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The digital age is the most exciting and revolutionary time of our lives and it has completely changed how we work. 

“Anytime, Anyplace Anywhere” For those of you who remember the Martini Rosso adverts of the 1980s this catchy tag line is probably the most accurate way to describe our working lives in 2016. We can work at anytime, anyplace and from anywhere!  

As a parent the ability to work from home is the reason I can work in the first place. To log into the company’s database, intranet system and attend meetings “remotely” enables me to do everything from home that I could do in the office. Working for a global recruitment company technology is key to communicating “face to face” with colleagues in different locations and time zones. The quality of our communication system unites us as a team and offers support to staff working out of international locations. 

So we have an ideal situation where technology allows us to do our jobs from just about anywhere and provides us with more flexibility than ever before – what could be wrong with that? However the downside or “dark side” of great technology is that we never “switch off”, really turn off our phones and iPads and “switch off” our brains, giving them the much needed re-boot they need.

Do you ever find yourself continuously checking you emails? Reaching for your phone when you are at home, at a restaurant, talking to a friend, watching a school play…whatever did we do to pass the time in a supermarket queue before the invention of iPhones? The ability to be in touch 24 hours a day is a double edge sword; it gives us flexibility and freedom but creates unhealthy habits of ALWAYS checking our phones and this has a huge impact on our non-work time. Constantly checking emails creates a continual source of stress and anxiety and interferes with our mental “down time” and emotional well-being.

London-based Future Work Centre which conducts psychological research on the work place experience urges users to take control of their emails instead of being ruled by them. They advise launching your email application when you want to use email and then close it down for periods of time when you do not want to receive emails - don’t always have your emails running in the background. Constant checking of emails has developed a culture where we feel we are always available to work. According to a report from Adobe Digital Insight, we spend 4.1 hours checking our work email each day which is more than 1,000 email hours each year. Put like that you may want to re think how many times you check your emails!

So how much responsibility should the employer take for these extended working hours? According to the TUC the average working week in the UK is 43.6 hours compared to the 40.3 hours of the European average.  The limit in France is 35 hours after the French famously introduced this in 1999. It was amended in April 2014 which required staff to switch off from work calls and emails after 6pm. This is to make sure workers benefit from “rest “periods.

BPS World work across many time zones and to prevent staff working 24 hours a day teams who are recruiting into Asia start their day at the office at 7am and leave at 4pm while those recruiting into the Americas start and finish later.  This way their working day is contained to set hours and they are not working extended hours to correspond with international clients. A holiday means a holiday to the company and staff are not expected to respond to emails during time off. BPS World recognises the importance of taking a break to restore ourselves and avoid mental fatigue.

It does take will power to break the habit of ‘I just need to check my phone’ by creating new, healthier patterns of phone use can help.  Impose an iPhone/iPad curfew - no checking emails after 8pm and before 8am, avoid temptation by leaving your phone in another room and not next to your bed.  Leave your phone at your desk during your lunch hour and keep it in the bottom of your bag if you are going out for dinner.  Staying connected offers us freedom but there is also a freedom to being un-connected – try it and see!

For more information please contact Joanne Lea on joanne.lea@bps-world.com