Overtime Or Heart Attack - You Decide

Who knew that working overtime could kill you? An 11-year study of 6,000 British civil servants doesn't provide absolute proof that overtime causes heart attacks but it does show a clear link - likely due to stress.

According to the report, "In all, there were 369 cases of death due to heart disease, non-fatal heart attacks and angina among the London-based study group -- and the risk of having an adverse event was 60 percent higher for those who worked three to four hours overtime. Working an extra one to two hours beyond a normal seven-hour day was not associated with increased risk."

Work/Life Balance is a key to health in the workplace. Giving every waking moment to your job is a lousy way of maintaining your physical and mental health. In fact, long hours creates other issues: poor diet choices leading to weight gain, improper sleep patterns leading to burnout and increased alcohol consumption in an attempt to wind down. And if you're a smoker, well it gets even worse.

As a manager, asking your employees to work an additional four hours of overtime is creating a health risk. Instead, perhaps offer some telecommuting time (a couple of days working from home where the boundaries between work and home are blurred giving a better sense of not feeling as much like work) or offering your people a chance to come in for a few hours on a weekend during the day so it's not a marathon time stretch.

Oh, and I suppose you might consider one more option instead of overtime: hire more people so you're not so short-staffed.

Feel free to show the news story to your bosses to get a budget bump for more people. Think about what could happen if an Injury Lawyer reads this story and can show that you worked your people too much overtime. It's going to cost you either way. Right now, you decide though.

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Kevin Burns - Follow Me on my new Facebook Fan Page
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