Former CEO’s 18-hour days ended in burnout and regret

Hanna-Mari Karhinen worked up to 18 hours a day for a year and a half, suffered burnout and was fired, Yle reports. She now regrets that her 11-year-old daughter received so little of her attention during that period.

Karhinen had started as the young chief executive of a promotion agency in 2010. The company employed about 150 people, and her commute from Lahti to Helsinki also took time.

“If no one else was available, I went to do the job myself. It did not matter to me where in Finland it was,” Karhinen said.

She saw herself as being absorbed in meaningful, important and inspiring work, and did not recognise anything particularly problematic in the way she worked.

Karhinen had separated from her daughter’s father. As her working days grew longer, relatives and the child’s father helped care for the girl, who spent a great deal of time with her grandmother.

Karhinen tried to make up for the lost time with presents, including gifts, a ballet course, new bicycles and game consoles.

Workaholism is defined as a compulsive need to work. Work-related thoughts remain constantly in a person’s mind, while being unable to work can cause restlessness and irritation.

Jari Hakanen, a research professor at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, said 18-hour working days sounded extreme. According to data from the institute’s How is Finland doing study, about 3 per cent of Finns clearly display features of workaholism, while 17 per cent show behaviour indicating a tendency towards it.

Hakanen said workaholism can have internal and external causes. Internal causes include low self-esteem and a need to gain appreciation and recognition through work.

External causes are linked to workplace culture and social expectations. Workaholism can be particularly difficult to detect among managers, who may work alone with their responsibilities and have no one monitoring or limiting their workload, Karhinen said.

At workplaces, workaholism can appear as excessive work and may even be rewarded. People who work without sparing their strength are more likely to advance in their careers, according to Hakanen.

Private life often suffers as a result. Close relatives may want attention and emotional warmth, while a workaholic may not have enough energy for them and may instead want to continue working.

Karhinen became irritable and short-tempered as a chief executive. At home, she was exhausted and found it difficult to disconnect from work.

After a year and a half of working at that pace, her body began to give way. She woke up at night drenched in sweat, eventually experienced burnout and was soon fired. The company ceased operating around the same time.

“That was when I thought, is this the reward for working this much?” Karhinen said.

It took her more than six months to recover from burnout. Afterwards, she began to understand how much space work had taken up in her life. She now identifies herself as a workaholic, although she did not recognise it at the time.