Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance―and What We Can Do About It

by Jeffrey Pfeffer

In this timely, provocative book, a Stanford business professor contends that many modern management practices are toxic to employees—hurting engagement, increasing turnover, and destroying their physical and emotional health—and to company performance, as he offers ways to build human sustainability at work.

You don’t have to do a dangerous job—in coal mine or on a construction site, commercial fishing boat, or an oil rig—to endure a health-destroying, possibly life-threatening, workplace. Just ask the manager in a senior finance role whose immense workload, once handled by several employees, required frequent all-nighters—leading to alcohol and drug addiction. Or the dedicated news media producer whose commitment to getting the story resulted in a sixty-pound weight gain thanks to having no down time to eat properly or exercise. Or the marketing professional prescribed antidepressants a week after joining her employer.

These individuals are not exceptions—they are too often the norm. Every industry is filled with similar horror stories, and the costs, to both employees and their companies, is enormous—and worsening. In Dying for a Paycheck, Jeffrey Pfeffer exposes the infuriating truth about modern work life: even as organizations allow management practices that literally sicken and sometimes kill their employees, those policies do not enhance productivity or the bottom line. Instead, they diminish employee engagement, increase turnover, reduce job performance—and drive up health costs.

Exploring a range of important topics, including layoffs, health insurance, work-family conflict, autonomy, and why people remain in toxic environments, Pfeffer offers guidance and practical solutions all of us—employees, employers, and the government—can use to enhance workplace wellbeing. We must wake up to the dangers and costs of today’s workplace, Pfeffer argues. Dying for a Paycheck is a clarion call for a social movement focused on human sustainability. Pfeffer makes clear that the environment we work in is just as important as the one we live in, and with this urgent book, he opens our eyes and shows how we can make our workplaces healthier and better.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Leadership, Economics, Politics, Health, Buisness

272 pages, Hardcover

Published March 20, 2018

About the author

Jeffrey Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University where he has taught since 1979. He is the author or co-author of thirteen books including The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First; Managing with Power; The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action; Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People; Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management; and What Were They Thinking? Unconventional Wisdom About Management, as well as more than 150 articles and book chapters. Pfeffer’s latest book, entitled Power: Why Some People Have It—And Others Don’t was published in 2010 by Harper Business.

Dr. Pfeffer received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Carnegie-Mellon University and his Ph.D. from Stanford. He began his career at the business school at the University of Illinois and then taught at the University of California, Berkeley. Pfeffer has been a visiting professor at the Harvard Business School, Singapore Management University, London Business School, Copenhagen Business School, and for the past 8 years a visitor at IESE in Barcelona.

From 2003-2007, Pfeffer wrote a monthly column, “The Human Factor,” for the 600,000-person circulation business magazine, Business 2.0 and from 2007-2010, he wrote a monthly column providing career advice for Capital, a leading business and economics magazine in Turkey. Pfeffer also was a regular blogger for the Corner Office section of BNET (CBS Interactive), and currently writes for the Harvard Business Review website, Bloomberg Business Week online, Inc., and for the “On Leadership” section of The Washington Post. Pfeffer has appeared in segments on CBS Sunday Morning, 60 Minutes, and CNBC as well as television and radio programs in Korea and Japan and has been quoted and featured in news articles from countries around the globe.

Pfeffer currently serves on the board of directors of the nonprofit Quantum Leap Healthcare. In the past he has served on the boards of Resumix, Unicru, and Workstream, all human capital software companies, Audible Magic, an internet company, SonoSite, a company designing and manufacturing portable ultrasound machines, and the San Francisco Playhouse, a non-profit theater. Pfeffer has presented seminars in 38 countries throughout the world as well as doing consulting and providing executive education for numerous companies, associations, and universities in the United States.

Jeffrey Pfeffer has won the Richard I. Irwin Award presented by the Academy of Management for scholarly contributions to management and numerous awards for his articles and books. He is listed in the top 25 management thinkers by Thinkers 50, and as one of the Most Influential HR International Thinkers by HR Magazine. In November, 2011, he was presented with an honorary doctorate degree from Tilburg University in The Netherlands.

Reviews

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really good thoughts and research but a dry and dense read. Too many numbers data hidden in paragraphs. I think I would have liked it more if it was bulleted out and written like more of a business white paper instead of a thesis. But interesting none the less.

