YY EE
LL MM
AA GG
CC YY
AA NN
BB LL
AA CC
KK
december 2006 49
financial analyst we’ll call Sudhir emigrated five years ago from
Mumbai, India. He works at a major
commercial bank in New York. Sum-
mertime, when he puts in 90 hours a
week, is his “light” season. The rest of the
year, he works upwards of 120 hours
per week – leaving only 48 hours for
sleeping, eating, entertaining, and (he
smiles) bathing. Sudhir stays late in the
office even when he has nothing par-
ticularly pressing to do. His get-a-life
existence is a hazard of the profession –
but worth it: As a 23-year-old with a
first job, he is in the top 6% of earners in
America.
Higher up the totem pole, Joe (not
his real name) has risen through the
corporate ranks to become a managing
director at a major bank. Joe thought
his workload would become lighter as
he moved up, but the opposite has oc-
curred: He now works six or seven days
a week, from multiple locations. He
keeps an apartment in New York, where
he works two days, and is on the road
another three or four days. Only on
weekends does he see his wife and three
children –who live in Connecticut. Even
then, he gets calls in the middle of the
night on Saturdays and Sundays, and
flies out to see clients on a moment’s
Extreme Jobs The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek
by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce
A
P J
L O
U G
H R
A N
B I G P I C T U R E
Certain industries breed
a type of professional for
whom get-a-life dedication
is a badge of honor. The
phenomenon is on the rise,
but is it sustainable?
notice.“The first year we were married,”
Joe’s wife recalls, “we had to rearrange
my grandmother’s funeral so that he
wouldn’t miss a meeting.”
Ming Mei is a managing director
and a member of the executive commit-
tee at ProLogis, a fast-growing real es-
tate investment trust with extensive op-
erations in Asia. Mei is in charge of
expansion in China, where he’s built
ProLogis’s portfolio base from zero to
10 million square feet of properties over
the past three years. The demands of
his job are immense. Negotiating with
Chinese government officials, he rou-
tinely packs five cities into six-day busi-
ness trips. These trips can be grueling –
back-to-back meetings spill over into
late dinners where key relationships
are cultivated and cemented. Despite
the pressure and the pace, Mei de-
scribes his job in glowing terms: “Build-
ing this business in markets where no
one has done anything like this before
is enormously exciting. And impor-
tant. We’ve built distribution centers
that are vital for China’s growth – they
contribute to the overall prospects of
the economy.”
Jonelle Salter is similarly enthusiastic
about her job. An offshore installation
manager (OIM) at BP, Jonelle knows
what it’s like to be in charge of the health
and safety of 80 workers on an oil plat-
form in the North Sea. On top of pres-
sures that would face anyone in this job,
she has some unique management chal-
lenges. As the first black woman to be-
come an OIM at BP, Jonelle has some-
times had to go to extra lengths to
establish her authority in this male-
dominated environment. But she loves
being a pioneer and credits BP for
going out on a limb and finding a fe-
male mentor (Gro Kielland, a manag-
ing director for BP Norway) to help her
through the rough patches. Jonelle
talks eloquently about the thrill that
comes with the challenges of her job.
“You train and train, but you still don’t
know whether you’ll come through when
50 harvard business review | hbr.org
B I G P I C T U R E • T h e D a n g e r o u s A l l u r e o f t h e 7 0 - H o u r W o r k w e e k
Sylvia Ann Hewlett is the president of the Center for Work-Life Policy, a New York–based nonprofit organization. She also heads the
Gender and Policy Program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, in New York. Carolyn Buck Luce is
the chair of the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force and the global pharmaceutical sector leader at Ernst & Young, in New York.
Researching Extreme Jobs
In 2004 the Center for Work-Life Policy launched a private-sector task
force consisting of 33 global companies devoted to stemming attrition in
their female executive ranks – a problem referred to as the “hidden brain
drain.” Task force discussions and survey data showed that one challenge
facing women was a trend toward more extreme work in corporate mana-
gerial positions. In 2005 and 2006, we focused specifically on that issue.
This research consists of two surveys – one of high earners across various
professions in the U.S. and the other of high-earning managers in large
multinational corporations – as well as 14 focus groups and 35 one-on-one
interviews. The survey of U.S. workers targeted the top 6% of earners in
the country and garnered responses from 1,564 full-time employees (844
men, 720 women) ages 25 to 60. The survey of managers at global compa-
nies included 652 men and 323 women, ages 25 to 60, at the director level
or above; 54% were from the United States or Canada, and 46% were from
Europe, the Middle East, or Africa. Survey statistics cited throughout this
article refer to the U.S. high earners unless specifically attributed to the
multinational management population. The surveys were conducted
online by Harris Interactive from November 1, 2005, through April 6, 2006.
an emergency happens – and whether
you can conjure up the right kind of
leadership,” she says.“It’s a kind of test.
And when you pass, you feel quite
wonderful.”
Sudhir, Joe, Mei, and Jonelle are suc-
ceeding in what we have come to term
“extreme jobs,” and they’re not alone.
Across the economy, there are high-
earning professionals whose work has
become all consuming. The outrageous
hours they put into their careers are
matched only by the over-the-top re-
wards they receive.
Do these professionals constitute a
new breed? Not entirely. Highly de-
manding and important jobs have al-
ways been around – along with the
workaholics who created them where
they didn’t need to exist. Yet there is
a difference. No longer the pitiable
drones and graspers of society, today’s
overachieving professionals are recast
as road warriors and masters of the
universe. They labor longer, take on
more responsibility, and earn more ex-
travagantly than ever before – and their
numbers are growing.
