A guest speaker at the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) of Bermuda's annual general meeting called on Government and employers to take the lead in helping employees to have a more balanced way of life.

Dr. Linda Duxbury, who is a professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, spoke to the EAP members on Friday at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, about the benefits of balancing 'work time' and 'living time'.

"A company's best asset is its employees," she said.

But company's are mishandling these assets.

Dr. Duxbury said many of the workdays taken off as "sick days" by employees are in fact "mental health days".

She said this often occurs because employees are "burning out".

The cost of the practice is estimated drain Canadian employers of between $6 and $10 billion per annum, she added.

"Employers could eliminate or lower the absenteeism rate if they reduced the high levels of role overload, and looked into the way work interferes with family," she said.

Dr. Duxbury said the era of downsizing has left many workplaces devoid of middle management while other employees have been forced to take on multiple roles to fill the gaps.

And this work overload has direct costs to a nation's health care system, she added.

There is a great need for employers to focus on work environment issues.

She said: "Physician visits due to high role overload (are estimated) to be approximately $1.8 billion per year; in-patient hospital stays due to high role overload were approximately $4 billion per year; and visits to the hospital emergency department due to high role overload to be approximately a quarter of a billion dollars per year."

Many companies are downsizing and getting rid of the middle management, without actually looking at the skill sets of employees, she added.

"Downsizing and restructuring has eliminated people, but not work load," said Dr. Duxbury.

Businesses need to rethink the role of the manager, she said, as well as the culture within the company, accountability and measurement and cultural change.

"Employees are living complex lives, work and family aren't separate any more and their issues bleed into one another," Dr. Duxbury said.

"For organisations to thrive, not just survive, in the new millennium, they need to make human resources and supporting employees a high priority.

"Success or promotion in the workplace is often determined by how many hours you stay in the office," she said.

"When managers are looking to promote they are looking at how many hours are dedicated to the company.

"The average office worker is working 50 hours plus a week and managers are working 60 hours a week, doing unpaid overtime - giving their companies an extra four days per month."

She blamed these long hours on the previous generation of workers - the Baby Boomers.

"This is as a direct result of the baby boomers, when there were so many qualified people, and not enough jobs," said Dr. Duxbury.

But today the balance has shifted.

"It is important to take time off for living," she said.

Past wisdom has dictated 'work hard and get promoted', today, she said: "Many employees are avoiding moving up the ladder because of the lack of time they can have actually living."

Younger people who watched their parents burn out do not want the same sort of working lifestyle, she suggested.

"Employees need to remember that their job is only one part of their day."

She called it the deathbed challenge: When you are about to die, would you say, 'Oh I wish that I had worked longer hours; or would you say, 'I wish I had spent more time living, enjoying my life and my family'."

Dr. Duxbury added that a company's employees should be a living advertisement for anyone wanting to be employed there, but said in many cases employees were so disillusioned with management, their jobs have simply become paycheques, rather than something to be enjoyed.

She said an unhappy worker was an unproductive worker.

"Because of the stress levels, employees are on Prozac, paying for counsellors and taking a range of prescription drugs," she added.

"Whatever happens at work echoes at home and vice versa."

The professor also blamed the low birth rate in developed nations on women and men working harder and longer hours and choosing either not to start a family or to begin it later.

"The average age of couples starting a family (in Canada) is 33 and according to recent studies and they are only having 1.3 children," said Dr. Duxbury.

"Women are saying, 'we can't have it all'.

"If they have to choose between work or family, many are choosing their careers."

Dr. Duxbury closed the session with a quote from Bill Gates chief executive officer of Microsoft.

Mr. Gates said: "Little of today's technology is proprietary. Technology is easily obtained and replicated and only levels the playing field.

"An organisation's valued human assets cannot be copied."