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

You will have to take this rating with a grain of salt. I am not really sure exactly how to rate this book but hopefully I can describe why.

The information in this book is so, so important and really blew my mind when I started learning of the research into healthy workplaces, job control, and workplace stress during my MSc courses last year. It made everything that ever frustrated me about work neatly fall into place. This book summarized pretty much everything I knew or suspected and a bit more. The information overall is great, but the writing is DRY. Some of the chapters were easier to read than others - the good ones were bearable but the weaker ones were a massive slog to get through, which is really unfortunate, because a book that's hard to read isn't going to be read by the people who need to read it.

Surprise surprise, my common complaint about nonfiction - this book wasn't as tightly edited as I'd have liked. It was supposed to be accessible to lay readers but I felt one really needed at least an introductory background in epidemiological study design to truly understand a lot of the studies being described. I didn't like the way the in-text citations were done either - e.g. "a study showed, another study showed". Tell me where it was done and a few more details so I have a better idea of whether the study is legit or just a WebMD survey! It is a little too basic for academic reading and a little too academic for lay people I think, so this isn't going to help get the (very important) message out. Also sometimes the info felt repetitive, as if he didn't remember he'd already talked about something in a previous chapter, or didn't make the link between one chapter and another when he should have. It just wasn't as cohesive as I wanted it to be, and didn't come to a satisfying conclusion. I know this is a super complicated and complex area to delve into, but there could have been a better way to wrap up and tie everything together.

Every so often a bit of personality and humour would pop in unexpectedly - I wish there had been more of this because even though the book is on a heavy topic, it could have been written in a way that was more engaging to read.

That all said - I probably will buy this book at some point. The information is too good not to have on hand for a human factors nerd like me. I wanted to mark it up and highlight sections and fold down the pages.

If you don't mind a bit of a slog, I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who has ever wondered why they feel like they hate their job even though they like the work they do, or if you have a real passion for learning about healthy workplaces. But if you just have a passing interest in this area, sadly I wouldn't recommend it.

[Nurete · Rating 2 out of 5]

A whole book on toxic work environments and why stress in the workplace reduces productivity and causes health-related issues and not a single mention of how the macro-economic system, - i.e. capitalism - rewards employers who create these toxic work environments. His solution: "All that companies need to do... is to understand what I have presented in this book - details about the work environment that cause the most harm - and then work to change them..."

Yes, Mr. Pfeffer, companies just need to be kinder and gentler in an economic system that rewards cruelty. Sure, let's tinker with the edges rather than face the fact that the entire system needs to (and is going to) topple. Radical centrism at its finest.

But one thing that this book does drive home is how traumatic the workplace is for so many people. They are so traumatized they cannot even dream about an alternative. It's a form of collective mind control.

[G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished Dying for a Paycheck a few days ago but I haven't stopped thinking about it. It's one of those books that stays with you, and makes you see things in a different light. Yes, as other reviewers note, it's written academically, with a lot of figures and analysis within the text. But it's so striking how much external stress affects our health, and how much of that stress is inflicted on us for arbitrary reasons. So many things could be done differently, from the way that healthcare is linked to our employment and minimally available to some of us, to unnecessary layoffs and stressful working conditions created by bad leadership.

The book also had me thinking about all of the non-work related external stress that's on so many of us lately, and the effect that this must have on our health.

The other thing it has me thinking about is how individual managers can make a difference, even when constrained on some of the factors (like long work hours or shift work when necessary, but perhaps compensating for it by giving people greater freedom with how to arrange their workday or being sure to link rewards and punishment more predictably to performace).

All in all, it's a useful book, although a few of the examples of "good companies" are overused (Patagonia, Patagonia, Patagonia...) and made me wonder whether the reality fits the rosy picture.

[Theodore Kinni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most depressing business book ever...and a must read. My review for strategy+business is here: https://www.strategy-business.com/art...

[Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The good news is the author didn’t overwork himself in writing this book.

This is the second title I’ve read by Pfeffer, the other being Leadership BS. In both cases his overall thesis was intriguing and then the book itself was a disappointment. While he has some good points and was onto something here, it just fell flat.

