'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

[cyberchondriac]

>

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.

When it's in addition to your normal workday hours, and you have a week where you don't know what you're doing at night or over the weekend because you can't really make plans or go out to dinner or have too many beers, because some system might go down or need a restart or whatever, so you need to be home to VPN in, or lug around a work laptop w/ a cellular connection, that can work on the nerves. Especially so in a rotating schedule where some of the systems we may have to troubleshoot aren't really our own (our group is broken into logical specialties but the on-call thing is general). Worse, in my group's case anyway, we're expected to actively check our cellphone email (not a pager) regularly during that time, so we have to constantly be edgy.

Re:Just like being on-call

[quintessencesluglord]

I think it is more in line with commensurate compensation, and by large extent that is set by the culture of management.

I too have worked long hours to a point my paycheck was 1/3 of total labor costs (no joke) for a few months, but that was done with the expressed understanding that it would be temporary, and that management would do (and had the capability to make happen) everything in their power to correct the situation.

I've also worked in places where any demand for anything not specified in my agreement, well, they could fuck right off. Management had done everything in their power to earn my contempt, and I could hardly hold back my smile when I was let go.

The difference being I know when I'm being exploited, and I know when management is taking my needs into account. The "flexible' aspect doesn't reside exclusively with the employee. It also resides with management.

Re:Just like being on-call

[tlambert]

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.

The problem is that there is an expectation of interruption, if there is a possibility of interruption.

It's the same reason that approximately 50% of us can't work in an "open plan" office as effectively as if we had offices, and why approximately 15% of us can't think as deeply or profoundly about a problem when there is the risk of an interruption. It doesn't matter if it's the kids, or it's the wife, or it's a phone call, or it the "bong" from an incoming email or text message, or it's the vibration of your cell phone.

Being constantly "on guard" for an interruption means you have to divide your attention between monitoring the sources of potential interrupt for the interruption happening, and the thing you actually want to be or should be doing.

Almost all advertising in fact *relies* on the concept of attention economics, and interruptively stealing attention away from other pursuits in order to engage the target with the advertiser.

See also: Continous Partial Attention

Re:Just like being on-call

[quintessencesluglord]

It's understood that there are going to be differences between what management wants and what the employee wants, and at some shifting point in the middle everyone is at least not miserable.

And money quite honestly is the bare minimum that a job can offer. A co-worker was given two months off so he could fulfill his dream of back-packing through Europe. That type of consideration builds gratitude that will see a business through a rough patch. Most people tend to reciprocate in kind. That aspect of flexibility on the part of the employer is sorely lacking in most labor arrangements.

And for employees that may not be able (or willing) to offer more in times of FUBAR, competent management is able to take this into account and either fire (kidding) those people or at a minimum take pains to reduce the stress load.

The real problems are when management pays lip service to work-life balance, and there is no accommodation coming from their end. That shit won't fly for long.

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:Just like being on-call

[Attila Dimedici]

You make a very good point. My current job vs my last job is a perfect comparison that makes your point (or a good complementary one). I was unemployed when I got my last job, so I took a wage below what I believed (and still believe) to be my value to the company because I did not have the resume to prove I could do what I said I could do. I worked my ass off to prove I was as good as I claimed expecting that I would get a commensurate raise. I discovered that the owners of that company had a philosophy of paying the least they could get away with (which came back to bite them later when they lost customers as a result and could no longer afford even my discounted rate).

I was once again unemployed when I got my current job. Once again I took below my value to the company to get the job. Once again I busted my ass to prove my ability. This company saw my value and gave me that raise. Not only that, they saw that I could be more valuable to the company in the future and based that raise on where they expected me to be in six months, not where I was at the time of the raise. I will continue to bust my ass for this company, while the last six months at my last company (after I realized that they were not going to pay me for the effort) I spent doing what they paid me for and no more.

Re:Just like being on-call

[tlambert]

I think the problem is that you care too much about the risk of interruption.

I think the problem is that you don't understand that some people's brains are not wired in such a way that they can shut that sort of thing off.

These are the same people who make sure your product actually *works*, instead of just building a prototype or saying "Oh well; we'll fix it in the next release". People who are detail oriented can't simply shut that crap off.

Due to management definition of "flexible"

[Opportunist]

It usually means "I want to be lazy, not do any planning, not do my job and you'll be at my beck and call to iron out my blunders".

And yes, that's going to stress you into a burn-out.

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.

It's not flexible if work can demand when you flex

[Anonymous Coward]

I work flexible hours, and I'm the happiest and most stress-free I've ever been. Didn't realize it until lately when I started experiencing stress again in my personal life. What a change! Don't let work dictate when your working hours are if you can help it. And especially don't *be* flexible about when work can schedule your hours if you can't set your own. The not-knowing of next week's schedule is what will cause your a constant tremor of worry, but being able to say "Oh, something came up, boss, I'll finish Wednesday's hours on Saturday" is like removing the weight of the world.

Re:Working vs. not working

[peragrin]

wow talk about taking things out of context.

inflation has gone up so much that you need two incomes to compensate for it. When women started working people suddenly had extra income. which they then spent on things. businesses expanded, which hired more workers, and the situation pushed farther and farther. now you need two incomes to survive.

Also back then medical expenses where cheap yes but then so was the care. no mri, no cat scans, more people died on the table than lived. etc. medical expenses are sky rocketing because we have old people who need constant care, but can't pay for it. however if we take away that care they get pissy. try it. in the USA our budget is easily broken down into 30% for medicare, 30% for SS and 30% for military with he balance for every thing else.

not once will you hear any political talk about cutting SS down sharply to pay for the ever growing debt.

now back to inflation. yes officially the USA government puts it 2% a year more or less, however it all secondary markets (not food, gas, etc) it goes up on average 5%. with some goods like TV's or dishwashers actually going down -2%. that is why new tv's keep coming out, and why refrigerators are still $500-$1000 the same price they were 30 years ago. Car however keep going up. with base models of basic cars used to $12k in 2000, it is closer to $18k for the same model(mostly) now.

lastly before medicare. 60% of the population didn't have any health care. doctors are for the rich after all. that is your moto is it not? Currently 30% of the population doesn't have decent medical care. I can't afford visits to my primary care doctor. I can't afford the co-pay even with health care. I don't have an extra $100 per visit to spend.