YOU are just about to step foot into the welcoming solitude of your home after a long day at work when the all too familiar tone goes off on your smartphone or tablet, signalling an incoming email.
Automatically you reach for your device and see that you have received an email from your immediate supervisor or boss saying “by the way, we should also work on …”
Without thinking, you get down to replying the email or sending it out to the rest of the team to think about or throw ideas back.
Before you know it, it is past your dinner time, and you are late in picking up your kids from tuition. And it just goes on, every day of the week, including on weekends.
The Eye has previously written about how we have become slaves to technology. This time, let us take a look at how we have become enslaved to our jobs, thanks to technology.
In August, news from Germany made headlines around the world and was briskly shared on social media. Germany’s employment ministry has banned managers from calling or contacting their employees before and after work hours, except in cases of emergency.
It was obvious from the responses on social networking that employees the world over hoped that a similar law or policy could also be imposed in their countries.
The Eye has friends who are usually burned out even before Monday starts. And understandably so. If you are married with kids, you will understand how tiring weekends are.
Gone are the days when weekends were about rest and relaxation. In this day and age, weekdays and even days off are to settle chores and obligations that are not job related. From getting the kids to their tuition or talent classes, house cleaning, grocery shopping, to getting the family cars serviced, and everything else one cannot afford to spend time doing during work hours.
In a recent survey, Randstad Workmonitor Report found employees are saying that they expect their jobs to be more demanding with the increased use of technology in the workplace.
This comes as no surprise really. With wireless technology and hand-held devices, bosses expect their employees to literally be at their fingertips.
And this can lead to burnout. A recent news feature quoted neuropsychologist Dr Nivashinie Mohan as saying that employees are ultimately getting less productive because they do not learn to “disconnect” from work, outside work hours.
According to the good doctor, employees who are literally on call 24 hours, replying to work related text messages, calls and emails each day, are likely to lose their balance in life, and end up getting stressed out.
Thanks to technology, we have become so accessible and reachable, that we have lost our personal time and space.
The lines have also become blurry where dedication to work is concerned. How many of us still respond to work related emails and text or chat messages when we are away on holiday, despite the fact that the matter is not all that urgent and could be left until we get back to work?
It also has a lot to do with social perceptions and workplace conditioning. We also often become guilt ridden when we do not respond immediately to these calls and emails.
In order to show that we are good and dedicated employees, we do not “disconnect”. Those who do “disconnect” are regarded as uncommitted to their jobs or as recalcitrant, and simply have no respect for their superiors or colleagues.
Earlier, the Eye mentioned that we have become enslaved to our jobs because of technology.
We cannot blame those little hand-held devices and wireless connections that have become so much a part of us these days. The real problem lies with the human factor – are we able to disconnect ourselves?
As bosses and supervisors, do we know when to draw the line and stop ourselves from conveniently reaching for the gadgets to ask our employees about things that we can actually figure out ourselves?
The Eye has seen what being unable to disconnect can do to a person. A close friend who is a reliable and committed employee recently suffered from burnout, which affected her health and family life, just because she could not disconnect herself, and because her supervisor became so dependent on her that he would even text her to ask for things that he could have figured out himself or easily looked up on the Internet.
So if you want to retain your sanity, health, personal space, time and relationships, learn to disconnect, so you can reconnect with the important things in life.
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