Derrick Coyle
Is off-hour access to work related e-mails a blessing or a curse? Is a job tethered by technology and the wonders of company supplied mobile devices or VPN connections, viewed as an advantage or an inconvenience by the employee?
If a recent Gallup poll surveying nearly 4,000 full-time working adults across the United States is any indication, remote, personal time connectivity to the job is considered a good thing.
In the case of our American counterparts, a whopping 79% of respondents view the ability to work remotely in the off-hours as a positive development. That said, only 36% frequently engage in it, against the 64% that occasionally, rarely, or never do. Male workers (40%) are more apt to utilize it frequently than females (31%), Millennials (38%) more than Boomers (33%), college graduates (48%) more than non-graduates (23%), and the highest income band (53%) more than lowest (25%).
Tethered by Technology: Work-Life Balance
It’s a subject that will undoubtedly evoke assorted points of view. The Gallup survey finds that many employees appreciate the flexibility of remote access and the prospect of dealing with work from home as a favourable alternative to spending nights or weekends at the workplace, away from family. Employers may be bolstered by the results of this poll to maintain and possibly increase investment in these technologies as a service to employees and a potential competitive advantage for themselves.
But at what cost is there in terms of a healthy delineation between one’s work and personal life? Does 24/7 accessibility to the job detract from what would otherwise provide an opportunity for a period of downtime? Does the office-on-a-belt-clip amount to convenient efficiency for the employee or subtle exploitation by the employer?
Dr. Scott Schieman, Canada Research Chair (Social Contexts of Health) and professor of sociology at the University of Toronto identifies what he describes as three “pressure points” that may be causes for some concern.
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In Role Blurring – which he describes as the “main culprit,” Schieman suggests perpetual connectivity to the job confuses the boundaries between work and other significant life domains – like family. Evenings and weekends, that traditionally offered sanctuary from the demands of work and an opportunity for attention to family, social and recreational interests, may now fall victim to a priority grab, depending on the perceived urgency of the next e-mail viewed.
Mobile devices are by far the most insidious. With convenient belt-clip mountings, the job is attached at the hip by day, and within arm’s reach on the beside table by night. Some may have the discipline to shut it down during personal time, but for many the sense of duty, and perhaps narcissistic seduction found in the gentle vibrations and flashing red lights of need – can be difficult to ignore. ‘Sorry dear, I just need to check this in case it’s something important.’
While we’re on the sidelines cheering at our son or daughter’s soccer game, we’re always just one vibration away from the priority pilferage that causes us to miss the big goal.
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans
– John Lennon
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Schieman cites Expectations as the second important pressure point.
Some employers may provide direction in corporate policy and others will leave it to the best judgement of employees, or their immediate managers. There may also be job description or position level considerations as to whether an employee is provided equipment or access to work related activity or correspondence.
In the absence of clear policy, what are the expectations? It is certainly understood that employees provided company mobiles with e-mail access would be expected to be accessible and checking in through business hours while they’re out of the workplace on sales calls, or even through their lunch breaks. While perhaps an irritant to golfing purists, it was also excusable that a CEO with whom I once played in an industry tournament, completed a hole with a one-handed putting technique enabling him to talk with a business caller on the cell phone held to his ear with the other.
But is it part of the job to have the Blackberry powered up and be checking and responding on one’s personal time? If the official answer is no, is there an unwritten code of expected behaviour that comes into play? Does an employee’s demonstration of off-hour availability and responsiveness find it’s way into performance evaluations as an example of commitment and dedication? For example, would there be tacit expectation of a weekend response to a weekend e-mail inquiry from a superior, even if it was clearly non-urgent and included no deadline?
Competitive working environments fuel the confusion over expectation further. Upwardly mobile or attention seeking opportunists quickly learn that people of influence can be impressed with a serving of strategically time-stamped communications. A few late night pearls of wisdom with careful completion of the ‘cc’ field may be all it takes to separate an aspiring employee from the pack.
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The third pressure point Schieman discusses is A Sense of Control. Many people view the off-hour access to e-mail and their work as a way to stay afloat.
