(Your Long Hours Are Probably Fine)

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

We tend to blame stress on workload. Long days, back-to-back meetings, the inbox that never empties. Recently, there’s so much news about stress, lack of productivity, and general dissatisfaction with work that I decided to research this further. I’m interested in what’s changed at work, given all the conveniences, technology and better awareness of well-being and communication needs at work. The strongest evidence I’ve found suggests the thing wearing people down is not only how much they’re doing. It’s not knowing what, why or whether it matters.  It appears there is a real gap between what people are asked to do and understanding why and for what reason they are doing it.

What the research says

A 2026 meta-analysis in the Journal of Vocational Behavior  (American resource, hence the spelling!) pooled 515 studies published between 1964 and December 2024. It compared three role stressors: ambiguity (not being sure what your job requires or whether you’re meeting expectations), conflict (competing demands) and overload (too much work). Role ambiguity came out as the most damaging of the three, linked to lower task performance and to people ceasing to go above and beyond. Role conflict was the biggest driver of burnout, psychological distress and intention to leave, while overload was associated with physical and mental health problems. 

Overload is not harmless, and it is not free. But ambiguity is the one that quietly drains motivation, because when people are unclear about their responsibilities, they’re left guessing what deserves their attention, how they’re being judged, and what growth looks like. Hard work with a destination is tiring but can be exhilarating. Hard work with no map is tiring and can be maddening.

The HSE has been saying this for years

This isn’t a new idea in the UK. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) launched its Management Standards for work-related stress back in November 2004. They cover six areas of work design, and one of them is role. That means whether people understand their role within the organisation, and whether the organisation ensures they don’t have conflicting roles. Role clarity sits alongside demands (workload and work patterns), control, support, relationships and change. Employers have a legal duty to protect employees from stress at work by carrying out a risk assessment and acting on it. In other words, “do people know what their job is?” is a health and safety question, not just a management nicety.

To be fair to the other side of the argument, workload still matters. The CIPD’s Good Work Index 2025 found that the strongest factors associated with unhealthy work were excessive workloads, excessive pressure, poor relationships with colleagues and the quality of line management. Line management quality is where clarity comes from, and an unclear workload is much harder to prioritise than a clear one.

Hard work isn’t the same as overwork

We’ve all had that evening. You sit down “for ten minutes” to sort out a project you care about, look up, and it’s gone past 9pm. Nobody asked you to stay. Dinner is forgotten about. And yet you close the laptop feeling oddly energised, a bit smug even. That’s not a warning sign; it’s flow.

Now picture the same hours spent chasing a target nobody can quite define, for a manager who keeps moving the goalposts. Same desk, same time on the clock, completely different feeling. The hours can look identical from the outside. What differs is the why.

Purposeful graft is exhilarating. Graft without a purpose is corrosive. That said, even the enjoyable kind needs a nudge to rest, and a good manager makes sure that nudge happens.

Why ambiguity is so harmful

Ambiguity hurts for a few connected reasons:

• No direction. Not just in the task, but in your career. Where is this going?
• No purpose. You’ve put in the effort, but for what?
• No line of sight to value. You can’t see how your work creates value for the organisation or its customers.
• A vacuum that gets filled. Where clarity is missing, the less admirable sides of human nature tend to move in: turf wars, fiefdoms, bullying and the odd power play.

And where does the vagueness come from? Sometimes managers are under pressure from above and are passing the fog downstream. Sometimes they genuinely don’t know what to do either (it happens to the best of us). And occasionally, and this can be uncomfortable to acknowledge, the vagueness is deliberate, because unclear expectations are hard to meet and easy to criticise. If you suspect that last scenario, document, clarify in writing, and ask for help from HR or a trusted senior colleague.

Exhibit A: AI

If you wanted a live case study in organisational ambiguity, AI is it. Everyone is talking about adoption. Few are explaining what it should look like on Tuesday morning.

The CIPD’s chair, Chris Bones, has pointed out that employees are often using AI before their organisations have set clear policies or governance in place. The CIPD’s Good Work Index makes a related point: the benefits of AI come not from adoption alone, but from how work is redesigned around it. Meanwhile, worry is real. When Acas commissioned YouGov to ask British employees about their biggest concerns, the most common answer, at 26%, was that AI will lead to job losses. Acas’s advice is refreshingly practical: develop clear policies, consult employees and their representatives, and explain how AI can improve their roles. I wrote a post about harnessing AI in workforce planning in case of interest. That is clarity, in other words. CIPD Good Work Index

Add the fear-mongering about jobs, and a geopolitical backdrop that feels more turbulent than much of the West has been used to, and it’s no wonder so many people feel they’re navigating without a compass. (That last point is my observation rather than a research finding, but I suspect you’ll recognise it.)

Reducing the fog

Personally:

• Ask the three clarifying questions. What does good look like? What’s the priority if everything can’t be done? How will we both know it’s working? Asking them isn’t a weakness. It’s project management.
• Write it down. Follow conversations with a short email: “Just to confirm my understanding…” It’s polite, and it’s protective.
• Connect your work to an outcome. If you can’t draw the line to value, ask someone who can.
• Control what you can. Where the big picture is hazy, define your own next 90 days and discuss with stakeholders e.g. your manager and colleagues..  
• Rest on purpose. Even when you’re in flow, protect your recovery time.

Professionally, for leaders and managers:

• Say what you know, what you don’t, and when you’ll know more. “I don’t know yet” with a date attached beats vagueness every time.
• Translate strategy into role-level expectations. Don’t leave people to infer it from the executive memo.
• Invest in your line managers. The CIPD is urging employers to give line managers the development and support they need, given their central role in managing workloads and stress. cipd
• Create safe ways to ask questions. Make it normal, not brave.
• Check in on purpose, not just progress. Ask whether people can see why the work matters.
• Watch for the vacuum. If territorial behaviour is appearing, look for where clarity is missing.

The short version

• Research across six decades suggests role ambiguity is the most damaging of the three main role stressors on performance and commitment, though role conflict is the stronger driver of burnout.
• Britain’s HSE has treated role clarity as one of six core stress-management areas since 2004, and employers have a legal duty to assess stress risks.
• Workload still matters, and the CIPD finds it among the strongest factors in unhealthy work, but line management quality is the lever that connects the two.
• Hard work isn’t the enemy. Engaged, purposeful effort is linked to better well-being, while compulsive overwork is not.
• AI is the current poster child: lots of activity, and not enough clarity about what it means for people’s roles.
• The fix can be simple: ask, write it down, connect work to value, and lead with honesty.

So the next time someone tells you the problem is that you’re working too hard, ask a gentler question: do you know what you’re working toward? The answer may tell you more than your calendar does.

Sources

• Sawhney, G. et al. (2026). A meta-analytic review of 60 years of role stressor research. Journal of Vocational Behavior. DOI: 10.1016/j.jvb.2026.104234
• Health and Safety Executive. What are the Management Standards?
• CIPD (2025). Good Work Index 2025: one in four workers say work has a negative impact on their health
• CIPD. Build good work beyond Covid (references CIPD’s 2020 health and wellbeing survey)
• CIPD (2026). Good Work Index: AI and upskilling insight
• CIPD. Chris Bones: leaders can’t manage AI risk from the sidelines
• Acas. One in four workers worry that AI will lead to job losses