Our research on extreme jobs is a
project of the Hidden Brain Drain Task
Force, which we launched in February
2004 and now head up. In late 2005,
four of the task force’s member compa-
nies – American Express, BP, ProLogis,
and UBS – sponsored two large surveys
with the intent of “mapping” the shape
and scope of high-level, high-impact
jobs these days. We also conducted in-
depth qualitative research–focus groups
and interviews – to get at the attitudes
and motivations that lie behind the
extreme-work model (the sidebar “Re-
searching Extreme Jobs” provides more
detail). We then considered the data in
relation to the large-scale structural
shifts that have made high-stakes em-
ployment a more prominent feature of
the U.S. economy and culture. What
emerges from this inquiry is a complex
picture of the all-consuming career –
rewarding in many ways, but not with-
out danger to individuals and society.
YY EE
LL MM
AA GG
CC YY
AA NN
BB LL
AA CC
KK
tual behavior, we must rely on our re-
spondents to gauge the increase. Of the
extreme jobholders, 48% say they are
working an average of 16.6 more hours
per week than they did five years ago.
That finding is consistent with other
studies of the expanding workweek,
including, most recently, one by Peter
Kuhn and Fernando Lozano of the Na-
tional Bureau of Economic Research.
(Among college-educated men working
full-time in the United States, Kuhn and
Lozano report, those putting in 50-hour
weeks rose from 22.2% to 30.5% between
1980 and 2001.)
Vacations, meanwhile, seem to be
shrinking. Among the extreme-jobs
crowd, 42% take ten or fewer vacation
days per year–far less time off than they
are officially entitled to – and 55% claim
they have had to cancel vacation plans
“regularly.” Moreover, they say no one
is forcing them to do this. The long
hours and months without breaks are
discretionary. Jay (not his real name),
a creative executive at a major enter-
tainment company, is a case in point.
He can’t remember the last time he
had a vacation, and he has all but dele-
gated his social life to handlers. He is
driven by a vision of taking his com-
pany into a new creative space – video
games – and his heart and soul are
wrapped up in this mission, which has
become the defining element of his
identity. “If I can get this to work for
the studio,” he told us with unalloyed
enthusiasm,“I’ll be the first guy to figure
it out. Everyone else who has tried has
failed. It’s my Everest.”
Let us back up for a moment and clar-
ify the distinction we are making be-
tween run-of-the-mill long-hours jobs
and extreme jobs. Our definition, which
grew out of extended focus group dis-
cussions, takes into account not just
hours (and, of course, pay) but also the
pressures that make these positions
particularly stressful. We identified ten
common characteristics of extreme jobs
and decided to classify a respondent as
an extreme jobholder if he or she is
confronted by at least five of them, on
top of working 60 hours or more per
week (see the sidebar “The Elements of
Extremity”). By this standard, 21% of
the high earners in the U.S. whom we
surveyed have extreme jobs. (In our
separate survey of professionals work-
ing in global companies, this figure
rises to 45%.)
The fact is, extreme jobs are no longer
a rarity. Our data reveal an enormous in-
crease in work pressure for high-caliber
professionals across ages, genders, sec-
tors, and continents. Extreme jobs, we’ve
found, are distributed across the econ-
omy–in large manufacturing companies
as well as on Wall Street, in entertain-
ment and media, in medicine and law,
in consulting and accounting.
Given this increasingly extreme work
model, one might imagine that our
study has also uncovered a great many
burned out and bitter professionals. In
fact, quite the opposite is true. The over-
whelming majority of extreme jobhold-
ers in our U.S. sample (66%) say they
love their jobs – and in the global com-
panies survey, this figure rises to 76%.
Far from seeing themselves as worka-
holics in need of rescuing, extreme
workers wear their commitments like
december 2006 51
T h e D a n g e r o u s A l l u r e o f t h e 7 0 - H o u r W o r k w e e k • B I G P I C T U R E
The American Dream on Steroids The first thing that becomes clear is
that successful professionals are work-
ing harder than ever. The 40-hour work-
week, it seems, is a thing of the past.
Even the 60-hour workweek, once the
path to the top, is now practically con-
sidered part-time, as a recent Fortune
magazine article put it. Our data reveal
that 62% of high-earning individuals
work more than 50 hours a week, 35%
work more than 60 hours a week, and
10% work more than 80 hours a week.
Add in a typical one-hour commute,
and a 60-hour workweek translates into
leaving the house at 7 am and getting
home at 9 pm five days a week. If we
focus on the subset of those workers who
hold what we consider extreme jobs (a
designation based on responsibilities
and other attributes beyond pay), the
hours are even more punishing. The
majority of them (56%) work 70 hours
or more a week, and 9% work 100 hours
or more.
