By Alex ChristianFeatures correspondent
AlamyCorporate roles have long enticed employees with riches – at a big cost to their personal lives. Only some workers walk away.
Lewis knew that a high-pressured workplace was the price for a six-figure payday. The Berlin-based, entry-level consultant believed the stress was worth it for the fast-track to a €150,000 ($162,170; £128,460) base salary at one of the world’s most prestigious firms.
“There has to be a willingness to be chained to the desk. You accept those conditions in return for such a high salary – that’s the game. If you’re not working 12 hours straight, the response is ‘you’re being paid this much, so you have to’,” he says. “When you earn such a high wage it’s a psychological block – you feel you’ve earned it, and worked really hard to get there. You want to get out, but how much of a salary cut can you take?”
Lewis was locked into “golden handcuffs”, which can trap workers in jobs – and careers – they hate in exchange for rich paydays and luxury perks. Despite complaints of torturous workweeks, tedious tasks and toxic cultures, these types of roles offer vast sums of money to workers who often build their lives around massive pay-outs. While some can shake off golden handcuffs for a healthier work-life balance, others find them nearly impossible to walk away from – and pay the price.
Golden handcuffs are a long-held employer practice, says Rubab Jafry O’Connor, distinguished service professor of management at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, in Pittsburgh, US. “For as long as organisations have existed, there have been firms paying a top-tier salary to keep their best workers.”
The term first originated in 1976, foreshadowing an era in which Wall Street bankers’ salaries began to vastly outstrip those of the average private-sector worker. But there is often more to golden handcuffs than mere base salary, with the overall financial package loaded with stock options, annual bonuses and benefits stacked into the six figures – and beyond.
For employers, golden handcuffs aren’t only a traditional retention tool, but also a means of ensuring workers will routinely go above and beyond in the job, says Jafry O’Connor. Handsome compensation means employees are at the company’s whim. “If I pay for a room at the Fairmont, I expect more than if I take a room at a Motel 6,” she says, comparing a luxury hotel chain to a low-cost one. “So, with greater pay comes greater expectations: you’ll be compensated for the extra time and energy you’ll have to devote to that job.”
In return for sizable salaries, however, workers often pay a hefty cost in their quality of life. This is particularly the case for junior-level employees – in many cases, the work cascades from the top. “Partners sell projects to make money towards bonuses,” Lewis explains of his situation at the consultancy. “To make sales, they overpromise: a three-month project has a three-week deadline. It’s the workers at the bottom that do the legwork, resulting in long hours, stress, pressure and a horrible working culture.”
Higher up the chain, the financial packages sweeten – and the golden handcuffs tighten. Ryan Renteria, author of Lead Without Burnout, was a partner at a Wall Street hedge fund when he quit, aged 30. “The compensation opportunities were off the charts,” he says. “Every six months that you posted strong investment returns, you’d receive another large bonus that was partially deferred – you would lose it if you left.”
However, Renteria burned out – and walked away. “The toll the job took on my mental and physical health was unsustainable,” he says. “My anxiety and stress levels were sky high; my diet, exercise and sleep were a joke. I left because I felt continuing down this path would have destroyed everything else that mattered to me.”
Courtesy of Lucy PuttergillBut when workers are unhappy, they often struggle to leave golden handcuffs. Lucy Maeve Puttergill says she realised within her first year working in London’s Canary Wharf that banking wasn’t the right career for her. Still, she stuck it out for nine years. “I got sucked into the prestige, and that it made me sound impressive to others. And I’d become so used to the types of numbers people made in banking being ‘normal’, I assumed that was how much you needed to be financially OK.”
Golden handcuffs are hard to discard not just because of salary, says Puttergill, but also the lifestyle they enable. “Someone with a high-paying job usually has high expenditure, linked to how hard they work. I spent a lot on numbing: buying clothes in order to make myself feel better. Unravelling my relationship with money was needed in order for me to leave.”
Puttergill has re-trained as a life coach. Many of her clients are in high-salaried jobs, including banking, law and consulting, typically at mid-career. “Some will say they want to quit, or are tired and stressed,” she says. “They’ll feel dead inside and not even realise it.”
She says conversations around the mental-health costs associated with golden handcuffs have grown in a changing world of work. Yet she caveats these financial packages will be here to stay – and in an uncertain economy, more workers may end up sticking it out, no matter the circumstances. “Pre-2008, it was easier to grind it out and retire early – but very few now are able to make their millions and stop working at 35,” she says. “It’s more than a salary you’re tied to: it’s also lifestyle, friendship group and sense of worth.”
Lewis was able to quit his golden handcuffs role. He says on top of “a poor work-life balance, the long hours negatively impacting my relationship, the bullying culture,” he didn’t see a path to promotion, which pushed him over the edge.
Still, even though he’s taken a 10% pay-cut for his new job, he’s stayed in consulting – an industry with high compensation and expectations to match. He believes the pay-off between salary and work-life balance is still worth it. “I thought about leaving the industry, but the finances just aren’t there elsewhere,” he says. “Once you get to a certain salary, that’s what you’re worth – a big step down in salary just isn’t feasible.”
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