It may take this personal time access to manage the volume of work and mitigate the sense of frenzy during normal work hours. Remote access through technology allows people to organize, plan, and deal with issues in a lower-pressure environment, making the hours in the workplace more manageable. The obvious question here is whether it’s employees struggling or stretching out a job, or a job that’s grown beyond what can reasonably be accomplished in the normal schedule available for its completion.
E-mail flow in many organizations is overwhelming. There may also be no protocols or standards of efficiency in place. Writers tend to err on the side of over-copying rather than omitting someone and readers feel compelled to digest everything they get for fear of being out of the loop.
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There is nothing new about people taking their job home with them and putting in long and unusual hours, but there is a relatively new and significant difference in the ease with which work can be carried out remotely. While the American survey suggests that employee interest in remote access is there, what is less clear is the health, family and social impacts in a relatively new world of perpetual connectivity to the work we do.
Individual employees will ultimately be very active, inactive, or somewhere between, in carrying out off-hour work based on their job demands and their personal views and priorities. What complicates matters and promotes stress is the uncertainty about employer expectations. The absence of a corporate guideline, or at least a guiding statement, invites confusion and inconsistency.
A competitive employment environment will find its own way, rightly or wrongly, in the absence of official direction. If higher levels of management are silent on expectation, lower management levels and individual employees will draw their own conclusions. It could be construed that a company supplying its employees with technology that facilitates off-hour access and the execution of work, combined with the example of senior management actively using it for such, have indirectly established policy and communicated expectation.
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The truth is, given the option, many management and non-management employees will settle on a work / life balance that includes taking advantage of the convenience and flexibility of company provided technology to carry out remote, off-hour work on its behalf.
The point is, a lot of stress, confusion and inconsistency could be avoided if expectations were clear.
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** Image credits: 1) Shutterstock 2) headexposed.com
This is really becoming a huge issue so thanks for pointing it out.
I think people are actually suffering so bad because they think it’s their fault they cannot manage time. However, it cannot be managed. We all have the same amount.
So it would be wise to start managing ourselves instead.
Thanks Eve. Some people are likely more adept than others in guarding their personal time, but the ease of access to work makes it tough for many to recognize the point at which the job has taken more than its fair share of a limited supply of hours.
Tethered by technology raises important questions about work life balance.The extent to which individuals with similar jobs use off hours access is indicative of their overall approach and the policies or unwritten expectations of organizations are indicative of theirs. Where leaders need to feel indispensable 24/7 employees will tend to emulate irrespective of policy and both organization and personal lives will suffer.
Thanks Paul. Yes, hopefully there can be recognition in organizations that employees can be fully committed to a job while they protect the interest of life and family priorities outside of it.
Technology has it’s place but I really think it has gotten out of to the point we are glued to our computers. The has to be a balance in your life or you will become burnt out
Thanks Arlene. Yes, it’s incredible how fast the clock moves when we’re parked at a computer. It likely boils down to reasonable workloads predicated on normal business hours. There will always be fluctuations and the need for additional hours, but if it’s the norm rather than the exception, burnout is the inevitable outcome.
24/7 accessibility is most definitely the double edged sword as far as I’m concerned. With so much pressure to push these days, to be honest I am glad I’m no longer in business and expected to accessible round the clock. There def. needs to be a balance between home and work and unfortunately people often don’t see the importance of that until some crisis or incident of illhealth forces them to take a look at what’s really going on.
Thanks A.K. It’s probably a sad reality that it often does take a personal crisis or health issue to change minds and patterns of behaviour for individuals and organizations. Hopefully employers look for ways to recognize the social impacts and reasonably monitor and regulate volumes and hours of work in the new mobile workplace that technology has created.
I believe being tied to the office via technology is harmful to health and I don’t believe it increases productivity in the long run. In Holland, employers realize that a clear line drawn between the workplace and personal/family time actually improves productivity. I think employers everywhere should look at the long-term effects.
Lenie
That’s a good point Lenie. Not sure what kinds of productivity studies have been carried out in Canada in connection with these technologies, but it would be interesting to know whether more work is getting done or whether it’s just being spread over more hours of the day. Either way, volumes of work and time on the job should be realistic.
For me this has the potential to completely obliterate a work/life balance if one does not place limitations on its use. Between VPN and smart phones the potential to have no outside life is huge. I prefer to think of work as work; occupying work hours. Life occupies all other hours. There are occasions where work trumps all but that should be the exception, not the rule.