How dramatic a jump is this from the
past? Without longitudinal data on ac-
The Elements of Extremity
How do we define extreme jobs? For the purposes of data analysis, we’ve
said that survey respondents have such jobs if they work 60 hours or more
per week, are high earners, and hold positions with at least five of these
characteristics:
• Unpredictable flow of work
• Fast-paced work under tight deadlines
• Inordinate scope of responsibility that amounts to more than one job
• Work-related events outside regular work hours
• Availability to clients 24/7
• Responsibility for profit and loss
• Responsibility for mentoring and recruiting
• Large amount of travel
• Large number of direct reports
• Physical presence at workplace at least ten hours a day
Our two surveys of high-earning professionals have revealed the four charac-
teristics thought to create the most intensity and pressure: unpredictability
(cited by 91% of respondents), fast pace with tight deadlines (86%), work-
related events outside business hours (66%), and 24/7 client demands (61%).
badges of honor. To use the words of
the cultural critic Catherine Orenstein,
these jobs constitute “the American
Dream on steroids.” There is very little
sense of victimization. Almost two-
thirds (64%) of extreme workers admit
that the pressure and the pace are self-
inflicted – a function of a type A person-
ality. By and large, extreme professionals
don’t feel exploited; they feel exalted.
Why the Rise in Extreme Work? Every extreme worker has his or her
own reasons for putting in the effort.
Many people love the intellectual chal-
lenge and the thrill of achieving some-
thing big. Others are turned on by the
oversize compensation packages, bril-
liant colleagues, and recognition and
respect that come with the territory.
When we asked our survey respon-
dents what motivated them, most cited
a number of factors. (See the exhibit
“Why Do You Do It?”)
Note how gendered the responses
are. For men, compensation comes in
third on the list of motivators, after
stimulation/challenge and high-quality
colleagues. For women, compensation
comes in fifth, or last. The following
comments by Debra Langford are typi-
cal of what we heard in interviews: “It’s
not that compensation isn’t a top pri-
ority – it clearly is important. As an
African-American single woman with
financial responsibilities, I must be stra-
tegic in my career choices. When I ac-
cepted this position with Time Warner,
in which I am responsible for identify-
ing diverse candidates for high-level
positions at the company, I knew the
benefits would be beyond the purely fi-
nancial. This is an important position
because of the value of what I do – and
the recognition and support I receive
for my efforts are incredibly rewarding.”
Similarly, Susan Sobbott, president
of the OPEN division of American Ex-
press, chose AmEx because she wanted
to be part of a mission she believed
in–and part of a dedicated team.“I used
to be a financial analyst on Wall Street,”
she said. “After my MBA, I weighed
going back into investment banking and
considered consulting. I thought about
the big paycheck that typically comes
with working in these fields. But for
me, the most important thing in choos-
ing a path – more important than zeros
after a dollar sign – was to find an orga-
nization where I could work with tal-
ented people to create leading business
strategies that further a great brand.”
Interesting as these motivations are,
it should be pointed out that individual
decisions about work are not made in a
vacuum. At a macro level, the reasons
behind the rise of the extreme job are
structural; it’s the outcome of sweeping
changes in the global economic envi-
ronment. These changes–which include
increased competitive pressures, vastly
improved communication technology,
and cultural shifts – intersect in power-
ful ways.
Competitive pressures. To begin with, competition has become more in-
tense, both at the level of the individual
professional and at the level of the cor-
poration. Within companies, the com-
bined effect of merger mania and sub-
stantially flattened hierarchies has been
to pit a bigger pool of workers against
one another for any given promotion.
Catalyst reported that in 2005 there
were 368 fewer corporate officer posi-
tions in the Fortune 500 than there had
been ten years earlier (the number de-
clined from 11,241 to 10,873) – which
means the competition for high-level
positions has become that much fiercer.
Add to this the influx of talent that has
come about through women’s large-
scale movement into the workforce and
companies’ ongoing diversity efforts.
Both factors heighten the level of com-
petition. As companies grow leaner and
meaner, we see the declining job secu-
rity that Louis Uchitelle describes in The
Disposable American. Meanwhile, more
responsibility falls on the shoulders of
fewer individuals. Paul, a vice chairman
at one of the big four accounting firms,
told us his job has gotten so huge that
each day more things are left undone.
“The clincher,” he said, “is that the im-
portance of the things I’m not getting
to is greater than it used to be.”
The economists Robert Frank and
Philip Cook have argued that, more
and more, our economy operates by
“winner take all” rules. This is the kind
of dynamic that exists in flatter hier-
archies. Because a slight performance
edge yields outsize rewards (culminat-
ing in the gargantuan salaries awarded
to CEOs these days), there is a powerful
incentive to work incrementally more
52 harvard business review | hbr.org
B I G P I C T U R E • T h e D a n g e r o u s A l l u r e o f t h e 7 0 - H o u r W o r k w e e k
Why Do You Do It? Holders of extreme jobs indicated what motivates them to work long,
stressful hours. They answered the question “What are the main reasons
you love your job?” Multiple responses were allowed.
Stimulating/ challenging/ gives me an
adrenaline rush
High-quality colleagues
High compensation
Receive recognition
for work
Power/ status
90% 82%
52% 43% 43%
28% 37%
42%
23% 30%
Men Women
YY EE
LL MM
AA GG
CC YY
AA NN
BB LL
AA CC
KK
than one’s rivals. Hours and effort ratchet
up accordingly. Consider how different
this is from the days of TV shows like
Leave It to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet,
when a professional man who was rea-
sonably productive between the hours
of 9 and 5 could count on a steady if un-
spectacular ascent through the ranks.
The 1950s professional model was in
many ways kinder and gentler, but for
any young turk willing to work harder
and eager to be rewarded, it was a
source of intense frustration. Today’s
model operates by the young turks’
rules: The American Dream isn’t about
being Ozzie Nelson. It’s about being
Donald Trump.
