Long hours lead to ill health, but not efficient work

The American concept of `zero loyalty' is sneaking into the British workplace, with potentially devastating consequences

If there is a more frequent topic of conversation around middle- class dinner tables these days than house prices, it must be the "work- life balance". Certainly, there is no shortage of surveys apparently bearing out the anecdotal evidence that this is the most pressing issue of our times.

One person who needs no convincing in the matter is Cary Cooper, the prominent "stress guru" who is professor of organisational psychology and health at the Manchester School of Management.

He told an audience of MBAs gathered at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London last Wednesday that "Americanisation" is a grave threat to the UK economy. His "plea for the millennium" is for Britain's human resources managers to put into action what they are always saying - that people are a company's greatest asset.

Prof Cooper, whose latest "Quality of Working Life" survey shows two out of three managers declaring themselves "less loyal" and "less motivated", claims that the concept of workplace loyalty does not really exist in the US. However, in the UK, its comparatively recent abandonment and replacement by a hire-and-fire culture is potentially causing stress on a large scale.

Downsizing, delayering and the short-term-contract culture have all contributed to increased job insecurity, anxiety and work-related health problems, he says. A recent European Union survey showed stress and related problems to be the biggest factor in ill-health at work. Indeed, it is estimated that a third of the total pounds 12bn lost to sickness leave last year may be related to workplace stress.

Prof Cooper's survey - carried out for the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in conjunction with the Institute of Management - found that more than a third of managers of all levels always or often worked all weekend, that more than half always or often worked late on weekday evenings and that three-quarters always or often worked more than their weekly contracted hours.

In Prof Cooper's view, this is an unsustainable approach. Moreover, it is not just a case of the long-hours culture operating in isolation. Managers - particularly men - face new pressures from the growing number of women in the workforce. As well as, in some cases, leading to threats to their positions, this is creating a situation where in two out of three couples both partners work, which creates its own stresses.

This creates a clear need for a greater incidence of flexible working. "We've got the IT, let's use it," he says, adding that this, however, entails a different way of managing.

"Managers tend not to give people autonomy. They manage by punishment, not by reward," he says. Instead they should think of an effective employer being like an effective parent.

He also suggests that the growing disloyalty could be countered by building some sort of loyalty element into wage negotiations so that, while not implying a job for life, employers give their workers an idea of where they stand by making it clear that if they continue to deliver they can expect to be employed for, say, five years.

If organisations do not take these sorts of approaches, he adds, we will end up with "the American system, where loyalty is zero" and executives extol the virtues of their company one week and are working for another the next.

Prof Cooper says: "To be competitive in the future, we are going to need better `people managers' to help create a better balance between work and family life. Too many people equate long hours with efficiency, commitment and productivity. In reality, long hours mean sickness and can adversely affect productivity."