My main issues are below:

1. His research is ridiculous. It has the veneer of being scientific because it controls for a few factors, but it also conveniently ignores all kinds of things that factor into health outcomes and tries to pin a causal linkage on whatever preconceived point he’s trying to defend.

2. He gets totally taken for a ride by the small number of people he interviews. There are disgruntled people at any large company, but I don’t see why he felt justified in going after Salesforce for example, who has a generally high reputation on lots of employer websites, just because he interviewed one executive that had a bad experience. He also praised some companies here that I cringed at his description of them as paragons of work life balance virtue. He basically just seems to have taken what one person told him about a given company and felt comfortable stating those anecdotes as incontrovertible facts.

3. His recommendations are not deeply thought out. Obviously the elephant in the room problem here is capitalism as a system, but he chooses to dance around that for the entire book and never grapple with it in any serious way. Instead his recommendations are very pie in the sky modifications, like having companies pay more for healthcare issues they put into society. He doesn’t seem to recognize the dangerous behaviors that that policy could incentivize for employers, around hiring people they perceive to be free of physical or mental health issues. Nor does he really propose any concrete criteria on how that would be possible besides like a one question survey.

Who knows maybe in a few years I’ll forget how I don’t like this author and hear about another book he wrote that sounds interesting.

[Ian Hamilton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dying for a Paycheck is largely dry and redundant. The first half to two-thirds of the book consists of Pfeffer regurgitating quantitative data on job-related fatalities, injuries, lost productivity, etc. He exhaustively cites the same data points over and over again and belabors the obvious. He also repeatedly only references a handful of companies throughout the book, those that are both injurious and those that are more forward thinking in terms of employee support. The one saving grace is the penultimate chapter describing the reasons why many people fail to leave toxic workplaces. Otherwise, this one is pretty disappointing.

[Christine Heron · Rating 3 out of 5]

I skimmed this book looking for some hard data to use in my argument for streamlining work hours. There’s an entire section devoted to “long and irregular” work hours harm health.” Quite honestly, the book supports almost every reason I have for streamlining hours of operations in a public library.

[Vovka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strong book. Wasted a bit of time showing all of its work (in a very academic way). I got impatient with it -- I was like, "I get it, layoffs are very unhealthy. Layoffs kill people. Get on with the rest of your point!" on a few occasions. But overall, I think the thoroughness is necessary, because the book is suggesting that we rethink the culture and policies that surround how corporations relate to labor. Also, the examples given in the book were shallow and common; I wish there could have been deeper case studies on companies that do this well and right, and not just the usual suspects.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting although at times a dry read because it is written almost like a scientific paper. At the same time, it is these scientific references that make up a staggering stack of evidence about how work affects health and what companies can do to alleviate its impact. I was very surprised with some information gained from research and feel like I now understand better how to manage work.

[Benjamin Spurlock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit that I give a biased review and score for this book, because it sparked inspiration for me. I had mused about a concept I had been calling 'stress pollution,' the idea that stress causes harm similar to environmental pollution, and like it, harms the systems which are 'downstream' of it.

Then I listen to this book, and I hear the term 'social pollution,' which is very similar. It opened up an entire world of research for me to do, and sparked the realization that far from being alone in my thought, it is both well-known and a subject of research. And, too, Jeffrey Pfeffer raises concerns about the workplace and our current employment practices which resonate with me and the research I'm doing.

For anyone interested in the issues of the modern workplace, this book is fantastic. For me, it was the light suddenly being flicked on.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, but slightly depressing book about where businesses will go on their race to the bottom.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

depressing to read the reality.

[Meghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super interesting but soooo many facts and figures and anecdotes that it was hard to process in a casual read sort of way.

[Chaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting premise and well researched... But it's dull and dry reading... Like a textbook. Just not my thing.

[M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and timely study.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was working for MGM in the early 2000s, the management treated the employees so poorly. I saw how the toxic environment actually ran a fellow coworker to her death. She received so little sleep and was under so much stress that she got into a car accident that killed her on the way home.

This book highlights how certain workplaces are as harmful as secondhand smoke. There is a strong link between the amount of stress and a person's decline in physical and mental health.

Businesses must be mindful also of how they layoff people. It's not that they shouldn't let people go when it makes sense. They should offer support to those who are let go.

With the U.S. workforce becoming 50% freelance, the security and safety net of having health insurance won't be available to many.