Increasingly, the young turks are ac-
tually young Indians or young Chinese–
or whatever smart and hardworking
population offers a labor cost advan-
tage. The threat of losing jobs to out-
sourcing arrangements is another driver
in the rise of extreme work. Finally, the
climbing costs of health care insurance
and other benefits – and the fact that
“nonexempt” professionals do not earn
overtime pay in the U.S.– make compa-
nies eager to squeeze as many hours of
work as possible out of their employees
before springing for another fully
loaded salary.
The “extreme” ethos. While compet- itive pressures in corporations are mak-
ing extreme jobs more necessary, other
changes in the broader society are mak-
ing them more attractive. Orenstein
points to signs in the popular culture
of the widespread embrace of the “ex-
treme” ethos. Extreme sports in particu-
lar have become wildly popular – they
have their own version of the Olympics,
known simply as the X Games, created
in 1995 by ESPN. The reality TV show
Fear Factor gives couch potatoes vicari-
ous thrills by putting ordinary people
to the test in extreme stunts. Neighbor-
hood health clubs now offer rock-
climbing walls and kickboxing classes
for those who abhor the dull routine of
exercise.
We first heard the word “extreme” ap-
plied to white-collar work four years ago
in an interview with Marilyn, a senior
banker at a London-based investment
december 2006 53
T h e D a n g e r o u s A l l u r e o f t h e 7 0 - H o u r W o r k w e e k • B I G P I C T U R E
bank. Marilyn was captivated by ex-
treme sports: skydiving, snowboarding,
triathlons, bungee jumping, surfing,
mountaineering – anything that pro-
vided a rush of adrenaline and an ele-
ment of danger. She eagerly recom-
mended Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air (an
account of an ill-fated trip by amateur
mountain climbers) as a window into
why people push themselves to the lim-
its of their physical endurance. Marilyn
saw parallels between extreme sports
and her life as an investment banker.
First, there were the extraordinary time
demands and performance stressors.
Seventy-hour workweeks, grueling travel
requirements, and relentless bottom-line
pressures constantly pushed her to her
limits – both physically and intellectu-
ally. Second, there was the allure of the
job. Much like extreme sports, invest-
ment banking was exhilarating and se-
ductive. Marilyn told us,“It gives me this
rush. Like a drug, it’s addictive.”
In the world of extreme sports, the
more daring, demanding, and – this is
telling – gratuitous the feat, the greater
our awe of the athlete. We appreciate
the extreme athlete’s talent, skill, and
courage, but also the hubris that sets
him or her apart from the crowd. High
stakes and danger define the extreme-
sports challenge, which in the end is less
about the physical than about the exis-
tential – less about mountain peaks or
big waves than about inner strength and
testing one’s limits. In a popular culture
that lionizes such athletes, it is not sur-
prising that the extreme ethos has
worked its way into other endeavors.
And so, our most intense jobs are seen
not as exploitative but, rather, as glam-
orous, desirable, and virtuous. (Witness
The Apprentice.) From ER doctors to tax
lawyers to management consultants to
hedge fund salespeople, many profes-
sionals are wearing their outsize work
commitments on their sleeves; they
consider their over-the-top efforts – and
often voluntary sacrifices and risks –
a reflection of character. They brag about
pulling all-nighters and about flying
300,000 miles in a year. To them, a 70-
hour workweek is about proving their
worth. It’s akin to going up against the
elements.
New levels of connectivity. Extreme work is also the result of the key tech-
nologies that facilitate it. Modern com-
munication devices have prompted a
shift in expectations and behavior. We
see it all around us: people glued to
their cell phones or BlackBerrys, no
matter the day, time, or occasion. Profes-
sionals tap so incessantly at their wire-
less devices that a new medical ailment
has arisen – “BlackBerry thumb” – and
Hyatt hotel spas now offer a “Black-
Berry Balm hand massage.”
Communication technology seems
to have both liberated and shackled
extreme professionals. In our U.S. sur-
vey, 67% of people with extreme jobs
said that being available for clients 24/7
is a critical part of being successful.
According to one young investment
banker, “When you’re an analyst, even
when you’re in a meeting, waiting an
hour to respond to an e-mail is just not
acceptable.” This kind of availability,
not possible before the advent of Black-
Berrys and cell phones, is a curse as well
as a blessing. A Dallas-based accountant
in one of our focus groups described
how her boss had tracked her down at
a five-year-old’s birthday party the pre-
vious weekend and insisted she join a
90-minute conference call because
something had blown up with a client.
Of the U.S. survey respondents, 72% said
that technology helps them do their
jobs well, 59% said that it lengthens
their working day, and 64% noted its
encroachment on family time.
The workplace as social center. Per- haps most profound among the cultural
shifts we’ve been describing is the fact
that the workplace is now the center
and source of many people’s social lives.
When one’s best friends and most stim-
ulating encounters are at the office – as
is increasingly the case – the prospect of
working late into the evening becomes
less onerous. Robert Putnam famously
decried the loss of social capital in
American cities as more people “bowled
alone.” But it can be argued that the
B I G P I C T U R E • T h e D a n g e r o u s A l l u r e o f t h e 7 0 - H o u r W o r k w e e k
Extreme jobs may be deeply allur-
ing, but they are certainly not
cost free. Our data show that the
extreme-work model is wreaking
havoc on private lives and taking
a toll on health and well-being.
Housework and home care seem
to be among the first things to go.