Agreed Tim. I retired voluntarily at age 55 from a 35-year career a year ago and in that time have developed a new clarity on work / life balance. Big picture priorities and the forces that threaten them come into much sharper focus when looking objectively from the sidelines of the workplace, than when caught up in the frenzy within. Thanks for the comments.
Had a Blackberry already 2005 and decided in 2008 that I’m not interested in being available 24/7. There is no need for people to wake you up in the middle of the night or to answer emails at that time. Always switched off my Blackberry during the night.
Makes me sad to see people everywhere with their smart phones that seem to have given up on living in real life and instead are online all the time.
Good that you were able to make that call and defend your time. While the upside of mobile technology in business can’t be denied, the extent and impacts of usage need to be carefully assessed. Always found the business lunch among handheld extremists amusing. Four tabletop mobiles with the flashing of one red light immediately launching the group into several minutes engrossed in their Blackberries. And then there’s the phantom vibrations … Thanks for your comment Catarina.
I am afraid I am still old fashioned and do not think of work once I have left the office.
I think that would make you the envy of many a weekend warrior! Thanks for your comment Mina.
This is an important topic. I think there is an expectation in some corporate cultures, even if it is not specifically stated, that employees are immediately available at all times. Sometimes, the amount of email and things to deal with is so overwhelming that checking it off-hours seems the only way to keep up. I don’t think this is healthy at all, leads to constant stress levels.
I agree Donna. I think it’s perhaps the inference of expectations – in the absence of declared ones – that increases confusion and stresses employees. If left ambiguous, one who guards personal time and well-being will inevitably suspect they are measured disfavourably against one who forfeits it.
Ah the burning question of the decade…or maybe the month. Because technology advances at break neck speed, yes? It’s difficult to achieve balance worth all of this availability. I love being away and in an atmosphere where I can disconnect, but then I worry at the amount of time it will take me to catch up when I get back. It’s a conundrum
Conundrum indeed, Jacqueline. The efficiencies of new technologies can create an interesting paradox. Invest off-hour time to mitigate stress on the job, while generating stress over missed opportunities related to family, friends, recreation, or home projects. Thanks for your comments.
This is a potential dangerous issue. What’s to stop future employers from mandating a never-ending work schedule if we are all connected all the time? A friend once told me that you should work to live and not live to work. I’ve tried to apply that to all subsequent jobs and the results have been mostly positive. I think people take too much pride in their work and need to step back on occasion. Weekends should be off limits for work to those with the ability to choose that path. Down time should go towards fulfilling activities outside of work. That’s how one can achieve balance.
Good points, Carl. The interesting part is the new technologies provide incredible opportunity and potential advantage for both employers and employees. What may not have kept pace is regulation of realistic work volumes, given the tools, and the communication of expectations around perpetually accessible jobs. It will always require some personal discipline, but if work volume is reasonably proportionate to that achievable in a normal work week, an employee has a chance to get to that life balance with the flexibility of technology allowing them to meet the expectations of the job, while being present for a full personal life.
Hi Derrick. Your post really lays out why work life balance is such a hot topic. I graduated college a year ago, and I’m afraid I’ll fall into the trap of sacrificing my personal life just to propel my career. It’s important not to let work consume our lives, but the accessibility and fast-paced nature of technology certainly makes it challenging. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the comments Tatia. The stereotypical extremes of our respective generations are interesting. A tendency for relentless loyalty (both employer and employee) in the one case, and a ‘what have you done for me lately?’ bent in the other. Seems to me you fall more in the middle, with balance that will likely serve you well. Appreciating one has to give to get, but also recognizing there is a line. Good luck in your career!
I’ve had jobs where the expectation was that i not only have my blakberry on and with me at all times, but that I would be expected to pay attention to it even during holidays. I learned to resent the phone and the job. To me, lfe requires balance if we’re going tp live it well.
I agree Debra. It seems unlikely to ever be fully disengaged and truly on vacation if we have one eye on the work Blackberry. I suspect the same pressures and life conflicts exist in scenarios where expectation is left ambiguous, but inferred – accurately or inaccurately – through the leading example of others. Thanks for your comments.