Conscientious workers face exhaustion

Going above and beyond the call of duty comes at a cost to personal well-being and family responsibilities, despite the link between being conscientious at work and career success according to new research from King's and the University of Bath. By studying employees in a UK customer call centre for a retail bank, the team led by Professor Stephen Deery from the School of Management and Business at King's found that going the extra mile at work left employees emotionally exhausted and grappling with work-family conflict. The side effects of conscientiousness were more striking where employees were already doing well at work. These employees were faced with sustaining high performance alongside the extra tasks and responsibilities that their managers were more likely to delegate to them because of their hard-working and dependable nature. Professor Stephen Deery, who led the research, said: 'At the moment individuals are faced with balancing the benefits of a better appraisal against the cost to health and family time. Companies that are designing people management policies need to ensure that the short term gains made by encouraging employees to go the extra mile are not outweighed in the longer term by the personal costs of this behaviour.' Employees in the study reported that they felt emotionally drained and 'used up' because of their work and were struggling with balancing family life alongside work. Increasing competitive pressures are pushing employers, particularly in customer service environments, to look for ways to improve organisational performance and this typically involves urging employees to be 'good citizens' by going the extra mile.