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Men are faking it! Maybe not in the bedroom, but in the boardrooms. According to a new study, some men are merely pretending to be workaholics. And get this, even though they are faking it on their workloads they still get the same amount of praise from management as the real workaholics.
Erin Reid, Ph.D., assistant professor of organization at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, conducted the study that focused on employees at an anonymous global strategy consulting firm well-known in the U.S. The company has a reputation of being very demanding of workers’ time, even when employees are out of the office. But according to Reid’s findings, many men only pretended to be working all the time even though they were actually enjoying leisure time.
Forty-two percent of the men interviewed for the survey did in reality have 60- to 80-hour work weeks. However, 31 percent of the men did only 50 to 60 hours weekly. They made their managers think they were actually working more. A third revealed to their managers they were working fewer hours than required.
Women, however, weren’t faking it in the office. The study found that only 11 percent of the women claimed they worked longer hours even though they did not. And 44 percent revealed to managers they were working fewer hours, reports Yahoo.
Men and women who did tell their superiors of their reduced schedules were most often punished with lower performance ratings or passed over for promotions.
The study suggests men are faking it because it is more normal for women to have to work fewer hours due to work-family conflicts. The company offered women more official accommodations for part-time work or less frequent travel (and women took them) while men had to scheme to make time for balancing work and family responsibilities.
“Both men and women have trouble” with work demands, Reid tells Business Insider. “But they have different options for coping.”
Again, this study only focused on one company, and Reid admits she can’t say for sure that the findings apply to others. But it is true that more men are opting to make career sacrifices for their family’s needs.
