On the Selflessness of Selfishness

As organizations quest for ever-increasing levels of efficiency and productivity, some staff are feeling pressured to work unrealistically long hours, and workers often feel selfish and like they are letting their coworkers down if they do not give in to such pressure. In actuality, staff who refuse to work long hours are selflessly helping to bring about a better tomorrow.

By Kevin Turgeon

7 May 2024

A few weeks ago, I talked to a friend of mine about some challenges he is experiencing at work. My friend is an IT project manager at a local company undergoing a relatively large-scale digital transformation initiative. The work situation he described to me is one I hear about all too often.

Despite the fact that their company is in the midst of a large-scale digital transformation initiative, the leadership at my friend’s company is cutting staff and not filling the positions of people who voluntarily leave. This is causing a dramatic increase in workload for the staff who remain at the company, and leadership is pressuring staff to work long hours to get all of the work done and keep the various in-flight projects on track.

Staff are responding to the increased workload and pressure to work long hours in various ways. Some staff members are in fact working much longer hours than they did in the past. Others, however, seem to be pulling back from their work. These staff members are not actually working short hours or slacking while they are at work; they are just not working the exceptionally long hours that are being pushed by the organization’s leadership.

My friend is one of the people who is currently working longer hours. However, he would like to pull back a bit from work as some other staff members have done, but he is afraid he would be acting selfishly and letting his coworkers down if he did so.

I understand why my friend feels the way he does. His management has made it clear that they expect all of the work to get done on time regardless of how short-staffed the department is. So, if he decreases the hours he is working to a reasonable number, the other people in his department will most likely feel pressured to do the work he is no longer able to get done.

While I understand why my friend feels like he does, I do not think he should feel this way. Here’s the thing: bad leaders cut staff and pressure people to work longer hours because it works. While despicable, such tactics decrease operating costs, increase productivity, and make bad leaders look good.

The only thing that is going to get bad leaders to stop using exploitative tactics is for the tactics to cease producing the desired results, and such tactics will only cease to produce such results when a significant enough number of staff refuse to be coerced by them.

Staff who refuse to be coerced into working unrealistically long hours make it slightly more difficult for bad leaders to obtain their desired results via exploitative tactics, and they do so while also often endangering their own long-term employment. This does not sound like a selfish act to me. In fact, it sounds like a selfless one.

To be clear, I am not arguing that staff should not work hard while they are at work, or even that staff should not occasionally work longer hours. Staff who short their employers hours or intentionally do not work hard are being just as exploitative as leaders who try to overwork employees. Employees should give their employers a fair level of effort, and companies should give a fair level of compensation in return. Any significant variation from this on either side is exploitative.

Instead, my point is that when placed in a situation in which leaders are pressuring staff to overwork, people who refuse to do so should not be viewed as selfish and should not feel like they are letting their coworkers down. Instead, these staff members should be celebrated for refusing to perpetuate a coercive, exploitative, and unjust situation and should feel good about themselves for trying to bring about the end of the situation that is causing themselves and their coworkers suffering.