Over three-quarters (77%) of the
women we surveyed and two-thirds
(66%) of the men said they can’t
properly maintain their homes. One
executive in a London-based focus
group told us that although he had
lived in his South Kensington flat for
two years, a mattress and a sleeping
bag were the sum total of his furnish-
ings. His schedule was such that he
hadn’t been able to make a commit-
ment to be home to accept a delivery.
Health is also an issue. More than
two-thirds of professionals we sur-
veyed don’t get enough sleep; half
don’t get enough exercise; and a sig-
nificant number overeat, consume
too much alcohol, or rely on medica-
tions to relieve insomnia or anxiety.
Moms with extreme jobs tend
to do better than dads in terms of
coming through for their children.
Almost two-thirds (65%) of men with
extreme jobs said their work inter-
feres with their ability to have strong
relationships with their children –
compared with one-third (33%) of
women. In a focus group targeting
the teenage children of extreme work-
ers, a fresh-faced 16-year-old we’ll call
Ellen said her dad had promised he’d
work less when he made partner at a
major accounting firm.“But instead,
he works more….My dad’s always
exhausted. He’s gone when I get up,
and not back when I go to sleep.”
But her father’s absentee parenting
seemed normal to her since, in her
world, all the fathers she knew worked
such long hours.
Spouses and partners also suffer
from the extreme-work model. Ex-
treme workers dramatically under-
invest in intimate relationships.
Some of the data are quite startling.
For example, at the end of a 12-hour
or longer workday, 45% of all respon-
dents in our global companies survey
are too tired to say anything at all to
their spouses or partners. Focus
group conversations were sprinkled
with half-joking references to four
in bed these days: oneself, one’s part-
ner, and two BlackBerrys or Treos.
Something’s Gotta Give
Being able to maintain my home
Having a strong relationship
with my children
Having a strong relationship
with my spouse/partner
Having a satisfying
sex life
66% 77%
65%
33% 46% 46% 49%
53%
Repercussions of Extreme Jobs for Family, Home, and Intimate Life
U.S. Survey Extreme Jobholders Saying Job Interferes with the Following
Men Women
54 harvard business review | hbr.org
YY EE
LL MM
AA GG
CC YY
AA NN
BB LL
AA CC
KK
kinds of personal connections once
made through civic organizations are
now made in workplaces. In a far less
positive light, this is a theme that Arlie
Russell Hochschild has explored in her
book The Time Bind, which gets inside
the relationships of some dual-career
couples and reveals how home life can
become seriously depleted when both
men and women work long hours. As
households and families are starved of
time, they become progressively less ap-
pealing, and both men and women
begin to avoid going home. Returning to
a house or an apartment with an empty
refrigerator and a neglected teenager
might prove to be a little bleak at the
end of a long working day – so why not
look in on that networking event or put
that presentation through one more
draft? Hochschild shows that for many
professionals, “home” and “work” have
reversed roles. Home is the source of
stress and guilt, while work has become
the “haven in a heartless world” – the
place where successful professionals
get strokes, admiration, and respect.
More knowledge-based work. Part of the reason that workplaces have be-
come more sociable is that the nature
of work has undergone a transforma-
tion. “Knowledge work” is increasingly
important, and corporations are now
full of people employing their brains
more than their brawn. One thing’s for
sure: There’s no need to lay down tools
at the end of a shift; to the extent that
knowledge work requires capital equip-
ment, the equipment is highly portable
communications devices rather than
plant machinery. Knowledge-based en-
terprises also tend to attract employ-
ees who are on a par intellectually. The
exchange of ideas and knowledge that
now characterizes most workplaces is
without doubt a source of stimulation –
again, making it less painful to put in
the hours. It is probably not wrong to
assume that more knowledge work
means that people simply like their
jobs more.
This surely seems true of Alex, a fed-
eral prosecutor who focuses on securi-
ties fraud. He works long hours, typi-
cally arriving home around 11 pm and
routinely skipping meals. Instead of
eating dinner, he will have a PowerBar
at his desk – or a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich when he gets home late at
night. He never makes it home before
his two young children are in bed, al-
though he does make a point of taking
his daughter to preschool in the morn-
ing. He laments that in trying to salvage
as much family time as possible, he is
neglecting his relationship with his
wife. On a rare recent “date,” the couple
went to a jazz club, only to have Alex
doze off after one drink. It’s not hard to
imagine why: His average workweek is
75 hours – and in the midst of a trial, he
can put in 95 hours.
Nevertheless, Alex derives enormous
satisfaction from his work. Last year, for
example, he prosecuted an accounting
fraud case.“Enron writ small,” he calls it.
For him, the case exemplifies what mo-
tivates him to work so hard. He not only
made sure a criminal was punished for
breaking the law; he also helped secure
compensation for those who were
wronged. The problem with this great
job is its size. “In a nutshell, it’s un-
doable,” says Alex. “We’re underfunded
and painfully understaffed….Over the
last five years, I’ve built up some great
relationships with our FBI agents, who
often bring me compelling cases – but
the fact of the matter is, I can only take
a small proportion of them. It’s disap-
pointing and frustrating, but I just can’t
drive myself any harder.”
Global operations. As companies gain global spans of operation, there are
december 2006
Professionals tap so incessantly at their wireless
devices that a new medical ailment has arisen –
“BlackBerry thumb.”
continued on page 58
56 harvard business review | hbr.org
B I G P I C T U R E • T h e D a n g e r o u s A l l u r e o f t h e 7 0 - H o u r W o r k w e e k
Our research shows that extreme jobs
are much more common among men
than among women. The exhibit “Who
Has Extreme Jobs?” tells the tale. Among
high earners in the United States, 21%
hold such jobs, and less than a fifth of
those are women. Among high earners
at global companies, 45% are working
extremely, and women make up a third
of that group.
