Is long work hours real happiness or sign of lethality?

 Is long work hours real happiness or a sign of lethality?

As we know very well, from last year wfh has become granted factor for IT sector because it is a too cost-effective way for them. Companies do not have to provide any type of facilities to the employees and gets quality work. Now companies enable to achieve the number of projects within timeframe neither thinking that long working hours can impact one’s health nor about the mental stability of employees. However, people also get privilege from WFH such as they do not have to deal with various kinds of stuff like transportation, fixed schedule of working, wearing formals etc. In the working from home, they are more comfortable because they get flexible working hours, gets time to spend with the family, complete work with relaxation sitting posture and all. But is it comfortable? I don't think so, work from home is a really good option because companies have taken it as a granted form. They just put the work on employees at any time and instruct them to complete work on time. We have to available at all time to complete work. When we used to work in the office that time, we have to complete fixed working hours or in a case, if we do extra work then we get paid over that. 

           But currently, the situation has become like this, the company assigns a project or any task according to their timescale and say that they complete it. I have a question what does it mean by WFH. Work from Home does not allow the company to snatch the personal and professional lives of individuals. Most of the employers do not have any idea or pretending like that work from home means give work to staff at any time. Last year, a nationwide lockdown was executed to break down the chain of virus because the spreading scale was too high. In that scenario, the IT sector provided work from home facilities to the staff. While medical department, treatment centres and pharmaceutical companies extended working hours by offering alternative days schedule. 

Initially, WFH was pretty good because people were enjoying and while others who were offering their services in medical department and pharmaceutical firms, happy because they had to come 4 days a week only. But when the lockdown extended due to the high mortality rate then the working hours' situation had become unfavourable for the people. They started to feel like endless work hours, midnight calls from boss’s overall work from home fun had over. 

            I also used to work for an IT company as Research Analyst. Initially, I had fun a lot but when lockdown extended more and more then it became a burden because the company allot me task according to their time. I remind, last year I sit on my chair approx. 9:0 am clock something and used to get up around 9 or sometimes 11:0 pm clock something. The reason behind was that most of the time project allotment used to get late or get time-consuming tasks at different time. Trust me that work sucks my nerve. 

 

Apart from this, I used to get a lot of pain in my neck and back. Sometimes, I used to take meal two times a day or one time. It was not happening with me alone; my colleagues were beginning to realise that WFH was beginning to translate to always available. There were endless WFH, bosses overworking us because really where else we can go in a lockdown and top it all pay cut and the fear that if we spoke up that time, there was a threat to our job. Thus, WFH has become one of the major issues for all employees who are working work from home because there is no segregation between office life and personal life now. An employer always expects to be available all the time, including weekends because they assume that we are at our own house all the time just because of the ongoing situation. 

             Such a scenario has created still also, whereas people are working more than 55-60 hours in a week that is not a good sign for an individual's health. A new case study has found from France that continuous working long days of ten hours increases more risk of having a stroke. WHO has announced that long working hours have brought hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. Working 55 hour or more per week is a quite serious health hazard. World Health Organization (WHO) concludes that working more than 55 hours per week is directly linked up with an estimated 17% higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease and 35% risk of stroke rather than working 35-4o hours a week.

            This pandemic has changed the way many people work. Employers require to understand the blurring boundaries between home and work. There is no job worth it which increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. Government across globe, employers and employees & workers needs to work in amalgamating to agree on several limits to save the health of employees and workers. Another factor is that employer must pay attention to employee’s comfort either they are in the office or offering services in work from home like should assign tasks on time, keeps holidays on weekends, make strict schedule of working hours and pay money on overworking that will keep employees happy and gets time to segregate professional and personal life.   

Stay safe and stay healthy

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