▎ WuXi AppTec content team editor
The digital age, while facilitating social interaction and work, has also brought about the annoyance of "hidden overtime". The need to respond to work-related digital communications during breaks – including text messages, phone calls and emails – has become a very important source of stress for ordinary office workers, seriously kidnapping employees' off-duty lives. This phenomenon has been exacerbated by the increase in the proportion of remote work in the past two years.
According to the data released by the "China Economic Life Survey (2019-2020)", in 2020, in addition to the time for sleeping and eating, the average leisure time Chinese is only 2.42 hours per day! News such as "death from overwork", "overwork and obesity", mental health problems of employees and sudden death are frequently seen in the media.
Image credit: 123RF
If you also often "implicitly work overtime", then pay attention. Recently, the University of South Australia released the results of a study highlighting that responding to work messages during breaks can have a significant impact on personal health, including increasing the risk of emotional problems, headaches and back pain, and even damaging family and other social relationships!
In this year's survey, researchers conducted a survey and analysis of more than 2,200 academics and professionals from 40 universities in Australia, and the specific results are shown below:
More than a quarter of respondents believe they must respond to work-related digital communications from leaders during breaks;
57% of respondents said they would send work-related digital communications to other colleagues at night;
Half of respondents reported that they often receive work-related digital communications from colleagues on weekends;
36% of respondents believe that in their team, "seconds back" work messages are quite normal.
Compared with those who take a good break, those who want to respond to colleagues' digital communications in a timely manner on weekends are significantly more likely to have psychological problems (56% vs. 42%), emotional failure (61% vs. 42%), and poor physical health (28% vs. 10%).
Dr Amy Zadow, a psychologist at the University of South Australia, said: "Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more businesses and individuals have opted for digital work, and the relaxation of the working environment has led to blurring the work-life boundaries. While remote work provides convenience, being able to work during the day and at night in some ways limits people's opportunities to 'catch their breath' from work, taking up rest time such as exercising or spending time with friends and family, and exhausting some people. ”
This study shows that high levels of non-working-time digital communication have a significant impact on the physical and mental health of employees. Not only can an individual's work-family relationship be damaged, but it can also cause psychological distress and negative physical health. Conversely, employees who have a good grip on the boundaries of their work are significantly less stressed.
Dr. Kurt Lushington, a professor of psychology, points out that dealing with work-related stress is becoming increasingly important in modern societies. "Managing communication during non-working hours can be challenging, but businesses/agencies do have the ability to stop 'work creep'. By establishing a robust psychosocial security environment to develop policies and related processes to protect mental health, it is expected to be possible to limit digital communication during non-working hours. First, the business/agency measures the demand for work so that it can mitigate the risk of employee delays in responding. They can then develop protective actions to prevent this unhealthy phenomenon.
"When the work is over, everyone should have the right to disconnect [from the network]." Professor Lushington concluded.
If you feel that work has dominated your life this year, then turn off your phone this New Year's Day holiday, rest and relax completely, and prepare for 2022 with full energy!
Resources:
[1] Will you check your emails over Christmas? Retrieved December 14, 2021, from https://www.unisa.edu.au/media-centre/Releases/2021/will-you-check-your-emails-over-christmas/
[2] Why you SHOULDN'T check your work emails over Christmas: People who respond to messages out of hours are more likely to suffer from burnout, study warns. Retrieved December 14, 2021, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10307671/Checking-work-emails-Christmas-leads-burnout-mental-distress-poor-physical-health.html
More recommendations
Click "Watching" and go again