Why aren’t more extreme workers
women? Part of the answer emerges from
finer cuts of the data. In the global compa-
nies survey, we found that young, talented
women are well represented in jobs that
have reasonable hours (fewer than 60 a
week) but high performance requirements
(fast pace with tight deadlines, 24/7 client
demands, and so on). Of the respondents
holding these jobs, 39% are women. By
contrast, of those meeting high perfor-
mance requirements and putting in longer
hours, only 30% are women. The data sug-
gest that women are not afraid of the
pressure or responsibility of extreme jobs –
they just can’t pony up the hours.
The U.S. survey, too, demonstrates
that the number of hours worked is
where women fall short. Consider the
exhibit “How Many Hours and How Much
Responsibility?”– which divides the high
earners we surveyed into four quadrants,
according to the length of the workweek
and the demands of the job. Positions
that involve long hours but little in the
way of performance pressure are particu-
larly shunned by women: Only 2% of the
women in our sample work long hours in
positions with few extreme-job responsi-
bilities. Men are somewhat more tolerant
of such jobs.
Perhaps women are less tolerant of
high-hours, low-impact work because they
are more aware of the “opportunity costs.”
They seem particularly tuned into – and
pained by – the fallout on their children.
They see a direct link between their long
workweeks and a variety of distressing
behaviors in their children. As the research
literature attests, it’s extremely rare for
parents to admit to having problems with
their children. (There are serious problems
in society, but never in one’s own home.)
Thus, the data in the exhibit “Extreme Jobs
Affect Well-Being of Children” constitute
a veritable portrait of guilt. That women
Extreme jobs demand a high number of responsibilities (five or more out of ten specific challenges, such as tight
deadlines and 24/7 availability to clients) as well as a high number of work hours (60 or more a week). The matrix
below illustrates where the men and women in our U.S. survey fall. Each figure represents 1% of the total popula-
tion of high earners surveyed.
How Many Hours and How Much Responsibility?
High
HighLow
QUADRANT III QUADRANT II
N um
be r o
f E xt
re m
e-
Jo b
Ch ar
ac te
ris tic
s
Number of Hours Worked
Men=15% Women= 4%
Men= 33% Women= 12%
Men=12% Women= 2%
Is There a Gender Issue Here?
U.S. Survey Global Survey
4%
17%
15%
30%
Who Has Extreme Jobs?
Men Women
Men=17% Women= 4%
QUADRANT IV QUADRANT I
YY EE
LL MM
AA GG
CC YY
AA NN
BB LL
AA CC
KK
december 2006 57
T h e D a n g e r o u s A l l u r e o f t h e 7 0 - H o u r W o r k w e e k • B I G P I C T U R E
worry about the implications for their
children is probably not because mothers
are more caring than fathers but because,
as our survey data show, more men in
extreme jobs (25%) than women (12%)
have the support of an at-home spouse or
partner.
These dynamics play out in homes
around the world every day. In a focus
group held at Canary Wharf in London,
a woman lawyer put it succinctly: “When
I walk out the door in the morning, leav-
ing my two-year-old with the nanny,
there’s usually a bit of a scene. Tommy
clings, pouts, and whips up the guilt.
Now, I know it’s not serious – he’s a happy
kid, and he likes his nanny. But it sure
makes me think about why I go to work –
and why I put in a ten-hour day. It’s as
though every day I make this calculation:
Do the satisfactions I derive from my job
(efficacy, recognition, a sense of stretch-
ing my mind) justify leaving Tommy?
Some days it’s a close run.”
Indeed, for many women, the equation
is not balancing out. A clear majority (57%)
of the women in extreme jobs in the
United States told us they don’t want to
continue working at this pace for more
than a year. Less than half the men (48%)
felt the same way. Only 13% of the women
(versus 27% of the men) want to be work-
ing at this pace in five years. The numbers
were far more dramatic in our global com-
panies survey, in which 80% of the women
(versus 58% of the men) said they don’t
want to keep working this many hours for
more than a year, and only 5% of the
women (and 12% of the men) said they
want to do so for the next five years.
The key question, of course, is whether all
this creates a barrier for ambitious women
and for companies that want to achieve
more gender diversity in their upper ranks.
The answer is yes to the extent that extreme
workers constitute the talent pool from
which top leadership will be drawn. If this
group of high-octane workers represents
the “A team”–and we think it does –it’s
very disturbing to see so few women in it.
The silver lining is that employers face a
real opportunity here. We know of several
companies that are beginning to tap into
the talents of women who are willing to
commit to hard work and take on responsi-
bility but cannot do the long hours. For
example, Booz Allen Hamilton and Ameri-
can Express are beginning to “chunk out”
work in different ways. AmEx has created
an internal consulting pool that provides
flexible career paths for high-performing
employees. A working mom, for instance,
might choose to arrange her workday so
that she’s able to pick her children up from
school. “We’re sharpening our approach
to creating flexible work models,” says
L. Kevin Cox, executive vice president of
human resources at American Express. In
a similar vein, Lehman Brothers and Gold-
man Sachs are beginning to create flexibil-
ity over the arc of a career. Lehman’s En-
core program welcomes talented women
who have off-ramped and are looking for
a road back into the financial sector –
reaching out with networks, mentors, and
flexibility. Goldman Sachs’s New Direc-
tions program provides reskilling and a
“new compass” for returning women, show-
ing them a way back into their careers.
