DYING FOR A PAYCHECK

You don’t have to do a dangerous job 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. 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.