Working 100 hours a week doesn’t make you exceptional—it makes you expendable. The real advantage is system design, not heroic hours. The data around overwork culture show steep health risks, weaker per-hour productivity, and rising burnout that erodes engagement and creativity. Leaders who mistake stamina for value creation are betting against the evidence—and against their teams’ long-term output.

Key Takeaways

– Shows 55+ hour weeks raised global deaths to 745,000 in 2016, including 398,000 strokes and 347,000 heart disease fatalities. [1] – Reveals 55+ hour schedules increased U.S. cardiovascular mortality risk by 50% (HR 1.50; 95% CI 1.03–2.17) through 2021 tracking. [2] – Demonstrates productivity per hour does not rise with longer national averages; 2023 hours ranged above 2,000 versus below 1,500. [4] – Indicates 77% are asked for extra work weekly, yet only 11% negotiate boundaries, fueling burnout and disengagement in 2025. [5] – Suggests the touted 60-hour ‘sweet spot’ risks burnout, errors, and creativity loss, undermining sustained performance and retention. [3]

Overwork culture is a growing health and productivity risk

The clearest signal in the research is medical: long working hours are now a recognized occupational health hazard. The WHO and ILO estimate that working 55 hours or more per week caused 745,000 deaths in 2016—398,000 from stroke and 347,000 from ischemic heart disease—reflecting a trend that has worsened in recent decades. [1]

Risk is not linear. Compared with a 35–40 hour week, a schedule of 55+ hours raises stroke risk by 35% and ischemic heart disease risk by 17%, according to the WHO/ILO analysis. That makes overwork culture not just a management fad but a measurable public health threat with compounding consequences. [1]

U.S. cohort data reinforce the danger. A 2025 analysis of the MIDUS study (N=4,051), tracking deaths through Spring 2021, found that working 55+ hours was associated with a 50% higher cardiovascular mortality risk (adjusted HR 1.50; 95% CI 1.03–2.17). The excess risk was concentrated among lower-education and financially strained workers, underscoring the equity stakes of working-hour policies. [2]

Overwork culture meets the 60-hour ‘sweet spot’ myth

In March 2025, Sergey Brin reportedly told Google employees that “about 60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity.” Productivity scholars and coaches quickly pushed back, warning that such targets invite burnout, errors, and diminished creativity—precisely the attributes that make knowledge workers valuable. [3]

Research on attention and recovery suggests performance often deteriorates after optimal focus windows, and that sustainable weeklong throughput typically aligns in the 40–50 hour range, not 60+. Experts argue that the marginal hour is often lower quality, especially for cognitively demanding tasks, raising rework and defect rates that neutralize perceived gains. [3]

The lesson for executives is not to calibrate a magic number, but to examine output quality and error costs under fatigue. When a system pulls value from clarity, sequencing, and defect prevention, adding hours without redesigning work is a negative-return investment. [3]

Overwork culture versus output: cross-country signals

If long hours were reliably productive, the countries working the most would dominate productivity league tables. OECD comparisons show otherwise. In 2023, some economies exceeded 2,000 average annual hours per worker (e.g., Colombia, Mexico), while others were under 1,500 (Germany, Denmark, Norway), yet the OECD cautions longer hours do not reliably raise productivity per hour. [4]

What matters for competitiveness is value generated per hour, not hours alone. Structural differences—capital intensity, skills, management quality, and technology adoption—shape productivity far more than sheer time-on-task. The cross-country evidence is a sobering counterpoint to cultures that celebrate always-on availability as a proxy for performance. [4]

For leaders, the implication is statistical: to increase output at the firm level, invest in process design, tooling, and skills that lift value per hour, rather than stretching schedules. Overwork culture often masks bottlenecks and poor workflows that better systems can fix. [4]

Burnout is the productivity tax that makes you replaceable

Overextension doesn’t just harm health; it drains engagement. In 2025, 77% of employees reported being asked to take on extra work weekly, yet only 11% negotiated boundaries—conditions that accelerate burnout and weaken discretionary effort when companies most need it. [5]

Burnout’s downstream effects—checked-out teams, rising error rates, and slower learning—are why “just push harder” cultures can render even high performers interchangeable. That risk compounds when leadership valorizes 60-hour norms; experts warn such expectations erode creativity and judgment, the scarce assets that differentiate talent. [3]

The fix is systemic, not heroic. Forbes highlights approaches—process redesign, targeted use of AI to remove drudge work, and policies that manage load—that reduce hours while preserving performance. In downturns and restructuring cycles, these systems sustain engagement better than ad hoc asks for “just one more” sprint. [5]

What leaders should build instead: systems over sacrifice

Start by redesigning work so that the next hour is high value. Map workflows for handoff friction, automate repetitive tasks, and sequence deep work when energy is highest. AI augmentation and clear throughput metrics help lift per-hour output without inflating schedule length, aligning incentives to quality and cycle time instead of raw presence. [5]

Set constraints with teeth. If cardiovascular risk inflects at 55+ hours, leaders should treat that threshold as a hard guardrail and escalate work design issues when teams approach it. The MIDUS evidence calls for “working-hour interventions,” which can include staffing, reprioritization, and load-shedding mechanisms that activate before chronic overwork takes hold. [2]

Benchmark against productivity—not hours. OECD data show that economies with fewer hours can still achieve superior productivity per hour, a model firms can emulate by investing in training, tooling, and management systems that multiply the value of each unit of time. Hours are an input; productivity per hour is the outcome that pays. [4]

Equity stakes: who pays the price for overwork culture?