Heidi Yang, an investment banker in
Hong Kong, illustrates the edge some global
companies are developing as employers of
choice for young, talented women. Heidi is
definitely a “high-potential manager.”
During her three and a half years in the
investment division of UBS in Hong Kong,
she has been promoted twice; she now
runs a team of 25. When we first met with
her in November 2005, she was pregnant
with her first child and pleased with UBS’s
parent-friendly policies – which she consid-
ered as generous as any “on the street”–
but she worried about whether those poli-
cies were “for real.” If, for instance, she
availed herself of her full maternity leave,
would she be seen as not serious, and sub-
tly derailed from the fast track? Happily,
when we last interviewed her, in July 2006,
her fears had not been realized. “There’s
been a real change at this firm,” she ob-
served. “The culture is shifting. They’re
allowing me to work flexibly. As long as
I come through for my clients, I can work
wherever I want. There’s none of this face-
time stuff. My bosses seem to understand
the importance of keeping women.”
Respondents answered the question “Has your child ever experienced any
of the following because of the number of hours you work?”
Extreme Jobs Affect Well-Being of Children
Global Survey
Watching too much television
Acting out/ discipline
issues due to lack of
attention
Eating too much junk food
Having too little adult supervision
Underachieving in school
49%
18%
38%
12%
34%35%
14% 22%
13%
22%
Men Women
additional reasons for jobs to become
extreme. The need to oversee work in
multiple time zones increases not only
the travel requirements of a job but
also the length of the workday. One oil
company executive we interviewed ran
a global team composed of colleagues
in Angola, the United States, and China.
As he put it, this “did a number” on his
working day. Other professionals in our
focus groups told anecdotes about
pulling all-nighters and defying jet lag
to attend back-to-back meetings in Sin-
gapore and New York. The difficulty
of waking up to participate in global
conference calls in the middle of the
night was a common refrain.
Because many companies are expand-
ing globally, senior managers have a
larger scope of responsibility. Take Gwen
(not her real name), who manages a
supply chain for a large DIY retailer. The
pressures of her job are enormous –
involving quick decisions on inventory
levels that can have huge consequences
for her company’s bottom line. Just
three years ago, most of her suppliers
were in South Carolina and Georgia;
now her supply chain reaches to East-
ern Europe and China. Gwen operates
in three different time zones and seven
different countries. She says,“The chal-
lenges are intense – and I like that. But
being away from home half the time –
and I mean away away – is really hard
on my ten-year-old.” Compounding the
overload problem is the fact that man-
agers these days are less able to dele-
gate low-value but necessary tasks (like
compiling the expense reports for all
that travel Gwen does). Secretaries seem
to have been replaced by do-it-yourself
technology – 71% of extreme workers
have no dedicated administrative assis-
tant, and more than a third (37%) don’t
even have a shared assistant.
We believe that these are the key
trends underlying the rise in extreme
work. There may be others. The point,
however, is that they represent a mix of
positive and negative pressures. Long
workweeks cannot simply be chalked
up to the crushing effects of a heartless
and unchecked capitalist system, as
some commentators have argued. The
extreme professionals who find their
work enormously alluring are not de-
luded. Recognizing trends like the rise
in knowledge work and society’s general
embrace of the extreme ethos makes it
easier to understand the attitudes of
people like Madeleine (not her real
name), the chief operating officer of a
major global bank. As she detailed the
demands of her job for us, we found
her to be downright exuberant. She had
recently transferred from the bank’s
New York headquarters to London,
where her responsibilities were ex-
panded tenfold: She now travels be-
tween three time zones. The pressure is
undeniable, but we heard no complaint.
Instead, Madeleine described the thrill
of managing a large international busi-
ness and being “a global player on top of
my game.”
Life on the Edge If people in extreme jobs are uncom-
plaining and their employers are happy
to have their services, is it reasonable to
claim there is a problem? Arguably, the
trend toward more extreme work is a
boon to national competitiveness.
Yet there are, even in the responses to
our survey, hints of the dangers afoot.
Asked about the effects of their extreme
jobs on their health and relationships,
most respondents readily noted the
downsides. More than 69% believe they
would be healthier if they worked less
extremely; 58% think their work gets in
the way of strong relationships with
their children; 46% think it gets in the
way of good relationships with their
spouses; and 50% say their jobs make it
impossible to have a satisfying sex life.
(For more data on the personal costs of
extreme work, see the sidebar “Some-
thing’s Gotta Give.”)
These statistics are underscored by the
stories shared by focus group partici-
pants. In one session, which took place
at a financial services company, an exec-
utive described how he had lost all cred-
ibility with his elderly wheelchair-
bound father by canceling so many
promised weekend visits. Another exec-
utive, striking a more positive note, de-
scribed the transformative recent ex-
perience of taking, for the first time in
his 14-year career, two consecutive
weeks of vacation: “It was a revelation.
I had no idea I even had it in me to
enter into this other zone, where I was
able to focus on my nine-year-old son,
and I mean really focus. By the second
week, I was listening to meandering sto-
ries of a tiff he’d had with a best friend
and his description of what had hap-
pened in the last episode of his favorite
TV show without urging him to get to
the point, or wrap it up. And we spent
hours playing Ping-Pong – a game he
loves but I generally have no patience
for.” The other participants listened in-
tently, clearly trying to wrap their minds
around what a two-week vacation
would be like.
