Organizational Wellness

Hustle Culture: Is It Harming Your Workforce (and Bottom Line)?

Last Updated Dec 9, 2024

Time to read: 9 minutes

Could hustle culture be silently sabotaging your workforce’s wellbeing and your company’s profitability?

The answer is probably a big yes, given that it encourages employees to push themselves past their breaking points. The mental and physical exhaustion resulting from working too much can drain your staff’s creativity and passion for the job.

For example, someone who’s always available after working hours, takes little or no time off, and works till late at night to beat tight deadlines might be viewed as a reliable employee. But is such relentless dedication truly sustainable, or can it quietly burn your team out and cost you a lot of money in the long run?

Dive in to protect your employees from the ugly side of hustle culture and start promoting positive, sustainable working habits in your organization.

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What Is Hustle Culture?

Hustle culture, also called the grind culture, is the idea that people should put extra effort into their profession to prosper. It encourages employees to consistently overwork, often to the detriment of other areas of their lives. The promise is that they can achieve almost any professional or financial milestones if they put their jobs above everything else and give it their all.

But is that actually true?

All too often, the outcome of hustle culture is counterintuitive. It might seem like it motivates employees to work hard and drive their careers forward. Unfortunately, all too often, the fatigue resulting from working too much can kill the drive to pursue achievements that require long-term commitment.

The Dark Side of Hustle Culture

Workers today are under intense pressure to be ideal employees — completely dedicated to their careers and always available whenever their employer needs them. To satisfy these expectations, they may feel compelled to work on weekends, arrive early, pull all-nighters, and stay alert for job-related communications outside business hours. Those unwilling or unable to meet these demands are typically considered lazy or unfit for the job.

This intense, all-consuming work culture can force people to prioritize their jobs over other facets of their lives, such as family and personal wellness. The resulting consequences can be devastating to both employers and employees.

Poor Mental Wellbeing

In a hustle culture, the constant pressure to work hard and go the extra mile can cause employee burnout, negatively affecting mental wellness. Burnout is rising globally, with the most significant increase in the United States, according to a 2022 Future Forum report.

Experts say that mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion can cause employees to lose passion for their jobs. As staff members try to fix this effect of burnout, they may end up in a vicious cycle of working excessively, which can lead to depression, anxiety, and withdrawal.

Decreased Productivity

Because grind culture causes burnout by pushing people to overwork, it leads to fatigue that degrades employee performance in the workplace. Burned-out workers have a 60% reduced ability to focus on the job and are 32% less productive than those with healthy working habits, according to Future Forum.

High Turnover Rate

Employees want a good job and a life well-lived. Unfortunately, hustle culture usually only delivers the former because it puts work above everything else, disregarding personal wellbeing. Many talented employees are abandoning employers that don’t prioritize individual employee wellbeing. Instead, they are looking for companies that show authentic concern for workers’ overall wellness, according to Gallup.

A recent Wellhub report found that 87% of workers would consider leaving a company that does not focus on employee wellbeing, up from 77% in 2022. This suggests that workers are likely to leave their current job — even if it pays well — for another workplace that offers a better work culture.

Increased Absenteeism

The exhaustion of hustling for long hours can cause stress, so employees might need more time off to deal with that stress and the issues it causes. The effects of overworking, such as depression, anxiety, and withdrawal, often make people rely on alcohol or drugs as a coping mechanism. Heavy use of substances is linked with increased workplace absenteeism, according to the medical journal JAMA Network.

Is Hustle Culture Always Bad?

One potential benefit of grind culture is that it encourages people to push themselves beyond their comfort zone, which can drive some folks to accomplish more in their careers. It inspires them to set higher working standards and go the extra mile in their jobs rather than just doing the bare minimum.

However, there’s a difference between healthy ambition and toxic overwork. Working long hours at the expense of everything else and viewing time off as laziness is unhealthy physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Working hard is good. However, encouraging employees to dedicate sufficient time to important things outside the job, such as personal wellbeing, can be a great way to have a sustainable work culture. The goal is to ensure employees get space to rest, focus on their overall wellness, and maintain the energy necessary to perform optimally in the long term.

