You sit down at your desk, open a report you’ve been eager to finish and right to work. You’re so absorbed that before you know it, you’ve missed all your breaks and everyone has already left the office for the day but you’re still working! This cycle repeats itself day after day. Employees engage in excessive work for different reasons. Some individuals get lost in their work because they love and are fulfilled by their job. However, other individuals feel compelled to work excessively, even if they don’t enjoy it, because of their own internal guilt about not working. The type of heavy work investment matters, because while the former can provide high returns for productivity and good health, the latter is associated with poor health outcomes and issues with long term productivity.
But how can we distinguish the type of heavy work investment employees are engaging in? In their 2019 paper, Di Stefano and Gaudiino seek to explore the similarities and differences of the two different forms of heavy investment in work, workaholism and work engagement, while examining the influence of nationality.
Legend: Recommendation of our expert
Expert advisor:
- Maria GAUDIINO, PhD candidate, KU Leuven, Belgium
Authors:
- Kimberly SHARPE, research assistant, University of British Columbia, Canada
- Marie-Élise LABRECQUE, research professional, Université de Sherbrooke
This initiative was made possible through a collaboration with the Université de Sherbrooke.
What do we mean by:
Workaholism
The pathological form of heavy work investment.
An individual devotes an excessive amount of time to work that is not justified by financial concerns or organizational demands but instead by the individual’s compulsion to work.This compulsion is driven by individuals feeling distressed or guilty if they are not working.
Workaholics neglect the non-work spheres of their life, such as their health or social lives. This form of work investment is linked to lower levels of mental and physical health, poorer social relationships and high levels work-life conflict.
While workaholics can be very productive in the short-term, ongoing poor health and inability to delegate and trust co-workers can cause issues with productivity in the long-term.
What are the dimensions that make up workaholism?
- Working excessively: spending too much time on work-related activities.
- Working compulsively: the underlying push to work and feelings of guilt experienced by an individual when they are not working – this highlights the addictive component of workaholism.
Work engagement
The healthy form of heavy work investment.
Engaged workers invest heavily in work through their own genuine will and enjoyment of work and do not sacrifice their non-work spheres as a result. It is considered a positive, fulfilling state of mind.
Work engagement is associated with positive emotions, good health and better work performance.
What are the dimensions that make up work engagement?
- Vigour: the energy level that helps sustain heavy investment work.
- Dedication: thoughts and feelings that make employees proud, involved and enthusiastic about their work.
- Absorption: an intense concentration in work; employees have difficulty tearing themselves away from their work.
Method
A review of literature that combines and analyzes data from multiple studies to examine how the dimensions that make up workaholism and work engagement may overlap or be associated.
- Study conducted in: Italy
- Number of articles: 27
- Nationalities included in the study: Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, Israeli, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, Turkish
What are the findings of the study?
The authors found that workaholism and work engagement are distinct but that some of their dimensions overlap:
How work engagement and workaholism overlap
The work engagement dimension of absorption was associated with workaholism dimensions working excessively and working compulsively
- Being absorbed in work activities can result in more intense time commitment and as a result engaged workers are more likely to work beyond standard hours than non-engaged co-workers.
- Absorption in work might points to a shared connection to the compulsive side of workaholism in that engaged workers absorbed in their work may experience difficulty in stopping working.
How work engagement and workaholism are distinct
There was no association between the workaholism dimension of working compulsively and the work engagement dimensions of dedication and vigor
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