Battling Burnout : Workaholics Hinder a Company Rather Than Help It, So Experts Say Managers Should Encourage Shift in Work Ethic

At the Custom Shop in downtown Baltimore, manager John Sizemore makes sure his employees work no more than 40 hours a week and don’t take their work home in their briefcases. There are to be no workaholics at the Custom Shop.

“This company tries to spread work out as much as possible so no one gets burned out,” says Sizemore, 26, who heads the retail outlet, which specializes in custom-made men’s and women’s shirts. Just as he seeks to work smart rather than work long, he emphasizes the same for his subordinates.

An employee who works too much or who works under the duress of a workaholic boss will ultimately prove less rather than more productive, Sizemore says.

In the short run, such an employee is likely to find excuses to evade work and may take excessive sick leave. Over the longer term, he is likely to leave his position sooner than he would have, forcing the company to bear the cost of finding and training a replacement, he says.

The Custom Shop, with three employees, emphasizes personalized customer service. In such an environment, a burned-out or harried employee could cost the company a substantial amount of sales, Sizemore says.

A true workaholic--who overworks out of a compulsion to work rather than pure enjoyment--is mistaken in thinking his long hours help the company, Sizemore says. In fact, the driven workaholic causes stress in the workplace, which in turn cuts into the productivity of those who work for or with him, he says.

To ensure that he doesn’t operate like a workaholic manager, Sizemore keeps his work and play time separate and sets aside time for recreation. Although he schedules himself carefully during weekday business hours, he enjoys open time for spontaneous activities on the weekend.

For instance, he might spend a Saturday padding around his downtown Baltimore apartment, perhaps watching a video, playing Nintendo or chatting with a friend on the phone. Later, he might drive out of town for sightseeing or to visit friends.

“The pressure that a workaholic manager puts on himself is going to filter down to his employees,” Sizemore says.

To be sure, there are “positive workaholics” who benefit their organizations, management consultants say. Many successful people are highly motivated by their work and, as a consequence, have a large capacity for work.

These are often high-energy individuals who adhere to a “work hard, play hard” philosophy. Although they work hard, they have little difficulty letting go of their work during weekends, holidays or vacation times.

On the other hand, true workaholics typically are driven individuals for whom work is a compulsion or addiction. They can’t shift from work to relaxation or recreation without feeling anxiety or guilt, and they often impair their organizations in the short run and long run as well, says Jody Johns of the Maryland Consulting Group in Timonium, Md.

True workaholics often are motivated by a psychological or personal problem, Johns says.

“The issue may be some deep-seated need in their makeup not related to the work itself. The workaholic may be trying to satisfy his father who died 20 years ago. Maybe his current domestic situation is unsatisfying. Maybe he is trying to avoid criticism, censure or failure.

“A lot of people are afraid that if they let up for a minute, they might fail. So they immerse themselves in work, which is a socially sanctioned activity,” she says.

Under pressure from his family or friends, a true workaholic may take a vacation but will generally bring his job along in one form or another, says Dr. Maxie C. Maultsby, head of psychiatry at the Howard University School of Medicine in Washington. Either the workaholic will carry books and papers with him or he’ll get on the phone to speak with colleagues. The workaholic’s identity is closely tied to his job, Maultsby says.

However, that level of compulsiveness seldom pays off. The effectiveness of many workaholics is impaired because of the stress, fatigue and attitude problems that set in when someone spends too much time working.

“They’re so tired, so bogged down in the day-to-day nits and nats that they’re no longer seeing the big picture. They get tunnel vision,” Johns says.

True workaholics also have a negative effect on co-workers, says Marilyn Moats Kennedy, managing partner of Career Strategies, a career counseling company in Wilmette, Ill. The workaholic’s long hours will put pressure on co-workers to stay later, even though the workaholic is probably being unproductive.

“They make everyone else in the department feel lazy,” she says.

In addition, workaholics often pull their peers into work that is irrelevant or overly detailed, says Diane Fassel, author of “Working Ourselves to Death: The High Cost of Workaholism and the Rewards of Recovery.”

Even so, many organizations are convinced that the long hours put in by a workaholic are a plus for the company.

It is an attitude that is reinforced by the recession, which has made delegation more difficult because, Johns says, “a lot of organizations are downsizing the work force. Unfortunately, they aren’t downsizing the workload.”

But exploiting workaholics to power a company through hard times can prove shortsighted, Johns says. Their effectiveness often diminishes over time, and they often burn out when they are needed most.

“Over the long term, you do not build an organization with staying power if you burn people up,” Johns says.

Curing a workaholic is possible but takes time and willpower on the part of the individual affected, Maultsby says.

Frequently it takes a crisis, such as a heart attack, to motivate the workaholic to seek help to identify the underlying basis of his problem, Maultsby says.

For treatment, Maultsby encourages the workaholic to write a “rational self-analysis.” Such a statement, part of an approach known as cognitive therapy, can help isolate and replace the beliefs preventing the worker from behaving the way he wants to behave, Maultsby says.

Cognitive therapy, for instance, could help the workaholic recognize that he suffers from a deep-seated fear that failing to work extraordinary hours could cause him to lose his job and fall into poverty. But an analysis of the fear could help the workaholic realize that his belief about work is irrational.

Experts say that supervisors should take a hard line when it comes to dealing with workaholic employees.

“More enlightened managers are using performance reviews to address workaholism,” says Fassel. “They’re trying to get their workaholic employees to set goals for themselves to deal with their workaholism and frenetic activity.”

In severe cases of workaholism, the manager may arrange for the employee to go into treatment through the company’s employee assistance program or a local mental health center, or could put him in touch with Workaholics Anonymous, an organization that uses many of the same methods of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Most important, the manager should create a work culture that recognizes workaholism as a problem that should be discouraged rather than reinforced. That’s often easier said than done, especially in an era when many companies are scaling down.

“After all,” says Fassel, “work is the cleanest of all addictions.”