July 5th is Workaholics Day. A light-hearted observance encouraging people to evaluate their workload and take a breather.
Workaholics are a breed of workers who just don’t know what to do when they aren’t facing an avalanche of work. They may work long hours simply because they are happiest when they are productive. They may be the first into work and the last to leave, and they may skip lunch breaks just to “catch up.” Workaholics feed off the pressure and sometimes let their workplace stresses hurt their physical and emotional well-being.
For some workaholics, stress is self-inflicted, but in other cases, management may create an environment that encourages non-stop work and high levels of stress. The management team may be unknowingly ramp up tension in response to several factors:
- Competition
- Advancing technologies
- Economic downturns
In a functional work place, workers focus on their productivity, not necessarily the number of hours worked. In contrast, workers in a dysfunctional workplace may be pressured into staying long hours, postponing or canceling family time and weekend activities to prove that they are a hard worker. Unfortunately, the latter scenario can take a toll on the morale and efficiency of an organization. Their heavy-handed, high-pressure tactics may make unwitting workaholics out of employees who find themselves scrambling to keep pace.
The quantity of mental and physical breakdown among employees in a dysfunctional workplace can be astonishingly high. In many cases, complaints about depression and workplace stress symptoms are ignored, and workers are not granted any special consideration for their condition.
Workers who suffer from either mental or physical illness as a result of workplace stress may be compensated under their state’s workers’ compensation laws provided that there is an underlying and preceding physical injury. Skilled and experienced workers’ compensation lawyers will help employees get the medical treatment and compensation they deserve.