Thinking about jumping onto your emails once you get home tonight? Think again, as a new study has found that making yourself available to your co-workers after hours can be detrimental to the health and well-being of your family.
William Becker, a Virginia Tech associate professor of management in the Pamplin College of Business, co-authored a new study, “Killing me softly: electronic communications monitoring and employee and significant-other well-being,” showing that such expectations result in anxiety, which adversely affects the health of employees and their families.
“The competing demands of work and non-work lives present a dilemma for employees,” Becker said, “which triggers feelings of anxiety and endangers work and personal lives.”
It’s been well-established that bringing home work to finish up can lead to strain and conflict in family relationships, but this new study has found that employees don’t even need to spend actual time on after-hours work to experience adverse effects. The mere expectation of availability is enough to cause strain for both employees and their significant others.
Unlike work-related demands that deplete employee resources, physical and psychological, by requiring time away from home, “the insidious impact of ‘always on’ organizational culture is often unaccounted for or disguised as a benefit — increased convenience, for example, or higher autonomy and control over work-life boundaries,” Becker said.
“Our research exposes the reality: ‘flexible work boundaries’ often turn into ‘work without boundaries,’ compromising an employee’s and their family’s health and well-being.”
So what can employers actually do to mitigate the adverse effects identified by the study? Becker said policies that reduce expectations to monitor electronic communication outside of work would be ideal.
When that is not an option, the solution may be to establish boundaries on when electronic communication is acceptable during off-hours by setting up off-hour email windows or schedules when employees are available to respond.
Additionally, he said, organizational expectations should be communicated clearly. “If the nature of a job requires email availability, such expectations should be stated formally as a part of job responsibilities.” Knowing these expectations upfront may reduce anxiety in employees and increase understanding from their family members, he said.
As for employees, they could consider practicing mindfulness, which has been shown to be effective in reducing anxiety, Becker said. Mindfulness may help employees “be present” in family interactions, which could help reduce conflict and improve relationship satisfaction. And, he added, mindfulness is within the employee’s control when email expectations are not.
