How going above and beyond at work became required

 Remember my article about quite quitting? Well this one is related a little bit. These days, workers expect to exceed their job descriptions if they want to get ahead — or even keep their positions at all. How did we get here?

Whether it’s staying late, working through the weekend to perfect a project, or showing up no matter what, many employees routinely put in more hours and perform more tasks than their job description sets out. And though for some, that extra effort is about getting one step ahead in their career, for others, it feels like a built-in, minimum expectation from their employer.

This reality has been laid bare by the quiet quitting phenomenon, where disengaged workers refuse to work beyond the hours and tasks they’re paid to do. It’s sparked a wildfire discussion, central to which is the idea of how normalised it’s become to expect workers to do more and more in the first place.

The reality is that a workplace culture that requires employees to go the extra mile has developed over several decades. Though it brings clear benefits for organisations looking to increase productivity, for workers it can breed stress, resentment and burnout. And with Covid-19 triggering millions to revaluate their work-life balance, this is a status quo that some are no longer willing to put up with.

In some countries specifically, higher cultural expectations of going above and beyond have pushed workers to tolerate a huge amount of pressure at work. In Japan, for example, the concept is so prevalent that there’s a term for it — karoshi, which was coined in the 1970s. It literally translates as ‘work to death’.

And at an individual level, some workers have felt pressure to go the extra mile far more keenly than their colleagues.

When women go above and beyond, they don’t get the same credit for these extra tasks that men do

Although this overwork has become ingrained and expected, there are signs it may be on its way out, at least in part.

Even before the pandemic, employees were growing less and less willing to go the extra mile. A 2018 study by consultancy firm Gartner showed US workers’ effort was at its lowest levels in a decade, with fewer than one-fifth of employees saying they had a willingness to go above and beyond job expectations because of a widening wage gap between company executives and the average worker, and dwindling opportunities for rewards or progression.

And now, as Covid-19 has triggered a mass re-evaluation of work and careers, there’s a growing pushback against the expectation that doing well at work automatically means doing more, says Bailey.

Younger employees in particular are very concerned with having a good work-life balance and having high levels of wellbeing.

In the last couple of years, millions of employees have questioned the value of the time they spend at work. “Is this a good investment of my time? In many cases, when you do that calculation, the answer may be no.” Companies are very conscious of this calculation by staff too, he adds, which is leading many organisations to take a look at how to reduce chronic overworking and stress, and find more sustainable approaches. “But it is tough because the alternative means their employees aren’t going to do extra work, which means hiring more and that creates a competitive disadvantage.”

In other words, with a culture of going above and beyond so embedded into many workplace structures, change will take time.