“Productivity culture” is destroying America’s workforce: Here’s what we should do about it.

ASHER BYKOV: American workers are more overworked, more unhappy, and take less paid time off than workers in any other developed nation in the world. Why?

 First, our economic system requires production for us to be viewed as valuable. Take Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an example. Regarded as the “most important economic indicator,” GDP is a measurement of value predicated on the summation of all final goods and services produced within a country. In practice, this means that the more we work, the greater GDP grows. You know what doesn’t increase GDP? Leisure.

Second, we treat busyness as a status symbol. In a series of studies published in 2016, researchers from Columbia, Georgetown, and Harvard concluded that “the positive inferences of status in response to busyness and lack of leisure time are driven by the perceptions that a busy person possesses desired human capital characteristics and is scarce and in demand in the job market.”

Furthermore, this phenomenon is uniquely American. A cross-cultural study on perceptions of busyness demonstrated that Americans “granted greater status to the working individual conducting a busy lifestyle than to the non working individual conducting a leisurely lifestyle” when compared to Europeans.  

 Ironically, emphasizing productivity above all else has made us less productive. A study in the Harvard Business Review analyzed attitudes toward productivity from 20 countries with the most paid vacation days, including Australia, Sweden, and Brazil, and compared those attitudes with those of workers in the US. The researchers concluded that “employees in countries that take more vacation have a strong desire to get a lot done as well as a tendency to move faster.”

Work-from-home orders throughout the pandemic have only accelerated our workaholism. Work is always just a click away. Slack messages, emails, and text messages suck us back in, even when we step away from the computer. For many, working from home is here to stay, and so is the dizzying anxiety that comes along with our society’s insatiable need to be productive. 

So, what should we do to fix our toxic obsession with productivity?

 First, we need mandatory paid leave.

America is the only developed country in the world that doesn’t guarantee time off. California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington are the only states that have leave laws. Furthermore, approximately one in four workers in the US aren’t even offered paid vacation time. As such, America has won the title of the “no vacation nation.” 

Meanwhile, in Germany and the UK, workers are federally guaranteed a minimum of a month of paid vacation. Similarly, countries like Brazil, Libya, Turkmenistan, and Oman all mandate 30 days of paid time off. 

Unfortunately, changes to the US’s paid leave policy have stalled as it would require restructuring the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Aside from making leave “an agreement between an employer and an employee,” this 2009 bill “establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments.” 

Republicans across local, state, and national legislatures have fought hard to kill bills that mandate paid vacation leave. One such example was a paid vacation 2019 bill proposed in the NYC City Council that would require “employers with five or more workers or those with at least one domestic worker to provide them 80 hourss of ‘personal’ time annually.” Unfortunately, the bill was not approved as the opposition frequently cited surveys that found a majority of business owners feared they would need to lay off employees. To paraphrase some Republicans, while sponsors of mandatory leave bills may have good intentions, these bills actually hurt workers because they wouldn’t even be able to access job opportunities to make an income. 

Republican retaliation across the nation is ironic, however, as the benefits of mandatory leave are vast and impactful. They include improved financial security, business productivity, and economic growth, among others. In other words, leave would actually improve the economic conditions and workers’ lives that enable businesses to thrive. 

Ultimately, mandatory paid leave is essential for the progress of the American workforce. As labor economist Lonnie Golden explained in relation to a public paid vacation program, “a national standard might save us from ourselves.”

 Second, let’s individualize our definition of “productivity” whenever we can.

 “When you recontextualize ‘productivity’ from an aggregate industrial metric to an autonomous personal endeavor, its valence radically shifts from exploitation to empowerment,” Cal Newport, author, podcaster, and computer science professor at Georgetown University, wrote last year.

In other words, if we give productivity a new meaning, one that makes sense in our individual lives, we can rehabilitate our obsession with busyness. For example, productivity may mean reducing your hours at work to spend time with your friends and family. It may also mean taking full advantage of vacation days. We still ought to work diligently and produce results for our companies and our country, but “productivity” must be individually defined and self-serving, otherwise we will continue to serve a term disconnected from human needs.

Third, it’s time to unplug because being accessible 24/7 is the problem, not the solution.

“The two activities that seem important for this are reflection and experimentation,” Newport told me in regard to redefining boundaries. “Reflection is sitting with yourself and your thoughts. Try to make sense of your life, things that have happened to you, and build [your own] structure for your life. Experimentation is, ‘Let me try this, join this, do this.’ Through action, there is a lot of discovery.” 

Lastly, Newport noted, “You need to realize [our relationship with technology] is a journey. Your goal is to define what is important to you over time, not to have a one-size fits all activity.” 

No single solution can address the monster that is “productivity culture.” However, with time and consistent effort, we can find a new, healthier relationship with our work.

Asher Bykov is a sophomore in the college studying psychology.