Loving and doing your job well is a good thing. Some employees are more hardworking than others, but beware, some of them can unfortunately be workaholics  : they suffer from work addiction .

Workaholism or work addiction: symptoms, consequences, advice

Are you workaholic? A few avenues to find out

People who work hard are often admired, but some of them may suffer from Workaholism. It is about a pathological relation of a person to his work . How do you know if you are one of those dependent employees at work?

A heavy worker takes all the necessary steps to get his job done. He can work for long hours, during a one-off, intensive period. Objectives and deadlines are clearly defined. He knows how to easily drop out when his job is finished, and takes time to be with those close to him.

A workaholic :

• devotes the majority of his time to his work
• spends more time at work than expected
• works to forget feelings of guilt or depressive thoughts
• stress if something prevents him from working
• sacrifice free time to work more
• sacrifices sleep and diet
• puts family and friends in the background
• struggles to accept failure, weaknesses and criticism
• is depressed and anxious if he does not have a job or a very high goal
• has an unbalanced life
• may have insomnia or high blood pressure
• has a great need for control
• is often advised to work less

If you answer yes to at least three of the following questions , then you are certainly affected by Workaholism:

• Do you have more enthusiasm for professional, family or other activities?
• Do you work at home in the evening? Week ends ? During the holidays?
• Is the activity you enjoy the most and talk about the most your job?
• Don’t your family and friends even imagine seeing you arriving on time?
• Do you regularly work overtime because you fear your work will not be finished otherwise?
• Do you work more than 40 hours per week?
• Are you annoyed when someone asks you to stop working and do something else?
• Do you think about your job when you are behind the wheel, before you fall asleep, or when someone is talking to you?
• Do you think it’s okay to work long hours, as long as you like what you do?
• Can you lose patience with people who have other, extra-professional priorities?
• Are you afraid of losing your job, or coming off as a loser, if you don’t work hard enough?

Consequences of Workaholism

When you are a workaholic, it is difficult to change your behavior, even if the consequences of this addiction are negative for health, family life, social relations, and even the business.

A dependent employee at work suffers from chronic stress, which can lead to major physical and mental health problems (migraines, high blood pressure increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, indigestion, ulcers, muscle pain, chronic fatigue, etc.). Since the immune system is affected, the employee is more likely to have other illnesses.

On an emotional level, a workaholic may be irritable, impulsive, sad, listless, angry, hypersensitive, desperate and feel insecure. He can easily be in a burnout situation .

A workaholic puts his social life aside. Friends feel left out. Family members feel neglected, ignored or sometimes used. In this situation, there are more divorces. Children develop obsessive and perfectionistic behaviors, and most likely can develop the same addiction in the future. All relatives suffer from this disease.

For the company, an employee or a workaholic boss is not always a good thing: strict, not very collaborative, lack or absence of confidence, little team spirit, employee exhaustion, easy criticism, difficulties to thank, errors of judgment …

In addition, a dependent person at work may try to reduce their suffering by taking medication, drugs, or alcohol abuse.

Some tips to stop being workaholic

Once the person is aware of their work addiction, here are some tips that can be given:

• • Respect your sleeping hours
  • Exercise for at least 30 minutes a day
  • Consult a professional (psychologist or psychotherapist)
  • Eat on a regular and balanced basis (no longer skipping meals or choosing fast food as an easy way)
  • Plan your work and set clear goals, to have a working time limit during the day
  • Avoid talking about your work all the time
  • Devote at least one day a week to loved ones
  • Take an interest in what others are doing
  • Be more motivated by work than results
  • Think about the right to disconnect
  • Separate professional and family life as much as possible to avoid a blurring situation
  • Ask relatives and colleagues how they feel about your behavior
  • Avoid checking your emails and notifications all the time
  • Recognize a real emergency (everything is not urgent, everything does not have to be done in a minute)

• Take time for yourself by doing an activity (walking, reading, playing, cooking, etc.)

The employer must respect certain obligations concerning sanitary facilities (number of toilets, sinks, accessibility for people with disabilities, etc.). That they are fitted out in accordance with the law is a good thing, but they must still be kept clean to contribute to the well-being of the employees.

The toilet at work can be a nightmare: Why? How can the situation be improved?

Clean toilets for well-being

The condition of the toilets is an important criterion for the well-being of employees at work. Indeed, for 59% of working people, better sanitary hygiene would improve their well-being.

A third of them in France are not satisfied with their cleanliness. According to a survey carried out by Interview-NSS (a subsidiary of Ipsos), 25% of people do not prefer to go to the bathroom because of their dirtiness. This can give the impression that the company is not interested in working conditions.

Toilets at work: embarrassment and disgust

In 2013, a serious study published by Rentokil Initial and the Center for Economics and Business Resarch indicates that the lack of hygiene at work would have cost 14.5 billion euros to the French economy. 10 billion would relate to the time spent by employees cleaning or looking for clean toilets.

According to a Rentokil Initial study , 54% of employees refrain from going to the toilet and ¼ of those questioned say they have already been rather shocked by their condition.

It is a place often synonymous with embarrassment but also with disgust. Have you ever gone into the toilet only to come out immediately after seeing their condition? This same study identified a few facts:

• 48% of employees noticed an overflowing sanitary bin
• 43% of employees have already found urine outside the urinals / toilets
• 20% of employees found fecal matter
• 12% of employees found blood

In addition, according to an Opinion Matters study, 48.7% of employees do not always wash their hands after using the office bathroom. Think of all these easily transmitted microbes (printer, pens, keyboard, door handles, cups…) on a daily basis.

Other situations encountered : used tampons, bristles, lack of toilet paper, speckled bowls, foul odor, lack of hand towels, etc.

Rules to follow and advice

We shouldn’t have to remember certain rules: they are part of education. Many people can confirm that they are not automatic for everyone:

• Flushing the toilet (leaving without flushing it is the worst habit for 72% of respondents during the Rentokil Initial study)
• Leave the toilet clean (no need to add more bacteria)
• Use the toilet brush if necessary
• Deodorize in case of bad smell
• Wash one’s hands
• Fold down the bezel
• Put back paper if there is no more
• Throw away the empty paper roll
• Do not leave a single, useless sheet of paper
• Add hand soap if it is not available

If you don’t know how to approach the subject, you can first put up some words, posters on the WC doors to remind you of these basic rules. If despite this, the state of the toilets remains catastrophic, a verbal update with all the employees will surely be necessary.