'Flexible' Working Can Keep You Stressed Out For Longer, Lead to Illness (theguardian.com)

schwit1 sends news about the effects of flexible working schedules on the people who try them. Research has found that many employees fall into a "grazing" pattern for work — constantly being interrupted while working, and continuing to keep up with work emails when not — which results in having elevated stress levels for a longer period of time. This can make such workers more susceptible to illness, and it shows distinct biological consequences to having a poor work-life balance. Flexible working policies can also raise the risk of poor working conditions, and create resentment among colleagues ... The findings are a blow to advocates of more sophisticated measures for enabling people to achieve a work-life balance in rich economies that tend to overwork some people while underutilising millions of others. With an estimated 10m working days lost to work-related stress in the UK last year, finding a good balance between the demands of home and the job now dominates concerns about the impact of work on health.

Comments

Just like being on-call

[djb]

I had a flexi-remote working job for two years and it was the best gig I ever had. Yes I'd reply to emails at all hours of the day, but I also worked an average 6 hours a day and found it easy to maintain a life/work balance. I ended up moving to Barcelona for six months and had my dream life for a while traveling around the world and working from wherever I happened to be that day.

If you have a job that you enjoy, a good boss and co-workers then it's great. But you have to be someone who can copy with blurred lines in your life and the idea that working/non-working isn't a binary distinction.

It's the same with being on-call in an IT-support gig. Some people are happy to carry a pager and responded to it now and then, others for some reason that I don't understand get really stressed by it and feel on edge the whole time the pager is on their belt.

Re:Just like being on-call

[Ol Olsoc]

Because you enjoy it.

For everyone like you, there is someone else like you. That means everyone else must be more competitive which directly translates to more hours for less pay which can add stress to already stressed people.

Ah yes - the jealous co-worker, who gets pissed at me because my presence means they cannot fuck off all day, because I make them "look" bad.

Sorry, but that's just a game of the laziest bastard controls the output, and a fine way to go out of business.

I've worked with a few people like you. Unfortunately they were eventually given all the time off.

Consider that if you look at your employer as the enemy, there is a good chance they'll consider you the enemy as well.

Re:Due to management definition of "flexible"

[khasim]

And being told to "flex" your hours which means work overtime today (unpaid because you are salaried) and just work fewer hours tomorrow.

Oops. Not tomorrow. Here's another important thing that requires overtime. You can take 2x time off the day after.

Rinse and repeat.

I've had too many managers who think that making everything a "crisis" is an effective means of management.