Does technology give us an upper hand afterhours?
The development of contemporary communication devices is taking a toll on the modern-day work
life balance. Cultivating an “always on” type of expectation from employees to constantly be a call, email or text message away. The ability to communicate anytime outside of the workplace is leading to additional stresses on the home life of many employees today.
While today’s advanced communication devices allow for more freedoms and flexibility with when and where we can communicate, they also hinder the balance between personal and professional time. Research from Wright, Abendschein, Wombacher, Hoffman, Dempsey, … Shelton (2014) indicates that regular use of work-related communication technology outside of regular work hours contributed to perceptions of a work life conflict. These insights show the beginnings of negative impacts on the family status by disrupting quality family time outside of the office. When we cannot separate our home life from work life or we bring home too much of our work life it often lead to stress and burn out. This research will support my viewpoint that an employee must be empowered enough to set limits against a constant contact type of communications strategy from their employer without any occupational fallout.
Consider the amount of time that is spent at work, an average of eight hours per day, and the corresponding part of the day spent at home. A balance must exist in order to feel a sense of worth in the professional environment and at home. This is much more difficult to achieve if one is expected to return an email within minutes on a Sunday morning. The Guardian article from O’Hara (2013) outlines how important it really is to create your own balance in this space of decreasing personal time due to work interference from tech. Boundaries are required to achieve satisfaction in the personal as well as the professional sphere. I believe several of these points included such as embracing the blurred lines between work and home life will reinforce my arguments on the sacrifices we are making to keep up with a work that changes in an instant.
This topic is increasingly important to study because the technology is advancing and growing every day. New abilities to connect with one another are being introduced al the time. From social media to text messaging and live video chats, we can snap or tweet or iMessage each other in an instant. What happens when we do not get the immediate satisfaction of a reply in our social lives is also impacting how we think about the timeline of professional communications. We do not and cannot fully understand how communication technologies will affect the work life balance of tomorrow’s workforce and that is why we need to monitor it now.
In reflecting on this topic and this assignment I have already started to rethink how my company choses to communicate with their employees. It will be interesting to analyze when the company is sending communications as well as the employee understanding of the corporate culture and related expectations of replies afterhours. In fact, my current situation consists of a manager who is very text message heavy in communications. The manager also typically responds to an email within minutes, more often than not I have not even had the chance to read the email. It had already made me question the quality of these hyper attentive habits to communication, but now it will be critical to also examine when the communications are happening as I know some are before and after normal work hours. This style of communication is possible due to mobile devices and being able to access email from anywhere. It has made me wonder if I am keeping up with my boss’s expectations when he is so much quicker on the draw than me. All of these additional worries have been added to the overall workload for the worker.
References
Hoffman, M. F., & Cowan, R. L. (2008). The Meaning of Work/Life: A Corporate Ideology of Work/Life Balance. Communication Quarterly, 56(3), 227–246. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.odu.edu/10.1080/01463370802251053
O'Hara, F. (2013, June 19). Does technology help or hinder your work-life balance? Retrieved October 11, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/careers/technology-help-hinder-work-life-balance
Wright, K. B., Abendschein, B., Wombacher, K., O, C. M., Hoffman, M., Dempsey, M., … Shelton (2014). Work-Related Communication Technology Use Outside of Regular Work Hours and Work Life Conflict: The Influence of Communication Technologies on Perceived Work Life Conflict, Burnout, Job Satisfaction, and Turnover Intentions. Management Communication Quarterly, 28(4), 507–530. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.odu.edu/10.1177/0893318914533332
