Snippet

Ambition

Change

Digital

Economics

Work

27 January 2025

4 min read

Don’t just hustle or quietly quit. Work hard at rest

Here’s what BrewDog's CEO doesn't get about work-life balance.

Callum Elwood

Callum is a pastor, based on a barge, in London's Docklands.

A man lies asleep on a closed lap top on a desk.

Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash.

Is work-life balance just an excuse for people who hate their jobs? James Watt, the CEO of BrewDog, seems to think so. But is his vision of work-life integration the solution - or a recipe for burnout? Recently, Watt faced criticism for claiming that work-life balance was "invented by people who don’t like their job." Instead, he advocated for work-life integration, arguing that if you enjoy your work and want to achieve, it won’t feel burdensome to be constantly "switched on."

Watt is correct in some respects: extraordinary achievements often require extraordinary focus. Hard work can be immensely satisfying, providing purpose, goals, and rewards. However, Watt’s perspective lacks nuance and risks promoting a culture of overwork.

Work-life integration, as portrayed by Watt and his fiancée, Georgia Toffolo, revolves around relentless focus on achieving goals, coupled with a willingness to make significant sacrifices. It means finding a partner who champions your ambitions while relentlessly pursuing their own. For Watt and Toffolo, this appears to work—they seem to thrive as part of the privileged minority who genuinely enjoy every aspect of their work. But when viewed realistically, their vision of work-life integration paints a bleak picture. It involves checking emails during family meals, taking calls while driving, scheduling loved ones around work, and sacrificing whatever doesn’t fit. As Watt illustrated in his social media post, referencing figures like Sir Tom Hunter visiting sports stores with his children or Sam Walton working in his warehouse on Saturdays, this isn’t about integrating work into life - it’s about subordinating life to work.

In many ways, the hustle culture that Watt embodies mirrors modern unrealistic beauty standards. Just as social media often promotes unattainable images of physical perfection, Watt’s idealised version of work-life integration advocates a way of life that leaves little room for other forms of hard work - relationships, parenting, creativity, or rest.

The backlash against Watt was swift, and Gen Z’s ‘quiet quitting’ movement has been lauded as a counterpoint to this culture of overwork. By prioritising mental well-being and relationships, quiet quitters resist the idea that their entire identity should be tied to their job. However, they too risk missing the point. A reactionary disengagement from work, while understandable, does not offer a holistic vision of life where every area - work, rest, relationships - receives the effort and attention it deserves.

Work - life balance isn’t about doing the bare minimum at your job or resenting periods of intense work. It’s about recognising that work is one part of life, and other areas - relationships, hobbies, rest - demand hard work too. The challenge, then, is not to reject work but to embrace the harder, more deliberate work of rest.

A radical alternative: working hard at rest

What could a meaningful alternative look like? It might involve working hard at work, yes, but also working hard at rest.

As a vicar in Canary Wharf, one of London’s financial hubs, I regularly see young professionals wrestling with the tension between ambition and rest. They understand the demands of their careers and the effort required to achieve extraordinary goals. But they also grapple with the reality of burnout and the importance of mental health. Watt’s vision of work, without clear boundaries, poses a danger: the mental load of being "always on" accelerates burnout and diminishes the joy of achievement.

The biblical concept of Sabbath offers an ancient yet powerful antidote to the demands of both overwork and disengagement. It reminds us that work is good, but so is rest. By intentionally organising and prioritising rest, we resist the cultural pull of constant hustle and grind. Taking one day each week to step away from work entirely—no emails, no calls, no productivity—becomes an act of resistance.

Sabbath rest allows us to engage deeply with other areas of life. It provides the space to focus on relationships, creativity, and renewal without the constant demands of work encroaching on every moment. This doesn’t mean filling the day with endless activities—brunches, housewarmings, and run clubs are good, but Sabbath also requires intentional space for rest and reflection. In ancient farming societies, Sabbath for the land meant leaving fields unplanted, allowing them to regenerate naturally. The same principle applies to us: regular rhythms of rest make us healthier, more focused, and more productive when we return to work.

Seeking balance while recognising that work is part of life isn’t a sign of weakness—it’s wisdom. Sabbath rest isn’t a retreat from ambition but a way to ensure our goals don’t overshadow the rest of life. Success isn’t just about professional achievements; it’s about thriving in every area - work, relationships, creativity, and rest.

What if rest wasn’t a sign of weakness but a declaration of what truly matters? What if success meant working hard, not just at our jobs, but also at rest, relationships, and the things that bring us joy?

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Explainer

Comment

Economics

4 May 2023

5 min read

Cleaning up cleaning: the problem with split shift work

Unhealthy and unnecessary working practices impact unseen cleaners. It doesn’t have to be like that argues Ryan Gilfeather.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

A cleaner sweeps between large white interior walls of a concourse.

Photo by Verne Ho on Unsplash.

In offices across the country cleaners are often kept out of sight whilst the other workers do their jobs. Cleaners are instead brought in for two short shifts, the first starting as early as 1, 2 or 3 am, and a second beginning around 8pm. Most of us overlook this pattern of work, taking for granted that it is necessary.

