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Working overtime taking toll on professionals
By Wang Zhuoqiong and Zhao Ziran(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-07-05 05:55

Liu Zhiling is a man who believes in hard work. But working 12 or 13 hours almost every day is simply exhausting.

"Theoretically, we can get off work when the job for the day is done," said Liu, 29, a sales adviser for IBM. "But we usually cannot finish everything in an eight-hour working day."

The pressure Liu feels is spreading to more young professionals across China, where office culture is dominated by overtime work.

About 600,000 people die from "karoshi," or "death by overwork," every year in China, said professor Yang Xinchun, director of the Research Centre of Cardiopulmonary-Vascular Treatment at Capital University of Medical Sciences. Tiresome, irregular hours, working all night and pressure to perform are the main causes, he told China Economic Weekly.

Karoshi, a Japanese term, was first identified in the mid-1970s by the International Labour Office based in Geneva, Switzerland.

The condition, called guo lao si in Chinese, is caused by lengthy hours or strenuous work, and mental and emotional stress, Zhang Chengfu, secretary of labour protection for the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, told the Workers' Daily.

In recent days public attention has been caught by news of the sudden death of Hu Xinyu, a 25-year-old software engineer for Huawei Technologies, one of China's top telecommunications companies, in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province.

The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University said Hu died of bacterial encephalitis, but many media reports alluded to his having to work overtime. The story has aroused much debate on the Internet about the need to change office culture.

Fu Jun, a Huawei spokesman, said three days after Hu's death on May 28 that the company was saddened by the news, adding that no employee should work later than 10 pm without permission and that no one is allowed to stay inside the workplace overnight.

Despite the company's willingness to make a change in their traditional work overtime culture, the young engineer's death placed Huawei under scrutiny.

Xu Mingda of the school of economic studies at the Shenzhen Association of Social Science made reference to the Shenzhen company's "mattress culture," in which every newcomer receives a mattress, which is put under the desk. Employees sleep on it during lunch break or whenever they work late and can't or don't want to return home.

Niu Xiongying, professor of school of International Trade and Economics at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said: "The company's culture serves the company's success. Huawei's drive has helped it prevail in international competition. From the company managers' point of view, such culture is necessary."

But Gao Yongpin, professor of sociology of Capital Normal University in Beijing, doesn't agree that Chinese enterprises should rely on their staff's physical exertion to maintain competitiveness.

Gao asserted that companies should use a sufficient number of employees to handle the job rather than keeping the number low to reduce costs.

In some foreign countries, he said, taking a rest is not only right but also the workers' legal obligation. "To set up a healthy and cordial labour-management relationship, employers should be considerate of their staff," Gao said. "Enterprises are all seeking profit, but there should also be morality."

In China, working overtime violates the Labour Law, which states that no one should work longer than eight hours a day, 40 hours a week.

Overtime is allowed in certain circumstances but should not exceed three hours a day, provided that the workers' health is being protected.

"The union has always been against overwork," Zhang said, who added that forced overtime threatens not only the worker, but also the long-term development of the company, the sustainable growth of the nation's economy and social harmony.

Knowledge and technology, the foundation of long-term competitiveness, are derived from human factors. So, a culture that brings high pressure to the workforce harms the company's continued development, Niu said.

A reasonable performance evaluation system can help promote a healthy office culture, experts agree.

"Some companies don't encourage overtime because they understand that if the staff are always working excessively, efficiency is affected," Gao Hang, president of Hui Hua, a management consultancy, was quoted by Feidian Special Report as saying.

"Sometimes there will be a special mission, and more pressure in the short term. This is common. But maximum efficiency cannot be achieved without regular rest."

Lucy Luo, an executive with Accenture, another management consultancy, advises its clients that their attitude should be "work smart, not work hard."

Two ways to help employees do that are to make sure senior managers give the right direction and the company has a reasonable performance management system, in which the employees are judged not by the time they work but by their results, Luo said.

Gao said that another factor that needs to be considered is that a company's culture "should be different at different stages."

"Such a culture was feasible during Huawei's start-up period," Gao said. "But now Huawei has more than 10,000 technology workers. Still depending on everyone to work hard for a long time to achieve success won't work; they must work systematically as a team."

Niu pointed out that many Chinese companies lacked a health surveillance system for its employees.

Employee Assistance Programmes, designed to help employees with their mental, physical and emotional problems, are widely used in the United States. They provide free and anonymous telephone counselling for employees.

Some Chinese companies have developed more concern about the health of their workers, but they still have a long way to go to match their Western counterparts.

Peter Liu, who is in charge of marketing department for Shanghai Med iKang Incorporated, said 70 per cent of the corporate health benefit plans his company makes are for overseas firms.

Most Chinese State-owned or individual enterprises provide for only physical examinations and social health insurance. Features such as analyzing check-up results to foresee potential heath problems, which is crucial to guard against diseases, are usually absent.

But taking the step to implement corporate health management can be a problem for a company.

"Management can accept the idea easily, as long as they don't face the difficulties of a limited budget and their desks are not piled up with other urgent matters," said Selina Liu, iKang senior manager.

And although companies are being urged to evaluate their strategies and set up well-selected plans for their staff, individuals should also learn how to reduce pressure and better manage their own working schedules.

Before Hu joined the company, he was an athlete and sports enthusiast, according to his friends and colleagues.

"Before he landed the job, he was strong enough to be able to keep playing football for five hours," China Business News quoted an unidentified former classmate as saying.

Some young office workers who post on Internet bulletin boards across China said they learnt a valuable life lesson from Hu's case.

"Working is important but can't be more so than life," wrote one. Health is much more valuable than being rated A in performance once or twice."

Luo, of Accenture, said: "It all comes down to how to balance one's work and life. People should learn how to cope with the pressure they feel."

(China Daily 07/05/2006 page1)