It is interesting when I hear companies say, “We work hard.”
What does that mean?
Are they trying to tell you that people go home at the end of the day tired from accomplishing hard things, but fulfilled? Or are they telling you that they don’t treat their employees well?
“We work hard” can mean a lot of very different things.
Here are some examples:
- Long hours: 50–70 hour weeks, evenings, weekends, always available.
- High intensity: Normal hours, but you’re expected to be highly focused and productive while working.
- High output: Nobody cares much about hours; you’re judged by how much you accomplish.
- High ownership: You take responsibility for problems rather than saying, “That’s not my job.”
- High standards: Work is expected to be accurate, polished, and thoroughly thought through.
- High ambition: People aggressively pursue difficult goals and expect continual improvement.
- Persistence: You keep working a difficult problem when the obvious approaches don’t work.
- Responsiveness: People answer quickly and are expected to jump on urgent issues.
- Sacrifice: Work sometimes takes priority over personal plans, vacations, evenings, etc.
- Physical effort: In manufacturing, construction, agriculture, etc., it can literally mean strenuous work.
- Emotional commitment: People genuinely care about the mission and put substantial personal energy into it.
- Competitive culture: Employees compare themselves with high-performing peers and push one another.
- Solving hard problems: You push your mental problem-solving abilities to their limits.
- Toxic culture: Hopefully no one has to deal with this one.
These aren’t the same thing.
When you say your company works hard, what kind of hard do you mean?