Who owns the work?
Effort doesn't guarantee reward.
“You really have to just be willing to do anything, any hours, any pay, any type of job—just really remain open." - Kinjil Mathur, Squarespace CMO, with work advice for Gen Z.
“Working long hours, being responsive, blending work and life, is not anything to shy away from. There is not a lot of history of laziness being rewarded with success.” -Niraj Shah, CEO of Wayfair, in an interview.
That doesn't sound like hard work. That sounds like worker exploitation.
The people who extol the virtues of hard work are typically the people who benefit from hard work — and, in particular, the hard work of others. If Wayfair's employees work long hours, without additional pay, the CEO directly benefits from their unpaid labor.
Who owns the work?
Planet Money released a series of podcast episodes about the history of labor movements. Guest Rebecca Spang, from the University of Indiana Bloomington, said the classic way to think about history is as "a struggle between those who do the work and those who own the so-called means of production." Who gets the value of the work?
On July 3, 2024 (the day before a holiday in the U.S.), the founder of Tondo Fulfillment, posted on X/Twitter:
LinkedIn puts the company size somewhere between 11-50 employees.
I'd love to know the dynamics around an entire company opting to work on a holiday. If it was a paid holiday, the employees gave up a portion of their compensation to work. And unless every employee also has equity and could receive a payout someday if the company is successful, that additional work doesn't benefit them in any way.
Alice Boyes, PhD and former clinical psychologist, notes that a basic law of psychology is when behaviors are reinforced, they increase. She writes: "If a colleague emails you after-hours and you reply, you’re encouraging more work at night. The sender will ask for more — from you and everyone else." Overwork naturally leads to more overwork.
Hard work is fine as long as it comes with a reward or compensation to match. But we all know that's often not the case. Owners put themselves first, and employees last — as evidenced by mass layoffs amid record profits, or CEOs who continue to rake in millions of dollars in executive compensation while former employees struggle to find work.
The consistent narrative from people in power is: work hard, and you'll be rewarded. And they're somehow baffled that workers no longer believe it.
Working hard doesn't always win
"There's a group of people that's wildly under-represented on social media. People who reject work-life balance. I want to win." -VP of Marketing
"We've talked about letting go of any 'shame' around wanting to work and work hard. Embracing it." -Co-founder
Encouraging others to work hard ignores structural inequalities that prevent some people from "winning." Female founders receive less than 2% of all venture capital funding. Only 1.6% of Fortune 500 companies have a Black CEO — and that's a record high.
The carrot being dangled is an illusion. Most workers understand that. You can do all the hard work and still not win.
A friend of mine recently experienced this: the promise of a promotion. She spent months proving that she was worthy of the title bump and increased pay. Shortly after, she was laid off — and told that other employees kept their jobs instead of her because they were "more loyal." Working can't be linked to winning because workers have minimal control over their working conditions — including the rewards they may or may not receive.
Do some people work because they find it personally fulfilling? Sure. But most people have to understand that working hard is for someone else's benefit, not their own. And once that knowledge settles in, work feels degrading.
Working hard, without additional compensation or some other reward, is corporate volunteerism.
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