At last — good news for slackers. Workaholics aren't such great employees after all.
A testing firm known as PsychTests asked 1,385 people to fill out its Type A personality test. When the data was processed, workaholics did not fare especially well.
PyschTest's advice to those who conduct job interviews: Think twice before hiring a self-identifying workaholic. They tend to work for the sake of being busy and productive rather than achieving objectives for the employer in a team fashion, and they don't take very good care of themselves while they're at it.
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First, let's look at the data on characteristics of workaholics as reported by this study:
- 86 percent of workaholics push themselves to accomplish their goals.
- 65 percent take work home with them.
- 63 percent hate the idea of being considered an average performer.
- 62 percent feel uneasy when they're not doing something productive.
- 52 percent eat on the run.
- 76 percent of workaholics consider it essential to have a job position that is well-respected.
While some of these may seem like admirable qualities in an employee, they have a downside that could be detrimental to the workplace.
"Workaholism has a downside, and it happens to outweigh the pros," says PsychTest, offering the following additional results from workaholics obtained from the study:
- 46 percent find that their life is too stressful.
- 73 percent have trouble unwinding at the end of the day.
- 56 percent feel over-worked.
- 64 percent feel like they don't have enough time to accomplish their goals.
- 73 percent get angry at themselves when they don't finish everything they wanted to do.
- 68 percent said that they can't tolerate people who slow them down.
- 68 percent compare themselves to others.
- 67 percent feel like they're constantly rushing to get somewhere.
- 63 percent would rather deal with problems on their own than ask others for help.
- 60 percent tend to be over competitive.
- 60 percent are impatient.
- 58 percent feel tense.
- 49 percent have trouble falling asleep.
- 47 percent overbook themselves.
"The stress and constant pressure to perform well in absolutely everything results in a build-up of fatigue, resentment and frustration," the report states. "Workaholics' adrenaline-fueled creativity runs dry, since they are just too sleep-deprived. They start snapping at their coworkers. They take it out on their direct reports. People hate working with them or for them. They fail to deliver on time because there are simply not enough hours in the day to cater to their overbooked schedule. This leaves both the employee and the company at a serious disadvantage. Nobody wins."
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
