Illustration by Ariel Sun for Harvard Business Review
The title of this article is seemingly repulsive to our CEOs, Chairpersons, Managing Directors, and Owners of some organisations where holidays are not untouchable. So while employees are having good times with their families on Sundays or other holidays, their mobile phones give a brassy buzz. And here comes a trouble! You are instructed to create a power point presentation, a report, design a brochure, write an ad copy, fix a bug, and whatnot.
What started as a rare event is now becoming a recurring decimal. Bosses begin to encroach upon the me-time of their employees, and most of the times, in the name of emergency. But hang on! How will you define this indefinable term? Emergency does not occur every Sunday, do they? But bosses are always right, so are we taught in the ‘Practical’ world. Ironically, in the same practical world, webinars and seminars take place to discuss HR issues in the most comfortable set-up.
If employees work on holidays or they are forced to work, they are doing a favour to those organisations. “It is unprofessional and unethical to make them work on holidays”, says Sheetal Pandya Sharma, a freelance HR professional. “Company leaders must not take employees’ time off for granted”, Sheetal believes.
But who cares? Company owners do not take ‘No’ as an answer. Very few employees have courage to say no, though. They cannot afford to displease their bosses. Moreover, employees’ denial is often dubbed as their arrogance or a rebellion, and ‘Supreme Authorities’ do not like rebels.
Sheetal asked me to check Harvard Business Review (HBR) for more details. So I surfed the website and found something interesting. Laura Giurge and Kaitlin Woolley discuss what motivates employees to work during time off. In this article, they explain intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Apparently, Intrinsic Motivation belongs to or a part of our real nature and Extrinsic Motivation comes from or exists outside our real nature.
When employees get ready to work during holidays, they are charged by Extrinsic Motivation, which includes salary, perks, promotions, ensuring job security, and supporting family. However, extrinsic motivations have detrimental effects on their performance and productivity in the long run. According to HBR, “The data shows that working during leisure time creates internal conflict between pursuing personal and professional goals, leading people to enjoy their work less.”
Full time employees classify their time; their minds are preoccupied with a notion that weekdays are for working and weekends are for pleasure. When this smooth wiring is messed up, it surely undermines all work motivation.
What is the solution? The authors suggest, “If you have to work during time off, try to reframe it mentally as work time to help you maintain your motivation.”
Even if employees reframe the time off as work time, how would they explain this to their families? Will they consider weekends as weekdays? Do their children accept this change in calendar – today is Sunday, but let’s treat it as Monday?
Finally, who rules the game? One who pays or one who works? HBR sums up, “Managers can also support their employees by encouraging them not to work during time off, as our data suggests that working during time off can undermine intrinsic motivation and thus reduce the effort that employees put into their work. Understanding how to stay motivated has always been important, but as the pandemic forces many employees to work remotely and burdens them with additional demands on their time, these strategies will be particularly crucial to ensure you and your team stay as productive and engaged as possible.”
