Researchers from Virginia Tech in the United States have written a new study, which will be presented at a conference in Chicago later this week, and warns competing demands on a person’s professional and home life, like checking work emails out-of-hours can trigger feelings of anxiety.
And it adds warns employees do not actually need to check work emails to experience these harmful effects.
According to the report, the mere expectation that people should check work emails in the evening or at the weekend can lead to increased strain amongst workers and their partners or spouses.
“The insidious impact of ‘always on’ organisational culture is often unaccounted for or disguised as a benefit — increased convenience, for example, or higher autonomy and control over work-life boundaries,” said Associate Professor and report co-author, William Becker.
“Our research exposes the reality: ‘flexible work boundaries’ often turn into ‘work without boundaries,’ compromising an employee’s and their family’s health and wellbeing.”
In the report, Professor Becker says should companies should have policies in place to reduce the expectations on workers to check emails out of work.
If this is not an option, then the report advocates setting up off-hour email windows or schedules when employees are available to respond.
“If the nature of a job requires email availability, such expectations should be stated formally as a part of job responsibilities,” added Professor Becker.
“Employees today must navigate more complex boundaries between work and family than ever before,” said Becker.
“Employer expectations during nonwork hours appear to increase this burden, as employees feel an obligation to shift roles throughout their nonwork time.
“Efforts to manage these expectations are more important than ever, given our findings that employees’ families are also affected by these expectations.”
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
Computer workers checking email on weekends should not hurt them. It is so sad to read this. I am a Researcher in Computer Injury Prevention Techniques and willing to share my research and prove that it can be used on weekends safely too. Looking for an opportunity to prove it.
As a doctor you should know that one type of job and or/task that makes it “safer” means nothing on a global scale when you consider all the “always on” jobs. Everything that can raise stress levels in a person and influence rest and sleep habits has a major impact on the well being of a person.