Impact of Working for Longer Hours in Office

Nowadays it has become like a culture to work late in office. Some people work for extra hours on their own while some are forced stay back in the office for longer hours. Gone are the days when a person use to be home on time.

First let us look at the reasons why people stay back late in the office.

1. Firstly, they are so over burdened by the work, that if they do not work for longer hours, their work will keep on piling. Hence to complete their work for the day they have to stay back late.  
2. Some people stay back late because their manager works for longer hours. So even if they do not have work, they stay back to just impress the manager.
3. Sometimes people generate a misconception that going home on time means that they do not have much work. So they stay in office for longer hours just to show that they have lot of work.

Working longer hours has lot of negative impact both on the employer and the employee. So let us also look at those impacts.

1. Working for longer hours indirectly impacts the performance of the employee. Our body is capable of handling certain amount of stress and work pressure. But if we over work, the body gets fatigued and results in less concentration on work. This impacts the quality of work and results in more errors. 
2. If the body is fatigued more constantly due to over working, the health of the person is definitely going to be impacted. Some people develop back problem due to prolonged sitting in office.
3. Some people who are forced to sit long hours due to over burden of work, are left with very little motivation to perform. This may also lead to higher attrition rate in the organization.
4. If the health of the people is impacted, they tend to take more sick leaves, which indirectly impacts the productivity of the organization. 
5.  Another major thing impact is the poor work life balance. As they are not able to balance their work and life, issue start cropping up in the family which indirectly impacts their work also. 
6.  It also generates a negative impression about the organization's culture. Due to this, only few people are ready to join such organizations.
7. If women have to work for late hours, their safety becomes the responsibility of the organization. This also incurs extra cost to the organization.

Thus we can see that, though working for longer hours look beneficial from the employer point of view, it actually has lot of negative impact on them. Thus nowadays many organization give lot of emphasis on work-life balance and discourage the employees to work late hours.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.