However, dig a little deeper, and its insidious nature emerges. We begin to see how it is mostly unnecessary and harms the flourishing of cleaners in their health, family, and dignity. It treats small financial gains as worth more than human lives.

For many industries, cleaning does not need to happen in the early mornings and late nights. Consider the downsides of daytime cleaning. The cleaner would need to manoeuvre around colleagues at their desks and in meeting rooms, but they would still clean to a high standard in a similar timeframe. Their job does not need to be done during unsociable hours. There is a minor cost to the company in the office. The office worker might need to briefly step away from their desk for a moment as it is cleaned, they may be momentarily distracted by the sound of a hoover, and a meeting room may be out of action for a very short time. The only costs would be a tiny loss in efficiency and profits to the companies who hire these cleaners. Since the negative consequences of daytime cleaning, instead of split shifts at unsociable hours, are so marginal, the current working patterns are clearly unnecessary.

No choice, compelled to say yes

Importantly, these cleaners often do not have any other choice. I meet many of these cleaners in my work at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work. None of them choose to work split shifts at unsociable hours. For many, employment with better conditions is simply not available. About 27 per cent are migrants and often they lack English-speaking skills, preventing them from getting other kinds of jobs. 59 per cent have attained an education below the equivalent of C or 4 at GCSE, so it is hard for them to find other work. 17 per cent are ethnic minorities, who face greater barriers accessing other kinds of work. They have to work, they often have no better choices than cleaning, and in this industry they cannot say no to these working patterns. In this way, they are compelled to say yes to these kinds of split shifts.

Split shifts deadly consequences

This working pattern damages health. A recent medical study demonstrates that working night shifts, a similar pattern to split shifts, more than doubles the odds of developing breast cancer Another study shows that shift-work disturbs worker’s circadian rhythms. This in turn leads to problems with cancer, heart health, mental health, and more. Split shifts have deadly consequences for cleaner’s health.

Eroding family time

Split shifts also steal cleaner’s time from their families. When cleaners earn below the real living wage, their family relationships suffer; 48 per cent say that their wage level has negatively affected their relationship with their children. For many, poverty wages force cleaners to take on two or more jobs. As Angus Ritchie, an Anglican priest, academic, and campaigner for marginalised communities puts it, poverty wages force workers to:

‘to choose between spending enough time with their children and having enough money to provide for them.’

These cleaners, who are often on poverty wages too, may only be able to briefly see their children between the end of school and the beginning of the nightshift, but will miss out on caring for them in the morning and enjoying extended periods of quality time. Therefore, when employers unnecessarily force these working hours upon cleaners, it also harms their relationships with their families.

Denying dignity

These patterns of work also render cleaners invisible. In an Equality and Human Rights Commission report from 2014, cleaners spoke about how they were made to feel ‘invisible’ and like the ‘lowest of the low.’ It is hardly surprising that they have this experience when the patterns of work we force upon them are designed to literally stop office workers from seeing them. Cleaners do crucial work which enables the broader enterprise of offices all around the country to function, yet they remain hidden away, their existence and contribution unseen and unacknowledged. Needless to say, these unnecessary split shifts take away their dignity.

Why value humanity

Campaigning to oppose this practice are Christians. Here’s why. The Bible and its tradition teaches that all human beings share the same inextinguishable value. As part of the story of creation says,

“God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them.”

Over the centuries Christians have interpreted this passage as affirming the same fundamental value of every person as one made in the image of God. Every person in some way dimly mirrors God’s inestimable goodness and love, and is, therefore, of greater value than all the riches of the world. To treat someone as less valuable than us or material goods is to deny the reality of how God created the world.

Split shifts at unsociable hours, however, represents the opposite belief. As argued above, these patterns of working are largely unnecessary, and only lead to small financial gains for the companies who hire the cleaners through tiny increases in efficiency. However, these small riches are treated as worth more than the flourishing of lives which are of inestimable value because they are made in the image of God. Fractional gains in money are placed above their ongoing health, their family relationships, and their dignity through recognition. These meagre financial rewards are more treasured than the flourishing of lives made in the image of God.

The working patterns are bad for cleaners. Not just because they damage health, but more fundamentally, because they deny the reality of God’s desire for creation. Enforcing split-shifts in pursuit of financial gain values small amounts of money above the flourishing of human beings, the infinitely valuable image of God, in their health, family, and dignity.

Christians are beginning to oppose this practice. For example, in 2017, three Christian organisations (Centre for Theology and Community, Church Mission Society, and the church, St Andrew by the Wardrobe) launched Clean for Good. This ethical cleaning company treats cleaners fairly; they pay the Real Living Wage and give holiday leave, sick pay, training and guaranteed working hours. Crucially, they also don’t force cleaners into working anti-social hours. They offer cleaners working conditions and hours which enable them to flourish in their health, family, and dignity, because they truly believe that these workers are infinitely valuable, being made in the image of God.