The Sunday Scaries

If I ask you about the meaning of the number “79 cents,” there’s a good chance you might say something about pay inequity. It’s well known in this country that there is a significant pay discrepancy between men and women -- women get paid about 21 cents less per dollar than their male counterparts. It’s worse for women of color. There’s some debate about whether the number is 79 cents, or 77, or 78 -- whatever it is, it’s fucking shameful, and it’s far away from $1.00, which is really the point.

There is a lot of awareness around pay inequity these days -- we just observed Equal Pay Day, after all (the date to which women are effectively working for free each year before they start earning money alongside their male counterparts). And so awareness, at its core, is good -- it’s the first step to solving problems. But one of the things that we’ve discovered at Holistic is that the problem is far more extensive and insidious than a lot of people might think, and our data gives us an interesting lens that it’s important to share.

“Inequity is like carbon monoxide. In many cases it’s hidden and by the time you realize it’s there, it can kill you. ”

Inequity is like carbon monoxide. In many cases it’s hidden and by the time you realize it’s there, it can kill you. We wanted to share one example from our research which is striking and speaks to what we’re discussing.

Hence: the Sunday Scaries.

For the uninitiated, the Sunday Scaries are that feeling of dread that some (many?) experience on Sunday evenings, as they start to think about going back to work. It’s a real thing -- many people experience it -- and it’s absolutely debilitating.

Since we started Holistic we’ve been asking people if they have the Sunday Scaries on our engagement surveys, and getting really good feedback. And we’ve found some interesting stuff. One of the most interesting things we’ve found is that the Sunday Scaries disproportionately affects women compared with their male colleagues. Take a look at these charts:

Basically, women are actively reporting the Sunday Scaries at a rate of about 1 in 4; while for men it’s 1 in 8. Similarly, while 38 percent of women report that they don’t really have an issue with them, that number is 56 percent for their male counterparts -- about 50 percent higher. 

These numbers closely mirror the pay inequity that we know so well, which I discussed at the beginning of this piece. That number is about 78 or 80 percent, and these numbers are even worse  -- if this was expressed as an apples to apples comparison, it would be about 67 - 70 percent, depending on the measurement. Basically, the Sunday Scaries follows the same pattern of inequity that we see in hiring, compensation, etc.

I think we’d all agree that people have the right to go to work and to be in a job that doesn’t bring with it a feeling of dread on Sunday night (indeed, at Holistic, we’ve basically created a whole company to ensure this). We are far from that point.

There is a silver lining. As women advance toward leadership roles in companies, the picture starts to change a bit.

The numbers for male employees look pretty similar to what we’ve seen before -- 13 always, 29 sometimes, 53 rarely or never, compared with 13 / 31 / 57 before. For the women, the numbers look better though … 24 always, 27 sometimes, 48 rarely or never, compared with 26 / 35 / 39 before. Basically by the time women become leaders of organizations, about 1 in 5 sees a real improvement as it relates to this challenge.

So what do we do?

There’s really no panacea for this, no silver bullet -- challenges like the Sunday Scaries are nuanced, subtle reflections of the employee experience, and they must be addressed and handled, ahem, holistically. There’s a reason why it’s called the employee experience -- it is an experience, and it is pervasive. What we are trying to do is help our companies understand all the places this is manifesting and give them a roadmap to address some of these concerns.

It is clear, however, that one element of the solution is advancing women into leadership roles in companies. I’m not the first person to say this; nor will I be the last. But this statistic is one place where there is some evidence that, if we can work together to keep women at jobs and help them advance to a position, then they have a bit more control of their own destiny, their own experience, and that can manifest itself in productive, pleasant and optimistic ways.