Health harms from long hours are not evenly distributed. The U.S. cohort study found elevated cardiovascular mortality risk concentrated among workers with lower education and financial strain, amplifying existing inequities when employers rely on overtime to compensate for poor staffing or processes. That makes hour caps a fairness issue as much as a performance lever. [2]

Globally, the WHO/ILO warn that long working hours are a rising occupational hazard, reflecting structural pressures that extend beyond individual choice. Treating overwork culture as a systemic risk—like safety or compliance—aligns response to the scale of the problem. Policies that measure and manage hours can save lives while stabilizing performance. [1]

Cross-country variation also shows that labor market structures matter. Economies with fewer hours per worker and strong productivity per hour demonstrate that smarter organization and technology can outcompete brute-force time expansion. For firms, this is a compelling prompt to invest in capability building rather than overtime. [4]

Overwork culture and the business case for change

The business case is simple: quality trumps quantity. When fatigue raises defect rates, the cost of rework, reputational damage, and churn can outweigh any throughput gains from longer schedules. Experts’ pushback on the 60-hour “sweet spot” is fundamentally about protecting the cognitive edge that produces innovation and reduces errors. [3]

It’s also about retention. Burnout drives exits and disengagement, which are expensive to replace. The 77%/11% mismatch in extra asks versus boundary-setting signals an organizational design failure, not a motivation problem. Closing that gap requires leaders to embed capacity planning, prioritization, and automated support into the operating system. [5]

Finally, it’s about risk management. The 35% higher stroke risk and 17% higher heart disease risk at 55+ hours should feature in board-level discussions about duty of care and sustainable performance. Integrating such thresholds into policy is a rational response to quantifiable harm. [1]

Practical steps to dismantle overwork culture

– Institute real hour caps with escalation: trigger staffing or scope changes when teams trend toward 50–55 hours over consecutive weeks, not after burnout. [2] – Redesign processes quarterly: use value-stream mapping to cut handoffs and queue times; measure defects per hour, not emails sent after midnight. [4] – Deploy AI for repetitive tasks: reclaim 5–10 hours per week from low-value work to fund deep focus on higher-leverage problems and customer outcomes. [5] – Communicate standards: reject 60-hour folklore; publish performance definitions that privilege quality, cycle time, and learning over raw time logged. [3] – Track health and engagement metrics: monitor PTO usage, after-hours activity, and pulse surveys; treat adverse trends like any other leading risk indicator. [5]

The bottom line

Sacrifice is not a strategy. The strongest predictor of sustainable output is a system that protects attention, enforces healthy limits, and multiplies the value of each hour. Overwork culture confuses effort with effectiveness, ignoring evidence that long hours raise mortality, depress per-hour productivity, and erode the very capabilities that make talent hard to replace. Building better systems is not just humane—it’s empirically superior. [1]

Sources:

[1] World Health Organization – Long working hours increasing deaths from heart disease and stroke: WHO, ILO: https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2021-long-working-hours-increasing-deaths-from-heart-disease-and-stroke-who-ilo

[2] PubMed / Journal (MIDUS cohort) – Long working hours and cardiovascular disease mortality: Prospective evidence from the United States: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39805547/ [3] Business Insider – Sergey Brin tells Google employees that 60 hours a week is the ‘sweet spot’ for productivity. Some beg to differ.: www.businessinsider.com/sergey-brin-googlers-about-60-hour-weeks-boost-productivity-risks-2025-3″ target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>https://www.businessinsider.com/sergey-brin-googlers-about-60-hour-weeks-boost-productivity-risks-2025-3

[4] OECD – OECD Compendium of Productivity Indicators 2025: Cross-country comparisons of labour productivity levels: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-compendium-of-productivity-indicators-2025_b024d9e1-en/full-report/cross-country-comparisons-of-labour-productivity-levels_b2fdb493.html [5] Forbes – Burnout Kills Productivity. Here’s How To Fight It And Stop Overwork From Hurting Employee Engagement: www.forbes.com/sites/lizelting/2025/02/12/burnout-kills-productivity-heres-how-to-fight-it-and-stop-overwork-from-hurting-employee-engagement/” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer”>https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizelting/2025/02/12/burnout-kills-productivity-heres-how-to-fight-it-and-stop-overwork-from-hurting-employee-engagement/

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