Ways to Measure How Sustainable Your Work Culture Is

Want to know whether your staff is on the road to burnout, or just working hard? The following methods can help you evaluate the quality of life at work (QWL) in your workplace and determine whether the company’s and employees’ approach to work sets your team up for long-term success.

Employee Surveys

Anonymous HR surveys can help assess employee stress levels, engagement, and overall wellbeing. To gain deeper insights, you can ask qualitative (open-ended) and quantitative survey questions (like multiple-choice queries). Use the feedback to identify practices in the company that may be overburdening your staff and come up with the most suitable solution.

Turnover Rates

Monitor how often workers leave your company over a particular period. A high employee turnover rate can indicate an unsustainable work culture. Analyzing exit interviews can help you understand the reason behind the departures.

Productivity Metrics

Track key performance indicators relevant to each job position to evaluate the impact of work culture on productivity. A consistent decrease in output over time can show that your staff is exhausted from too much work and not performing at the top level.

Once you measure the sustainability of your culture and implement the necessary corrective measures, you can continuously monitor your initiatives using employee engagement metrics and feedback. This gives you the insights needed to make your initiatives even more effective over time.

How HR Leaders Can Combat Hustle Culture

When employees consistently overwork, they are likely to get burned out, which may translate to low productivity, poor mental wellbeing, and increased absenteeism. What can you do to promote healthy work habits and minimize these negative impacts?

Implement Employee Wellness Programs

Wellbeing offerings like gym memberships, yoga classes, and meditation can help workers focus more on their wellness instead of solely dedicating their time to the daily grind. Because wellness programs promote physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, they can create a positive and sustainable workplace culture.

Create Policies That Prioritize Employee Wellness

Some workplace rules can be burnout-inducing. For example, employers with a 24/7 availability policy expect employees to be responsive to job-related communications at all hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays. Mandatory overtime can also force people to overwork themselves.

Internal company rules that put employees first create clear boundaries between work hours and staff members' personal time.

Offer Flexible Work Options (Where Applicable)

Because a flexible working arrangement gives employees autonomy over where and when they work, it enables them to better manage their professional duties and personal responsibilities. When offered, nearly everyone (87%) leverages the opportunity of working flexibly, according to a 2022 McKinsey survey.

However, this setup may not be suitable for every role in an organization and not every employee wants flexibility. Internal research can help you offer work options that best suit your company’s and employees’ needs.

Salesforce, for example, conducted employee wellbeing surveys and learned that about 50% of its staff preferred going to the office only a few times per month, and 80% wanted to maintain a connection to a physical working space. The company used this information to offer three ways of working tailored to its workforce’s needs:

Office-based: For people in roles that require physical presence in the workplace
Fully remote: For employees living far from the company and in positions that don’t require an office
Hybrid: For employees who want to work partly remotely and partly in-office (and in roles that allow them to do so)

Promote Healthy Breaks During the Work Day

Periodic breaks throughout the day can be an excellent opportunity for people to refresh and re-energize after several hours of work. Encouraging them in the workplace can boost employee wellbeing and performance, according to Harvard Business Review. No breaks during a workday can increase employee stress levels and accelerate burnout.

Fight Hustle Culture by Supporting Employees’ Overall Wellness

A "rise and grind" mentality can motivate some people to work harder and aim to achieve more in their profession. Unfortunately, it often leads to people burning themselves out as they strive to climb the career ladder, increase their income, or get a sense of satisfaction from their jobs. This is bad for businesses because an exhausted workforce is less productive and fuels employee turnover.

One way to combat this toxic work culture is by offering holistic wellness programs, which encourage employees to find the right balance between their personal lives and professional responsibilities. The programs can also help you attract and retain top talent. Keep in mind that when 96% of workers hunt for a new job, they only consider prospective employers who prioritize overall employee wellness.

Speak with a Wellhub Wellbeing Specialist to see how you can offer a wellbeing program that promotes a healthy work environment!

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[*] Based on proprietary research comparing healthcare costs of active Wellhub users to non-users.