Solutions include:
- Get rid of forced ranking (grading performance reviews)
- Provide support to employees having difficulties (and offer to ALL employees)
- Create a positive work culture

The author discusses why people stay in toxic environments. One of the reasons is because "the toxic becomes the norm". It never is or should be.

[Nick Dutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a great job of discussing economic realities of our current job market. It discusses how the excessive stress of jobs leads to health problems, both physical and mental. How the poor pay that people receive contributes to stress in and out of the workplace. How tying health insurance to jobs hurts the economy by keeping people in jobs they don't care about, reducing productivity. How single payer insurance as well as the concept of finding a way for private industry to internalize the cost of poor employee treatment could drastically help reduce deaths in the country.

If you've ever thought that things need to change or are interested in how we could do things differently to give people their humanity back, this is a book you should read!

[TΞΞL❍CK Mith!lesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, the author highlights the management practices that are generally accepted but very harmful for the employees, and in turn reduces their output and affects the company as a whole. He speaks on practices managers should adopt instead to create a healthy working environment for everyone.

[Yor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro bien elaborado, reciente, y muy bien argumentado, crítico y alarmante sobre las condiciones de trabajo, en su investigación y recopilación de datos el Prof. Jeffrey Pfeffer incentiva por promover mejores condiciones laborales, alerta sobre la tendencia de la economía gig, y así también muestra una llamada de atención y alerta sobre las condiciones de trabajo y la gran diferencia que suele ocurrir en las empresas que brindan mejores beneficios, y promueven el cuidado integral de sus empleados en el ámbito laboral, una compañía que cuide de sus colaboradores se verá recompensada con una mayor productividad e incremento de innovación, creatividad que las convierten en líderes del segmento, al igual existen muchas dificultades y la precarización del trabajo está en diversas industrias la importancia de programas y beneficios de salud, trabajo balanceado muestra que son los caminos correctos para una compañía trascienda la barrera de los años, crisis y la competencia empresarial.

Muchas frases y segmentos de libro son marcantes, basado en investigaciones y estadísticas recientes es muy agradable encontrar los resultados contrastantes y así mismo tomar conciencia sobre los daños de la sobrecarga de trabajo en la salud y en las mismas industrias, así como los competidos más aguerridos pueden cambiar incorporando programas de autocuidado para sus empleados. Sin embargo, inclusive con todos estos programas se puede observar que el ser humano busca en el trabajo es reconocimiento y seguridad, para su familia y su ego, así que si quieres encontrar temas insights sobre el mercado laboral, retención de empleados, y el lado oscuro de las estadísticas de la sobrecarga laboral y el contraste sobre los beneficios y mejores prácticas, en este libro podrás encontrar algunas respuestas, y perspectivas interesantes.

Comparto algunas frases interesantes que quisiera recordar:

THE HEADLINES—AND THE DATA—TELL the tale. An Uber software engineer making $170,000 a year, Joseph Thomas, committed suicide in August 2016, by shooting himself. His father and his wife blamed workplace stress. “He worked long hours . . . he felt immense pressure and stress at work, and was scared he’d lose his job. . . . He became someone with very little confidence in himself. . . . He was saying he couldn’t do anything right.” 1 Mr. Thomas was not an isolated case, with Uber employees attributing “panic attacks, substance abuse, depression, and hospitalizations to the stress of the job.”

------
The Gig Economy and Workplace Stress
“The evidence suggests that the adverse effects of work environments on people’s health may be getting worse. One reason is the changing nature of work and specifically the rising prevalence of precarious employment—the contract and freelance work of the so-called gig economy. Some forecasts predict that by 2020, “40 percent of the US workforce will be so-called contingent workers.” 21 In 2015, the Freelancers Union noted that one-third of working Americans had engaged in some freelance work during the past year.”


“People working on short-term contracts confront more economic uncertainty and insecurity, and they seldom receive paid time off or other benefits, including training. While many people who perform “gigs” are doing it to supplement their income, data suggest that sharing economy workers don’t make very much money. A chart in Fortune reported that the average monthly income was $229 for people working for DoorDash, $364 for Uber drivers, $377 for Lyft, and $380 for TaskRabbit. People working for Fiverr made on average just $103 in a month and $98 for Getaround.”

