Work-life balance has become a myth in the world of rigorous workers and professionals. Unfortunately, in many nations, people spending majority of their day in their work-place is considered to be quite normal. The reasons for such a untoward development may include- pressure from superiors, over-time incentives or MNCs operating at various time-zones. However, I consider it to be a negative practice as it drains the workers both emotionally and physically.
Working for longer hours can be either be for the benefit of individuals, or for the growth of one’s company. Firstly, many conglomerates pressurize their employees to complete tasks in a very short duration, in the name of dead-lines. Moreover, multi-national business empires have their branches located in completely different time-zones, thus depending on workers to work for longer hours to coordinate their timings. Interestingly, some workers volunteer to work over-time for incentives due to financial constraints. For instance, IT establishments like Infosys and Cognizant, pay their staff for every hour dedicated past their regular office time. Thus, economic reasons are used as a leverage by many institutions.
To probe ahead, this new working-culture can be considered to be a curse to the society due to its various impacts. Not only the there is a physical agony in the form of disturbed-sleep cycle and insomnia, but also lead to mental burnouts and depression. To strengthen this view, Business magazine, Times suggests more than 20% of the software workers in IT sector are on medications for depressive episodes and almost 3% face severe psychiatric issues like dissociation, anxiety and panic attacks.
Thus, in a nutshell, it can be concluded that the practice of working for longer hours are imposed on employers due to the greed of superiors and this action has take a severe toll on mental well-being.