On Wednesday, Melinda Gates joined LinkedIn (now owned by Microsoft) and penned her first column about changing the high-pressure culture.
She writes that in fact technology has made it harder to pull away from our jobs, and easier to wonder whether a night off or a long weekend is damaging our careers.
The result is a work ethic that hurts everyone. When companies demand that employees work themselves into the ground, those that want to balance career with family life lean out. Some of them leave the corporate world altogether, which limits diversity.
And those who stay are less productive. They have to dedicate so much energy to simply keeping their heads above water, instead of thinking of ways to create more value.
This is the second discussion topic from the same article, the previous one was about women's role in the workplace. The topics or tech an diversity may be related, but both are big enough to fill a discussion portion of a lesson. In Japan, death from overwork (called karoshi) has been a hot topic in 2017. You can ask about it or avoid it as you see fit.