Workplace
MANAGEMENT
Addicted to Work
It’s not a new concept, but workaholism is getting out of hand across the globe. Here’s what managers need to know about overworked employees
IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS, the word karoshi has been making headlines, splashed across Japan’s daily newspa- pers and talked about on the evening news. Since karoshi — which literally translates as “death from overwork” — entered the country’s lexicon back in the ’70s, there’s been a huge surge in the number of recorded occupational- related mortalities. In fact, overworking, and the stress caused by spending almost every waking hour at the office, has been blamed for thousands of fatal heart attacks and strokes in the past few decades. (The rate of karojisatsu — or “suicide by overwork” — has also been climbing.) The karoshi phenomenon is so rampant today that lawsuits filed
16 | CPA MAGAZINE | MAY 2015
against companies by families who’ve lost loved ones to death from overwork have also jumped considerably. Take, for example, a case this past November in which a restaurateur in Tokyo was forced to pay 57.9-million yen (about $600,000) to the family of a 24-year-old manager who worked more than 190 hours of overtime each month in the seven months prior to hanging himself. It’s cases like this — and the 2013
findings from the nation’s health, labour and welfare ministry that revealed nearly five million Japanese employees put in more than 60 hours at the office each week — that finally forced lawmakers to announce a workaholism prevention program late last year. This legislative
action — which came into effect in March — aims to teach the public about the risks of workaholism and provide support to workers and organizations facing the issue. Some departments within the ministry have even started practising what they preach by putting a moratorium on working past 10 p.m. There’s also talk of forcing employees to take at least five vacation days a year to curb mental and physical illnesses; this comes aſter survey findings showed Japanese workers took less than half of their allotted vacation days in 2013. If Canada adopted a comparable program to put the kibosh on working 24/7 (or close to it), Gwyneth James would find herself in a predicament. James is not only a partner at a small but busy accounting firm in Peterborough, Ont. (where she works full time), she’s also pursuing financial consulting in the little downtime she has. Besides her
Mike Constable
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