UAE employees suffer from work burnout and a good percentage of employees in the country complain of long work hours, leading to work fatigue and lack of the so-called ideal work-life balance.
A survey by recruitment firm, Robert Half, shows that a good proportion of the UAE workforce suffers from employee burnout due to long working hours and overtime.
Four in ten (41 per cent) UAE HR directors say employee burnout is common within their organisation, as per the findings of Robert Half UAE. This figure rises to nearly half (49 per cent) of Abu Dhabi-based companies compared to 34 per cent of Dubai organisations.
But then, there are many (and I’m sure you’ll find some in any office), who’re on-call 24x7, making the average employee who works the normal 9-to-5 shift seem rather complacent.
Many managers send e-mails late at night and expect the work to be done first thing tomorrow. While some colleagues would read, respond and work 24x7, many do not.
It’s very common that female employees (who in many cases may be putting their kids off to sleep at 9pm) may come out as less professional.
Will they not be on the radar screen of the boss when he heaps praises on someone who was working on a project well past 2 in the morning?
Such “enthusiastic” professionals are often the star workers, shining in the eyes of the bosses, and will logically be good candidates for the next biggest increment.
But do the smart bosses know who is delivering good quality work within office hours or does one really need to put the midnight alarm to shoot an e-mail that could have easily been stored in the Drafts folder during the day?
Recruitment experts believe today’s bosses are smart enough and doing anything in excess may not necessarily be rewarding.
“Anything done in excess is liable to suspicion,” Ash Athawale, Recruitment Manager at REED consultancy, told Emirates 24|7.
“Working late at night and long hours from home is not always seen as signs of an over-achiever or someone trying to impress their managers,” he added.
Working from home often depends on the individual, nature of the job and whether the company one works for is flexible enough to permit that.
“Sometimes, work needs to be taken home to be completed. There are some employees that find the comfort of working from home, away from the noise and busy-ness of their offices to be more creative,”explained Athawale.
“If an employee is seen not to be working in the office but only late and from home, then there is an issue,” he adds. “Some employees take work home and send it in at all odd hours, but that shows the company’s flexibility in allowing them to do so, rather than impressing managers,” Athawale maintains.
Of course, if an employee puts her honest day’s work while in office, and then complements that with the extra bit from home, that will be considered by bosses as over-achieving. “No employee works all the time in the office since it is an environment that requires collaboration and interaction with co-workers; so if some work is done from home – when convenient to the employee, that is fair,” says Athawale.
Experts also believe that more and more companies in the country are moving towards the smart-working philosophy and it entirely depends on how smart can an employee work in a given situation.
“In the modern knowledge-based economy that the UAE is building, employers are not looking at the number of hours employees put in but what productivity they get out. ‘Work smart, don’t work hard’, is a philosophy modern companies work towards and if you are working past midnight, just how ‘smart’ are you working?” asks Graham Whitworth, Senior Banking Consultant at Charterhouse Partnership.
Each individual has his own anthem of making her/his career journey. “If I’m not at the office, I’m always on my BlackBerry,” said a PR executive, leading a stressful life but working hard to become the account manager in her office. “I sleep with my phone under the pillow and check it every now and then. It’s like I’ve never totally checked out of work,” she said.
But there are people who believe excesses only ruin. “If I’m home, I’m only with my children. I work hard during the day, do my fair share of work and come home to be the mother of my children. My phone is on silent and I don’t check it like a maniac,” said an accountant who works for an international IT firm.
At the end, it really boils down to the kind of worker you are. Many employees, who are encapsulated with the outlandish demands of their bosses, often give in, but there are those who believe they need to switch off.
Who happens to be the achiever will be best seen at the next round of increments. Will the above-mentioned PR executive become the manager or will the accountant get the smallest increments? That’s when the boss will decide.
Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.
