Poles work more hours than Europeans. We still haven't learned how to maintain work-life balance

Poland is among the European leaders in the number of hours worked. Only the Greeks are ahead of us. An analysis prepared by Preply based on Eurostat data shows that Poles work an average of 40.5 hours a week. This is 3 hours more than the average in the European Union and as much as 6 hours more than the average in the world.

– These are people with higher education who develop professionally, run businesses and work absolutely longer than the standard 8 hours a day, often between 10-11 hours. The second such professional group are production workers, manual workers in many industries, who also work over 8 hours and here the main motivator is money – points out Anna Sudolska from Idea HR Group.

For comparison, at the other end of the ranking are the Dutch, who work 7 hours less than Poles. Next are the Germans with 35 hours per week

Poland has been ranking last in European research for years when it comes to maintaining work-life balance. – We are a developing country. As citizens, as a society, we are constantly trying to make money, so we take up additional work, additional employment, but this affects our social and family life. Research shows that the number of people who feel professionally burnt out and are depressed is increasing every year – points out Dr. Tomasz Kopyściański, an economist at WSB Merito University in Wrocław.

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Poles are just learning how to take care of their mental health. High inflation and wage increases that cannot keep up with it certainly do not make it easier to maintain balance.

– Work always influences life, and life influences work. You have to combine it, but there is no such balance that you can cut yourself off – says one of the women. – There is a lot of talk about work-life balance, but little is actually done in this direction. This 5-day (work system – editor's note) and 2 days of rest is a bit short if you want to be with your family, have passions and balance work and personal life – adds another woman.

According to various studies, 23 to 35 percent of working Poles suffer from burnout. As psychologists emphasize, we are a nation with great aspirations, we want to earn more and more, we want to buy an apartment, buy a car, eat well, and all this costs a lot.

– We have a culture of “I can do it”, a certain dramatic increase in responsibilities in order to earn as much as possible, to have a lot and security – emphasizes Dr. Hab. Tomasz Grzyb, psychologist from SWPS University in Wrocław.

Therefore, we have no problem with overtime or additional jobs. The only question is: at what cost. – Of course, we can work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for some time. The only problem is that this time is a loan that we take out on our own body. A loan is something that has to be repaid, sometimes with very high interest – points out Grzyb.

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Experts also draw attention to other studies that show employee productivity and here we do not fare well.

– We are more engaged in professional work in terms of the number of hours spent in the company. However, this does not go hand in hand with efficiency. Compared to the European Union, our productivity is really poor, so we constantly have to work on work organization that will allow us to work a little shorter hours in the future, says Sudolska. – The fact that we took enormous overtime at work will be little visible from the perspective of the managers who manage us, but very visible from the perspective of the children we neglected – reminds Grzyb.