“I come from a field, landscape architecture, that’s known for chronically underpaying despite the level of education and specialty,” says Anderson, who has a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Cornell University. “Overworking, tight deadlines, late nights, staying in the office until 3 a.m. — it’s built into the industry in this really deep, complex way.” At the design firm, this kind of overwork was expected during busy times, and wasn’t counterbalanced with things like scheduling flexibility during less busy days or weeks. Employees would get a slap on the wrist for being five minutes late even when there wasn’t a ton of work to do, and it wasn’t really acceptable to occasionally leave work for an important doctor’s appointment, she says. Maura James, 33, also quit her job, but for different reasons. James left a position as a program manager at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 2021 because she no longer enjoyed the gig. “A lot of my role at Harvard was administrative, which I didn’t like,” she says. She had previously stayed because the position afforded her the opportunity to travel and work with students. “But when the pandemic happened, we were doing everything virtually. Travel got shut down,” she says. She adds that she felt that the school wasn’t responding well to the moment or being sensitive to what the students were going through and what was happening in the world. Elon Musk, in his new role as Twitter’s owner and CEO, told employees by email they had the option to voluntarily resign (with three months of severance pay) or “be extremely hard core,” The New York Times reported. “This will mean working long hours at high intensity,” Musk reportedly wrote to Twitter employees. About 47.8 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021 — a record high, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That’s nearly one-third of the 160 million person workforce as of December 2021, per BLS. (Data is not yet published for 2022.) “Quiet quitting” — covertly doing less at work (ranging from the absolute bare minimum to not going above and beyond) — has been the topic of countless op-eds, and there’s data showing it’s a trend that’s caught on with many workers. According to a survey conducted by Gallup in June 2022, at least half of the U.S. workforce meets the definition of having quietly quit. Their data shows that only 32 percent of the 15,091 full- and part-time U.S.-based employees surveyed said they felt engaged in their workplace, while 18 percent are actively disengaged and the other 50 percent were “not engaged.” Popular TV series have zeroed in on critiquing today’s workplace norms, too, like Hulu’s The Bear and the Apple+ series Severance. After The Bear was released in early 2022, professional chefs were quick to weigh in on the reportedly honest portrayal of toxic professional kitchen culture in Bon Appetit and Food and Wine. And the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in October published a report — the Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being — on how workplaces affect health. It cites data that suggests:
As many as 84 percent of workers report that their workplace conditions contribute to at least one mental health challenge.And 81 percent of workers report that in the future they will seek out workplaces that support mental health.
Questioning what healthy work or a healthy work environment looks like — or what constitutes a healthy work-life balance — is not a new conversation. But living through a worldwide pandemic and other global events (like the recent financial uncertainty) have seriously shaken up the status quo. “The pandemic reminded us [or at least a lot of people] that we actually do value more than getting up, going to work, and working for the weekend,” says Wayne Pernell, PhD, a clinical psychologist and executive leadership coach based in Benicia, California. “Our values, as a global culture, shifted.”
When Work Is Associated With Well-Being
Some research has found that job satisfaction is positively associated with overall well-being. Study subjects who were satisfied at work rated their current well-being, on average, at 7.3 out of 10, while those who were not satisfied at work rated their well-being at an average of 6 out of 10. (Well-being, for the purpose of this study, was measured by daily positive and negative emotional experiences, and current and future life evaluation.) There’s also research to show that simply being employed at a job you like and that pays fairly may have positive effects on your overall health.
Researchers found in another study that for adults ages 50 to 64 in 15 European countries, people with better job quality — measured by a combination of job satisfaction, job security, and pay — reported significantly lower levels of musculoskeletal disorders and functional disabilities (difficulty in performing the everyday tasks for independent living), better mental health, and better overall self-assessed health compared with those with lower job quality. In short, how much we get paid and how secure we believe our jobs are can affect our health, as well as how satisfied we feel with our work. Dr. Pernell adds that feeling valued and respected by our employers, particularly our direct managers, can make work less stressful on a day-to-day-basis, which has a positive impact on health and well-being. In September, Anderson took a job as an urban designer for the town of Cary, North Carolina. “There’s a whole different approach to management style here, and I feel like I’m being treated like an adult,” she says. “There’s an understanding that I’ll be in the office most of the time, and work more than 40 hours per week when that’s necessary. But there’s still plenty of flexibility to live my life, and to do things I need to do during the day to take care of myself,” she says. Anderson says she feels like she has a healthy balance of enjoying her work, but also being able to live a full life outside of it.
Workaholism: When Work Gets in the way of Well-Being
Rodney Luster, PhD, a licensed professional counselor and senior director of research strategy, innovation, and development in the College of Doctoral Studies at the University of Phoenix in Arizona, says workaholism (which he defines as the endless pursuit of self-validation by working too much) increases stress, and may be associated with lower self-esteem. A study published in January 2018 in the journal Personality and Individual Differences looked at data from 414 adult participants, some employed by a university and others by a large manufacturing organization. Per the data, low self-esteem led to workaholism, and workaholism led to more work stress and increased stress overall.
