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Subscribe to RSSFor hourly employees, the calculations come almost instantly. How much did that 20-minute traffic jam cost me? What about the 15-minute wait at the coffee shop? When you’re used to being paid by the hour, it's all too easy to equate these time expenditures into dollars lost.
However, new research out of the University of Toronto has shown that such attitudes are detrimental to a person’s happiness. Making a direct correlation between time and money can make people impatient and hurt one’s ability to find joy in leisure activities.
“It prompts a mindset of maximizing the economic value of your time,” study author Sanford DeVoe wrote in an e-mail. “Consequently, when this goal is obstructed, you feel your time is being unprofitably wasted causing you to feel more impatient.”
According to DeVoe, thinking about time in terms of money can actually change an individual’s perception of time. Call it Einstein’s theory of relativity for the busy-headed. The study will be published in the next issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
In the three-part study, DeVoe and PhD student Julian House of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management prompted a sub-group of participants to think about time in terms of money through a series of survey questions. During the unpaid leisure activities during the first two trials, this group subsequently showed increased impatience and greater dissatisfaction. However, in the third trial, when each group was explicitly told it was being paid for a leisure activity (in this case, listening to music), the experimental group reported enjoying the music more than the control group.
The results appear to show a correlation between enjoyment of leisure time among those who think of time as money. This association can be positive, when it’s known that money is being earned.
“This is evidence that the time-money association can be positive if it is felt that the time is economic profitable,” Devoe wrote. “You can think of the analogue of a lawyer billing their time on a plane while watching a movie or an hourly paid assistant attending a concert on the clock—they are freed up to enjoy it knowing that this time is economically profitable.”
“By contrast, the same activities where they are off the clock might be less enjoyable if they are thinking about the economic value of their time,” Devoe added.
With the increase on hourly jobs over the past several decades, DeVoe believes it’s important to understand the effects these hourly jobs have on the psyches of the employees. In 2009, 72.6 million American workers age 16 and over were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.3 percent of all wage and salary workers, according to the United States’ Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The advice that comes out of these studies is that you want to be aware that putting a price on time can have these effects,” Devoe wrote. “It can help you make good decision about your time at work, but when you’re thinking about when you’re off the clock it’s going to get in the way of you being able to full enjoy your leisure time.”
Something to think about the next time you stare impatiently at your watch in traffic.
Do you live by the "time is money" maxim? Are there benefits to that idea, or does it only stress you out?
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Leave a Comment:
If you think that hourly stresses you out, try to be an on-call salaried employee.
Depends what the salary is.
Most of my working life I was paid on commission or based on production or net-profit of the Enterprise for which I worked. I didn't work on hourly wage much...although sometimes on monthly salary.
I always felt that "time is money" during my working hours....which often extended into the evenings......but when I was "off-work".....I never related my activities to "profit". That "off-work time" was mine to do with as a chose...OR, you might say...to "waste" as I pleased. I never felt a need to equate that time with money.
It's a simple difference.............and I think that is how MOST people view their activities.
THEREFORE....I think this article is "BUNK".
Boo-hoo for the hourly employee... who gets paid OT... I'm exempt... I am expected to be available 24x7... If I'm lucky, I put in a 50-60 hour week... Most weeks, it's 60+ hours... I don't get paid one extra cent... I don't get comp time... I am expected to miss family functions... And yes, I am looking for a better job... along with the my co-workers who also are getting screwed on a daily basis....
To Vinca: You are a person; NOT a machine. Your Life Counts as well as that B@$T@RD You Work For.
Working for an hourly wage is far more desirable than working for a salary. I've been in both situations and find getting paid for each hour I work makes me feel more valued. I've never been so miserable as when I've been salaried. Once they have you on salary, they own you. Nights, weekends, six or seven days a week, 10 to 15 hours a day. You give up your entire life to your employer.
Working for an hourly wage is far more desirable than working for a salary. I've been in both situations and find getting paid for each hour I work makes me feel more valued. I've never been so miserable as when I've been salaried. Once they have you on salary, they own you. Nights, weekends, six or seven days a week, 10 to 15 hours a day. You give up your entire life to your employer.
I went straight from hourly to salaried at the credit union, and it was a HUGE disappointment! Like others have said, once they have you on salary, they think they own you! The hourly employees got so many breaks that I never took advantage of when I was hourly because I don't necessarily think that way. I sure do now though. I was much more impatient about my time when I was salaried though. Now I'm extremely patient because I'm in grad school!
These researchers are out of touch and made a huge leap from their ridiculous experiment in a lab to a broad generalization about life and then another leap to hourly employees being more vulnerable. This "study" proves nothing except a research teams' disconnectedness and a gullible / inept media.
Commentors are right on the ball on this one. I'll point out one other fact I've noticed about salaried employees. They have a tendency to not calculate their pay into hourly rates until they've wasted at least a couple of years getting ripped off by their employer. You know what salary bracket is available and they neglect to increase their expectations as time goes by, while minimum wage has risen regularly. I know kids coming out of school who expect more than some women who've been employed for 10+ years at the same career. (I say women, because they probably are a larger percentage of salaried employees) Another trap salary employees fall into: is accepting the same or less money when changing employers. Keeps you stagnant. No-one stays in one place for long anymore.
That study is performed on the assumption that getting paid for the leisure activities causes the increased happiness to come from the leisure activities. But no, it didn't. People weren't enjoying the music more, they were enjoying it the same. They enjoyed the MONEY.
Such a study is impossible because the very money it's about taints the results.