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The Pressure of Working Faster

Our Blog > The Pressure of Working Faster
Why faster is not necessarily better?

In the age when time equals money, efficiency has become a norm. Being rushed to meetings, to submit assignments, to respond to e-mails, to operate individually, but also to perform as part of a team, to be easily accessible at all times – it seems so easy to come to the edge of a burnout when we are continuously trying to meet someone’s expectations and being pushed to do better, and speed up. Whether it’s your own parents, friends or family, or at the end colleagues and supervisors – a person is exposed to everyday pressures of performing faster, but paradoxically working longer as well.

Higher risk of errors and work-related stress

Pressure of working faster, or extensive working hours brings higher risk of errors, work-related stress and possible disengagement on a personal level. More exposure to hazards can have a counter-effect in fact: employees could lose money over extensive use of sick-leaves and seek for injury-related compensations. All of the aforementioned could lead to ruining the face and reputation of the company. Working faster may also mean being less dedicated to excellence, less passionate and less personally involved. There is no time to bring assumptions to question, to test them, to work transdisciplinary and innovatively. Embracing that each one of us has our own rhythm of doing things, and integrating that awareness to our processes is crucial to maintain long-lasting relations within the company and strengthen capabilities of each.

Allocating support and resources equally

Therefore, support and resources should be allocated to each member contributing to the whole, each at their own speed. Creative work, for example, may require more time spent on trial and error methods, brainstorming, understanding the industry and expertise of various kinds. Underestimating other ones’ work without truly understanding it may result in actual results suffering. As music has tempo, each human in its working position has it as well. Trying to push it in order to increase productivity may, in reality, result in the opposite. 

Environmental health and safety

Constant rush and paranoid multitasking could prevent us from celebrating the so-far achievements, eliminate our power to be critical towards them and make us abandon passionate discussions among colleagues. It may make us blind to the damage we are doing to the planet, or one to another. All those considerations are part of the environmental health and safety specialist job. Building a new paradigm instead, by exploring how personal well-being contributes to the whole, and how integrating individual abilities performing at their own speed, could eventually and long-lastingly establish balance between the constant seek for profit, and our common welfare – both physical and mental. We all need an occasional luxury of embracing a turtle within us, for our mutual benefit.