Role Overload

According to Duxbury and Higgins, role overload exists when the total demands for time and energy associated with prescribed activities of multiple roles are too great to perform these roles adequately or comfortably. In other words, people have too much to do in the time available to them. 

According to the 2001 Duxbury and Higgins study, 61 percent of Canadian professional workers are experiencing high levels of role overload. How does role overload vary across Canada? As can been seen from the chart below, high role overload among professional employees varies slightly by region. Professional employees in B.C. and Ontario are most likely to report high levels of role overload (60 percent and 64 percent respectively) while those in Quebec are least likely to do so (57 percent). 

Professional Employees in B.C. and Ontario
More Likely to Report High Role Overload

Duxbury and Higgins find that levels of role overload have increased among Canadian workers in their samples by almost 20 percent in the decade between their two national studies on work-life conflict in Canada (conducted in 1991 and 2001). They suggest that much of this increase can be linked to new communication technologies (i.e. laptops, email, cell phones) and organizational norms that still reward long hours at the office. Despite a lot of talk by organizations about helping their employees to achieve better work-life balance, the data would suggest that employees are finding it more and more difficult to balance these two realms. 

Additional Charts and Information