Lots of People Get Medical Insurance Through Work
Another key link between work in health is that health insurance (and thus, access to affordable healthcare) is typically tied to full-time employment in the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 88 percent of full-time workers had health insurance in 2020, compared with 67 percent of those who worked anything less than full-time, year-round. That doesn’t mean that you need a full-time job to have access to affordable healthcare or insurance. There are healthcare options for self-employed workers, too, thanks to the Affordable Care Act (which was signed into law in 2010) and the Healthcare Insurance Marketplace it established within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But costs to individuals and families on those plans can be high. When the pandemic hit and she was still a program manager at Harvard, James took on a few one-off jobs to help develop experiential learning experiences because remote work suddenly became an option. Soon, she had enough work to leave her full-time university job and focus entirely on her consulting business, Salt Meadow Consulting. She now pays more in health insurance premium costs than she did when she was employed by Harvard. But her total income is about 30 percent higher, so even after accounting for those health insurance costs she’s bringing home more pay (and working considerably fewer hours). She says, however, that if she had or was planning to have children, self-employment probably wouldn’t be realistic because of how much those premiums would cost. That’s a significant shift of workers previously doing their jobs in offices to now doing those same jobs at home. There are pros and cons that come with that shift, says Georgia Witkin, PhD, a New York City–based clinical psychologist and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “Working from home may lower stress by eliminating the difficulties of commuting, office politics, distracting coworkers, inclement weather, and the expenses of buying meals and work clothes,” says Dr. Witkin, who counsels individuals and corporate clients on stress and change management, including in the workplace. Many people, for instance, report making healthier food choices and spending extra time with their family and their pets when working from home, all of which contributes to well-being, Witkin says. On the other hand, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) reported in May 2021 that remote workers experienced a decline in mental health due to isolation and feeling there is no real end to their workday, Witkin points out. Ultimately, the impact of remote work on a person’s health usually depends on their personality and circumstances, she says. Those who love face-to-face interaction and thrive on routine might do better at in-office jobs, while those who feel overwhelmed by what office work requires — commuting, less flexibility, and a greater social demand — might do better with remote work. But it’s important to recognize that both types of work environments create challenges. And for some having to switch abruptly from one mode of work to another (in-office work to remote work), like office closures during the pandemic forced many people to do, can pose challenges. While for others, a hybrid work model that combines the social benefits of in-office time and the flexibility of remote work could be an ideal option. It combines the flexibility and freedom that many workers have now come to expect, with the consistency and human interaction that we all crave to various degrees, Pernell says. Again, what type of work environment is best is largely based on the individual. But what about when you love your job so much and dedicate so much of yourself to it, that you don’t leave enough time (and energy) to feel fulfilled in other parts of your life, like in your personal relationships, hobbies, travel, or health? That’s where a passion for your job can turn into workaholism, which comes with some negative consequences, as Dr. Luster explains. “A job that consumes us can impact our health in a variety of ways,” he says — such as increased stress and anxiety, which can increase risk of physical issues, like high blood pressure and heart disease.
The anti-work movement — an ideology centering around the belief that many of today’s jobs aren’t really necessary, and that most modern “work” benefits the employer but not the employee — is gaining steam. (Many link the movement back to the subreddit page r/antiwork.) Books like Work Won’t Love You Back by labor journalist Sarah Jaffe argue that loving your job can lead to too much time and energy spent on work that’s not all that meaningful in the end. Work (and the money that comes with it) generally is necessary in our society in order to meet basic needs. Because of this, doing work that you like, or being able to find some joy and satisfaction in whatever work you do, isn’t on its own a negative, he explains. Anderson attributes much of the happiness she feels in her new job to the fact that she’s able to show up as herself. “When I was interviewing, I made this decision not to hide who I was — I was already so unhappy in my current job, so there wasn’t much to lose,” she says. Finding work that doesn’t become your whole life, but that allows you to show up as your full self — is a top way to establish a healthy relationship with your job and find balance in your life overall, Witkin says. “Work that has personal meaning or personal enjoyment can enhance your daily life and improve your self-esteem,” she says, noting that this can be a reason “quiet quitting” may not actually be supportive for well-being in the long run, because it creates an imbalance with work where you may lose out on the social interaction, support, and opportunities for fulfillment that a positive work environment can bring. Luster adds that it’s about finding balance. “That may mean becoming more aware of your boundaries and limitations, while also prioritizing the day’s work, being realistic about what you can accomplish, and leaving time [in your day] to relax.” “A healthy approach to your job is the same as a healthy approach to your life: Decide what you want, how much you’re willing to invest, and what you expect from it,” Pernell says. “Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s fun; and sometimes you might struggle but never is it supposed to feel like suffering.”
