When the boundaries between home and work are eroded, it doesn’t just hurt people’s job and life satisfaction—it affects organizational performance.
Imagine it’s Friday evening. You’re about to watch a new Netflix drama, trying to unwind after a long week. Suddenly your phone pings with a work email marked “urgent.” Your heart sinks; your stress levels rise. Even if you choose not to respond immediately, the damage is done. Work has again encroached on your personal life.
The intrusion of work into home life, helped along by smartphones and other technologies, might seem like a triumph of efficiency. But this constant connectivity comes at a cost to employees and employers alike, research suggests.
The data is unequivocal: Engaging in work-related communication after regular business hours leads to emotional exhaustion, which in turn can spill over into counterproductive work behavior.
As a professor of communications, I wanted to understand what happens when people feel compelled to dash off work emails after dinner and before breakfast. So a colleague and I conducted a study investigating the effects of after-hours work communication.
Read the complete Fast Company article BYÂ The Conversation: https://www.fastcompany.com/91189726/work-emails-after-hours-burnout-hostility-research
