JOURNAL ARTICLE

Beware a Culture of Busyness.

  • Published In: Harvard Business Review, 2024, v. 102. P. 130 1 of 3

  • Database: Business Source Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: WAYTZ, ADAM 3 of 3

Abstract

The article focuses on the pervasive corporate culture that equates busyness with achievement, highlighting its negative impacts on employee well-being and organizational productivity. It explains that busyness has become a status symbol due to human tendencies like effort justification, aversion to idleness, and customer expectations, despite research showing that overwork leads to burnout, turnover, and reduced efficiency. To counter this, the article recommends strategies such as rewarding output over mere activity, eliminating low-value tasks to enable "deep work," enforcing paid time off, modeling healthy work behaviors by leadership, and building slack into organizational systems to enhance resilience. These approaches aim to shift corporate norms away from valuing busyness toward fostering sustainable productivity and employee well-being.

Additional Information

  • Source:Harvard Business Review. 2024/12, Vol. 102, p130
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:Sports and Leisure
  • Publication Date:2024
  • ISSN:0017-8012
  • Accession Number:182915056
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