Many people embrace the “extreme” ethos pervading society-exemplified by thrill-seeking sports and stunt-based reality TV shows.
People are strongly motivated to work more than their rivals to win plum roles. With fewer corporate officer positions (thanks to merger mania) and an influx of talent (owing to diversity efforts), competition for high-level jobs has intensified. Powerful intersecting trends have driven the proliferation of extreme jobs: Physical presence in the workplace 10-plus hours a day.Responsibility for mentoring/recruiting.Work-related events outside of regular work hours.In addition to 60-plus-hour weeks, 24/7 client demands, unpredictable work flows, and tight deadlines, many extreme jobs have these characteristics: The Idea in Practice How Extreme Are Your Company’s Jobs? But can it live with the costs in the long run? Still, Hewlett and Luce see hints of dangers afoot: health problems and family woes for extreme workers, along with eroded corporate productivity when extreme job holders suffer the inevitable burnout or defect for less-demanding waters.Įxtreme jobs may enrich your company in the short run. Others relish the oversize compensation packages and status that come with the territory.Įxtreme jobs fuel workers’ adrenaline highs and beef up entire nations’ competitive prowess-popping up in industries as diverse as financial services, consulting, medicine, law, and manufacturing.
Some love the intellectual challenge and the thrill of achieving something big. Yet strangely, many extreme workers don’t feel exploited-they feel exalted.
They’re holding down extreme jobs-logging 60-plus hours a week and enduring 24/7 client demands, tighter-than-ever deadlines, and unpredictable work flows. But people aren’t just working longer hours. This constitutes a barrier for ambitious women, but it also means that employers face a real opportunity: They can find better ways to tap the talents of women who will commit to hard work and responsibility but cannot put in overlong days. Although they don’t shirk the pressure or responsibility of extreme work, they are not matching the hours logged by their male colleagues. The authors’ research suggests, however, that women are at a disadvantage. A strong majority of them in the United States-66%-say they love their jobs, and in the global companies survey, this figure rises to 76%. What emerges is a complex picture of the all-consuming career-rewarding in many ways, but not without danger to individuals and to society.īy and large, extreme professionals don’t feel exploited they feel exalted. In this article, Hewlett and Luce consider their data in relation to increasing competitive pressures, vastly improved communication technology, cultural shifts, and other sweeping changes that have made high-stakes employment more prominent. They hold what Hewlett and Luce call “extreme jobs,” which entail workweeks of 60 or more hours and have at least five of ten characteristics-such as tight deadlines and lots of travel-culled from the authors’ research on this work model.Ī project of the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force, a private-sector initiative, this research consists of two large surveys (one of high earners across various professions in the United States and the other of high-earning managers in large multinational corporations) that map the shape and scope of such jobs, as well as focus groups and in-depth interviews that get at extreme workers’ attitudes and motivations. Today’s overachieving professionals labor longer, take on more responsibility, and earn more than the workaholics of yore.
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