding to email 24/7, acknowledge your boss' wishes, but counter with a compromise that limits your need to be on call at all hours, eg, "I have family commitments from 7-9pm every evening, however, I can respond to urgent emails from 9-10pm." The key thing is to have some kind of control over your hours and ring-fence time for self-care - sleep, food, exercise, social activities and family.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU'RE A WORKAHOLIC: SELF-CONTROL
But having control also means having self-control. I find that entrepreneurs - my past self included - can be some of the worst offenders of overwork. Ensuring that we set boundaries before we start working around non-negotiables, such as sleeping, eating, exercise and down time, is just as important for those of us who seemingly control our own time but often give in to the temptation "to answer just one more email."
For tasks that seem to drag on, use the Pomodoro method of having an egg timer on hand to tell you time's up and force you to take a break.
It may also help to remind yourself of the University of Washington study [17] that proves that your ability to productively solve problems is very low when sleep-deprived.
And, finally, let me ask you this: would you drive your car, engines revving at top speed, for all hours without any proper pit-stops? Humans are no different and probably more sensitive to getting the right inputs like sleep, diet & exercise, at the right time of the day. If you really pride yourself on your work results, be an optimizer by not over-doing it, not a cog dying of karoshi.
REFERENCES
[1] http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201710050045.html
[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-dentsu-overwork/japans-dentsu-gets-only-small-fine-for-overtime-breaches-despite-outcry-idUSKBN1CB0IS?il=0
[3] http://uk.businessinsider.com/japan-nhk-journalist-miwa-sado-died-after-working-159-hours-overtime-2017-10?r=US&IR=T
[4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4076414/Head-Japan-s-biggest-advertising-agency-resigns-employee-killed-Christmas-Day-blamed-overworking-her.html
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/29/head-of-japans-top-ad-firm-to-quit-after-new-recruits-death-from-overwork
[6] http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2039064/karoshi-crisis-why-are-japanese-working-themselves-death
[7] http://www.ibtimes.co.in/will-dentsu-employee-matsuri-takahashis-suicide-change-japans-workaholic-culture-710524
[8] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/dentsu-president-resign-death-suicide-japan-tadashi-ishii-matsuri-takahashi-a7499141.html
[9] https://www.ft.com/content/982b1c46-d75b-11e6-944b-e7eb37a6aa8e?mhq5j=e5
[10] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/10/19/business/suicide-overworked-woman-24-prompts-ad-giant-dentsu-trim-overtime-hours/#.Wdd5VGiPLDc
[11] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1739867/
[12] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802247/
[13] http://www.annalsofepidemiology.org/article/S1047-2797(10)00113-4/abstract
[14] http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/consequences/sleep-performance-and-public-safety
[15] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/18/death-from-overwork-japans-karoshi-culture-blamed-young-mans-heart-failure
[16] https://www.cnbc.com/id/100974434
[17] https://news.wsu.edu/2015/05/07/research-shows-sleep-loss-impedes-decision-making-in-crisis/
Photo credit: Abbie Bernet, Unsplash