[Craig Becker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a traditional book outlining the many problems that exist. He documents how we work too much at the expense of our health. He also highlights that organizations don't do enough to help us improve our well-being. He also shows that when organizations help their employee's improve their well-being, it has a positive effect on that organization. Benefits to the organization come from retention, recruitment, satisfaction quality, customer service, quality of life and also profits. He does a good job of tying in existing theory to document why things are not working as they should and suggests companies don't do what is necessary because of what Sutton calls the Knowing-Doing Gap

I liked his comparison of the beneficial societal effort we took to eliminate water and air pollutants so we all benefits and suggests the same should be done for the social polluters. . He also explains that not offering health insurance at companies externalizes or causes society to pay those costs rather than the company. This of course is a great justification for a government run health program just as governmental policy helped clean our environment.

Like most books, it is long about the problems but short on the solutions. He often explains that organizations that do facilitate more autonomy and physical activity don't have the problems he is citing. To me that means we should be studying and learning from organizations that do it well and incorporate those ideas. He suggests we do 5 things.
1. Measure well-being because what gets measured gets attention.
2. Celebrate and award workplaces that help employees thrive. I strongly agree with highlighting those that are doing well, he however also wants to name and shame and use social pressure to get organizations to do what they should.
3. Share the costs of externalizes ill health - again this suggests national health care like all industrialized nations.
4. Recognize the false tradeoff between employee health and productivity. I agree, however he does not explain how we can effectively show the benefits outweigh the costs.
5. Insist leaders and public policy prioritize humans sustainability. Again, he is not clear on how to make this happen. This, however, is a good reminder as we all vote now, especially during a pandemic.

Overall it was a good book and I learned some interesting perspectives. I do wish there was a stronger focus on what worked, why and how we can make those successes more pervasive.

[Zora · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was written by an academic for an academic audience. The author repeatedly stated that workplace makes individuals safe through management practices, lack of variety in health insurance plans, and other benefits that support workplace longevity, productivity, and efficiency. He hammers the point about stress from the workplace as the cause of poor health outcomes. His analysis covers the impact of social relationships (i.e., friends, family, neighbors, etc. ) on stressors from the work.
In an attempt to discuss the impact of workplace on stress on individuals of different racial, ethnic, income, employment, and education backgrounds his research results simply states differences of 10% among these factors.

I gave this book two stars because it's written for an academic audience and not the general population. If it was written better it may have gotten more than two stars. A writing style for the general population goes a long way to share his research on workplace stressors impact on health, businesses, and the economy. His writing is very redundant and use of research isn't well interpersed throughout the book, which can be a monotonous read at times. Additionally, as a public health professional most of the background context for health impacts I was familiar with.

Be warned that this is written for an academic audience and not for the general audience.

[Sebastian N · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was filled with compelling research for the long term benefits in investing in long term well-being and health for the employees, which evidently also leads to much higher financial rewards. Despite this, many individuals and companies are still driven by short term interests, sacrificing the well-being of others for a pile of cash in this now, instead of a larger pile of cash in the future without any human sacrifices (generally speaking). This of course tells a lot about the underlying epidemic created by human constructs, more often than not seeking individual gain, in combination with our limited individual minds the human race is suffering from.
The author also draws parallels to a lot of human biases as well: the endowment effect, confirmation bias, loss aversion, cognitive dissonance, etc… the connection to a subtle behavioural psychology is there throughout the book. The author also tackles many core issues head on, which aren’t working for humans in the financial system without directly criticising the system in itself. I however doubt that it would be enough to “only” implement these changes advocated by the author, to actually make a large enough difference to the whole, including most human workers and a sustainable balance with our environment.
That said, the book is really good and delivers according to its title!

These kind of books and subjects should be mandatory in all Business schools.

[Burt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jeffrey Pfeffer has written some great books. Sadly, Dying for a Paycheck isn’t one of them. As many other reviewers have noted, it’s a dry (i.e., boring) discussion of the stresses and strains facing the contemporary worker. The subject is good, but Pfeffer does not present the material in an engaging way.

One reason the book is so flat is that Pfeffer bogs the story down with reams of mind-numbing statistics. He would have done better with more anecdotes - that is, replacing some of the numbers with workers’ stories. Another issue is that Pfeffer has no meaningful suggestions regarding how to change things. In effect, he wants to pressure organizations into doing better.

