We all need some time to relax and unwind, but the desire to spend more time with family, friends and the treadmill are likely being interrupted — even outright thwarted — by the daily work grind.
There are client crises to handle. Proposals that need last-minute updates. Requests to come into the office early, or on a day off. This is important stuff. Our paychecks depend on our performance.
Most of us know that continually logging excessive hours can be bad for our backs and brains, as well as strain relationships (especially when we type on our iPhones during family dinners). But it’s just one more email to send. Oh wait, it’s two, maybe three . . . suddenly it’s a half-hour later.
It’s just so hard to break free when communication with bosses, co-workers and clients is a mere few feet away via that smartphone in a pocketbook, pants pocket or bedside table.
“Technology allows us to work anywhere, anytime,” notes Carol Olsby, a human relations consultant and a member of the Society for Human Resource Management’s global expertise panel, who says that even she at times is a workaholic.
“How do you turn it off when everything is coming to your phone? You’re in the Safeway grocery line and you're answering emails. You are fully connected.”
We’re always on — checking emails before going to bed, once we wake up, en route to vacations and for some, during the middle-of-the-night bathroom run. Nearly half of all U.S. workers check email after they leave work and 45% say they do work during non-business hours, according to a 2016 CareerBuilder survey.
Technical advances provide employees with greater flexibility, yet there's also the expectation that with increased access, workers will be more available, says Patrick Kulesa, director of employee research at human resources consulting firm Willis Towers Watson.
That constantly-connected expectation comes at a time when work demands are already high.
“There is pressure globally — it’s not constrained by borders — certainly for multinational organizations to deliver more with less and to be more productive,” Kulesa says.
It’s so difficult to escape the information onslaught that some countries have taken action to help employees maintain some sort of work-life balance.
France instituted a law on Jan. 1 that requires firms with more than 50 employees to give its workers the right to disconnect during their off hours. The Japanese government, along with participating business groups, will launch a campaign in February that encourages workers to leave work at 3 p.m. on the last Friday of each month, reports Bloomberg. The “Premium Friday" campaign comes after high-profile reports of “karoshi” — the Japanese term for death by overwork — including the suicide of a young woman who was working 100 hours or more of overtime in a single month.
Yet, most countries — and most companies, for that matter — aren't putting in measures to reduce our workloads. It's on us as individuals to figure this out.
One way to survive, and even thrive, is to proactively manage the expectations of others, says psychologist Mary Alvord.
That means communicating clearly about our availability and coming up with strategies such as asking a colleague to cover our duties while we are on vacation. Such planning ahead can help to reduce stress. “Part of anxiety is feeling out of control,” Alvord says.
Also, keep in mind that there are some positives to our constantly connected world.
“Some people are overwhelmed, but a lot of people like the flexibility of it,” says Lee Rainie, director of Internet, science and technology research at the Pew Research Center. For instance, if employees can do work at night, that can give them the ability to tackle some personal things during the work day.
"The work-home boundary is a lot more fluid than it used to be," he says. "People are doing home things at work and work things at home. More than less are glad for it."
Similar to what Alvord advises, Rainie says that people who successfully embrace technological advances are “strategic about how they allocate their attention.”
“They often manage their networks," he says. They use automatic replies to let those who call or email know that they are not available for a specific period of time, and also let people know who else can answer their questions.
“Others don’t manage their lives that directly," Rainie says. "They feel overwhelmed. They feel a lot of pressure to always be answering to folks.”
Although it can be hard, it's essential to sometimes tune work out completely, says Alvord.
“We need a balanced life. And it sounds cliché, but we do need to unplug at times,” she says. “We need to replenish our brains. Our brains are an organ. If your brain is functioning better, you are going to be more productive and more creative.”