These are poignant examples of the
costs of extreme work to individuals,
but there can be costs at the company
level, as well – for instance, when burn-
out occurs. Half of our extreme jobhold-
ers don’t want to continue working
under this kind of pressure for more
than a year. Moreover, the next genera-
tions of management–the so-called Gen
X and Gen Y cohorts – seem less enam-
ored of their jobs than baby boomers.
In the 45-to-60 age group, only 19% of
extreme jobholders say they are likely
to leave their jobs within two years;
this figure rises to 30% in the 35-to-44
age group and to 36% in the 25-to-34 age
group. The ultimate price may be paid
in succession planning if maxed-out
58 harvard business review | hbr.org
B I G P I C T U R E • T h e D a n g e r o u s A l l u r e o f t h e 7 0 - H o u r W o r k w e e k
Long workweeks cannot simply be chalked up to
the crushing effects of a heartless and unchecked
capitalist system.
professionals stop striving for top jobs.
In our survey, 65% said they would de-
cline a promotion if it were even more
demanding of their energy.
Beyond the level of any single com-
pany, the costs of the extreme-job phe-
nomenon become far more troubling.
The common observation about a job
category that is demanding to the
point of exhaustion is that it is “a young
man’s game.” But more jobs are falling
into this category – and more than
young men need to be in the game. The
societal costs of income disparity and
winner-take-all economics are huge, as
many before us have argued.
Women in particular stand to lose
from the extreme-work model. Our re-
search finds that while women don’t
shirk the pressure or responsibility of
extreme work, they are not matching
the hours logged by their male col-
leagues. This is especially true of moth-
ers, who are also dealing with an in-
creasingly extreme parenting model;
they simply can’t – or don’t choose
to – work exceedingly long hours. Of all
the high earners we classified as ex-
treme jobholders, only 20% are women.
The women who do hold extreme jobs,
meanwhile, are somewhat less likely
than the men to love their work. (The
sidebar “Is There a Gender Issue
Here?” offers an extensive analysis of
the implications for women executives
and the companies that strive to re-
tain them.)
Cultures of Midnight Oil Of all the high earners we surveyed (not
just the extreme-job subset), 44% feel
that the pace of their work is extreme.
Professionals these days are putting in
longer hours, taking on more responsi-
bility, and facing more pressure than
ever before. Their intensity and invest-
ment may serve companies well in the
short run but will pose risks in the long
run. The extreme-work model threat-
ens to cull real talent, particularly fe-
male talent, that otherwise could have
reached the top.
It’s hard to offer solutions. Many com-
panies are encouraging more work/life
balance; a few go to some lengths to YY EE
LL MM
AA GG
CC YY
AA NN
BB LL
AA CC
KK
december 2006
ensure that the policies they’ve put on
paper are reflected in reality. For every
company that does so, however, there
are others afraid of creating a work at-
mosphere that is unattractive to “A play-
ers.” If an effort to establish a more
measured work style means that ex-
treme achievement will no longer be
rewarded, they reason, then some ex-
treme workers will seek opportunities
with firms more likely to appreciate
their outsize contributions. Colleagues
may be happy to see extreme workers
go; workaholics can be highly de-
manding and critical of their less dedi-
cated coworkers. But some manage-
ment teams think there are worse
things than having an ultraperformer
around–like having that person join the
competition.
Indeed, some organizations – certain
management-consulting and invest-
ment-banking firms come to mind –
attract talent in the first place with
their famously tough environments.
The importance of company culture in
setting the pace of work was strongly
affirmed by our survey, in which 74% of
respondents agreed that extreme jobs
emerge from companies’ particular value
sets. Shane, a young man who partici-
pated in a focus group, put his finger on
it. Having spent his weekend jumping
through hoops for a demanding boss,
only to discover that he’d wasted his
time, he pinned the problem on the
“tone at the top.”
Senior leadership of organizations
should take note: The attributes that
give a workplace an advantage in re-
cruiting and retention can change dra-
matically over time. The culture that
celebrates the extreme ethos today may
tire of it – quite literally – tomorrow. At
a minimum, senior executives should
think carefully about the work behav-
iors they are rewarding, encouraging,
or requiring. More than anything, the
signals they send will determine whether
jobs become extreme–and if so, whether
those jobs remain exhilarating or simply
become exhausting.
Reprint R0612B; HBR OnPoint 1685
To order, see page 165.
“An engaging guide to stoking creativity.”
The Boston Globe
“I strongly recommend it.”
Clayton M. Christensen, author, The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution
“This masterful study is destined
to be a landmark.”
David Gergen, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government
Available wherever books are sold.
www.HBSPress.org
Open up to great ideas
In association with the Strategy Planning Society, Europe
www.sps.org.uk
Harvard Business Review Notice of Use Restrictions, May 2009
Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Publishing Newsletter content on EBSCOhost is licensed for
the private individual use of authorized EBSCOhost users. It is not intended for use as assigned course material
in academic institutions nor as corporate learning or training materials in businesses. Academic licensees may
not use this content in electronic reserves, electronic course packs, persistent linking from syllabi or by any
other means of incorporating the content into course resources. Business licensees may not host this content on
learning management systems or use persistent linking or other means to incorporate the content into learning
management systems. Harvard Business Publishing will be pleased to grant permission to make this content
available through such means. For rates and permission, contact [email protected].