I don’t want to be too negative - the content of the book isn’t bad. Much of what Pfeffer writes is well backed by academic research. But reading the book is too much like eating your vegetables - you benefit from it, but you don’t want to do it.

Though Dying for a Paycheck has only about 210 pages of text, it took me almost a month to finish it. (I kept detouring to read other, more-interesting books). If you want to read some excellent Pfeffer, please try his books on corporate power (Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t and Managing with Power).

[Alexander Moriarty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does a great job of interpreting, for the layperson, the statistical causes of stress at work on healthcare costs, as well as laying out the case for why employers offset a lot of healthcare costs back onto their workers—or ultimately the healthcare system itself. It achieves that goal admirably, and in that sense is a success.

There are only a few pages of recommendations for individual workers seeking to cut systemic stress at work, however, and it ends on a pretty realistic note (namely that American corporations will generally value profit over all until it is totally untenable for them to do so), so it made for hard reading.

However it gave me a lot to think about in terms of non tangible career goals as I prepare for the next step of my career as a chronically ill person under late stage American capitalism.

I hope the high level managers and CEOs of major American companies read this book but I’m not holding my breath.

[Brad Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. At a time when people are leaving their professions for something else, people really do not seem to ask why. While the author gives his opinions on why people are in the work environment that they are in, it does give insights as to why leaders within companies react or act, the way they do when faced with adversity or issues beyond their control. Jefferey Pfeffer gives insights as to why people stay in companies and what leaders can do to change hostile or toxic environments even when issues are beyond their control. While policies and/or environments can be difficult to change. Pfeffer addresses samples and companies where people are focused more than profit which has helped bring about change. The book gives you tools on how to navigate leadership in a toxic place and as you read you will gain insight as to what to look for in leadership and companies to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I recommend reading this book.

[Kevin Rhodes · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is so much to this book that it’s hard to know what to say about it. If your business is business, or if you do business with business, and if you’re a worker now or ever have been, of if you know or have known someone who is … and if you care … then there’s something here for you. The book is brilliantly conceived, rich with anecdotal examples and scholarly research , and concisely and clearly written from the perspective of someone who is both level-headed and passionately committed to basic human wellbeing. Jeffrey Pfeffer is apparently an optimist and a believer in the possibility of making work more human friendly, and he injects his hope in a brighter day even as the book carries out its unrelenting indictment of both the employers who perpetuate unhealthy practices and the employees who put up with them.

[Richard Franco · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good but rather depressing book about the workplace. Much of what was written I was somewhat familiar with, but never read a comprehensive and stark detail of the costs and human toll of life that companies exact on their workers. Working in a high stress job that focuses on metrics to a fault, I can empathize with many of the descriptions in this book. I would recommend this book to all as I think that the only way these practices will ever change is if they are brought out into the light. Companies will not change on their own even if the long-term result will be a healthier workforce and higher profits, since it will not be an overnight realization of these gains. My only complaint with the book was that at times the arguments for change became a bit repetitive, other than that it was a good read, just not a happy one.

[Bruno Borges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tem o email do trabalho no telemóvel e tem o telemóvel sempre consigo? Apesar de não estar na descrição das funções do contrato de trabalho, esta é uma prática que se espera de um colaborador nos dias de hoje. A realidade é que a tecnologia aumentou o horário de trabalho para 24 horas diárias, o que aumenta o nível de stress e os causas de burnout, mas tem o efeito contrário na produtividade.

Baseado num trabalho empírico robusto, o livro revela os custos da má gestão de pessoas e da cultura de trabalho contemporânea para as próprias pessoas, para as empresas e para a sociedade, enquanto oferece pistas para abordar o problema. Não é um livro light, mas dá que pensar. E quem disse que a melhor literatura para o verão tem de ser light?

[Elijah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for all leaders and aspiring leaders. This book shows us that management decisions can have a significant impact to an employee's wellbeing. Faulty management practices like lay-offs, overworking their employees, and not paying the right compensation can not only cause major health problems but also cause death. I sincerely believe that if leaders/management know how much their decisions can impact someone's health, then they will make decisions that will not be beneficial only to the company but to the employees as well.