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The New Norm: Constant Availability in the Workplace
-- By MatthewSchwartz - 27 Nov 2023
Constant Availability: 24/7 Workforce |
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< | We are more connected than ever before. This has led to a deterioration of "work-life balance." Following the recent pandemic, flexibility has increased; there are of course benefits to working from home: less commute time and the ability to spend more time with our loved ones. However, we are working around three hours more per day, on average. Also, burnout is at an elevated level. |
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> | The rise of technology has simultaneously enhanced human communication and diminished “work-life balance.” The recent pandemic introduced greater remote flexibility for many knowledge workers. There are of course benefits to this: less commute time and the ability to spend more time with loved ones. However, employers have created trade-offs for this benefit—employees are now working around three hours more per day, on average, and burnout is at an elevated level. |
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< | The trend of institutional actors (the government, workplace, and school) encroaching more into our lives for their benefit is no new trend. In Orwell’s famous book, 1984, it was assumed that mass surveillance and social control could only originate by the government; however, that is not the case at all. According to Shoshana Zuboff, we are living in an age of “surveillance capitalism.” The behavioral data that both private and governmental actors collect about us are used to exploit us. Our choices are commercialized, and we are under constant surveillance. |
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> | The trend of institutional actors (the government, workplace, and school) encroaching more into our lives for their benefit is not a revolutionary concept. In Orwell’s famous book, 1984, it was assumed that mass surveillance and social control could only originate by the government; however, modern society indicates otherwise. According to Shoshana Zuboff, we are living in an age of “surveillance capitalism.” The behavioral data that both private and governmental actors collect about us are used to exploit us. Our choices are commercialized, and we are under constant surveillance and control. |
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The Cons of Constant Availability |
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< | It is no surprise today that our ability to focus and pay attention are collapsing today. 35% of workers feel like they can’t turn their phone off because their boss might contact them anytime. In the Social Dilemma, social media executives talked about how algorithms are used to manipulate our behavior to lead to longer, more consistent engagement with the platform. Social media is meant to become addicting and to extract every possible cent out of us, either through advertising or purchases on the platform, a true parasite. |
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> | Advancements in technology have encouraged more addictive behavior. In the Social Dilemma, social media executives discussed how algorithms are used to manipulate our behavior to lead to longer, more consistent engagement with the platform. Social media is meant to inspire users to interact with content or make purchases for advertised products. |
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< | Like how social media attempts to alter our behavior and make us constantly available to become addicted to the platform, workforces are now making more of an effort to intrude into our personal time and have become omnipresent, even outside of normal working hours. Research has concluded that our brains need breaks. Burnout is at an elevated level compared to before COVID-19. My feelings of burnout and lack of motivation at times were also shared by several workers in a study in 2022 by the American Psychological Association Work and Well-Being study. 32% of workers experienced emotional exhaustion, a 38% jump from prior to the pandemic. There are also physiological changes to the brain as a result of acute chronic job stress that can atrophy the brain mass and cause a decrease in brain weight. |
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> | The workforce is now emulating this tactic for constant engagement with knowledge workers, making more of an effort to become omnipresent, even outside of normal working hours. 35% of workers feel like they can’t turn their phone off because their boss might contact them anytime. In a 2022 study by the American Psychological Association Work and Well-Being study, 32% of workers experienced emotional exhaustion, a 38% jump from prior to the pandemic. However, research has concluded that our brains need breaks. There are physiological changes to the brain as a result of acute chronic job stress that can atrophy the brain mass and cause a decrease in brain weight. It is clear that constant availability can lead to the demise of the workforce. |
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> | A Potential Solution? |
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> | A Shorter Workweek |
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> | A solution to this issue is challenging, but necessary, given the dangers of our work detrimentally affecting our health. There eventually will become a point of diminished returns when working more actually harms employees’ productivity and therefore a business’ profitability. Finding the goldilocks zone for each employee is a guess at best. |
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< | A Potential Solution? |
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> | The simple long-term solution for knowledge workers might be a shorter work week with extra hours and breaks each workday. 4 Day Week Global has implemented this strategy with many organizations. The organizations they have worked with had a 36% increase in revenue, a 42% decrease in employee resignations and a 54% reported increase in work ability from employees. The trade-off of one extra day off can mitigate stressors like the need to constantly check emails or feel like work is the most important part of one’s identity. |
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< | A Shorter Workweek |
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> | However, while a reduced work week might reduce some stress levels on certain days, it may not be enough to create a stricter boundary between work and personal time altogether. Rethinking the actual working day, regardless of how many there are, may be required to get to a better solution. |
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< | A solution to this issue is quite challenging, especially since work continues to encroach into our lives. Our job is inextricability tied to our identity, but it should not be our whole identity or detrimental to our health. There eventually will become a point of diminished returns when working more actually harms employee’s productivity and the profitability of the business. Finding the goldilocks zone for each employee is a guess at best. |
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> | A Focused Workday |
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< | The best incentive to work is pay to many people. However, limiting the hours worked also will impair employee’s autonomy. Some countries have toyed with this notion of limiting overtime hours per year. In Spain, employees can’t work over 80 overtime hours yearly. |
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> | As employees are spending more hours dedicated to their careers, it is no surprise that many of them feel unable to focus on their own needs. Part of this may be due to the sheer amount of time workers are asked to participate in meetings—both in person and virtually through tools like Zoom. According to a study, 65% of senior managers said meetings keep them from completing their own work, while 71% found these same meetings both unproductive and inefficient. |
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< | The real question is how are countries determining what is defined as "work." Is me checking my phone out of anxiety that my employer has emailed me at 8 PM, despite the workday supposedly ending at 5 PM? I would argue that it is, since this additional burden is consistently being placed on me outside of working hours. The fact that there is a possibility that additional work will need to be done today, leading me to constantly have to check-in on the status of my work email, is work. |
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> | Modifying the workday to reduce inefficiencies and give workers the time they need to focus, be creative, and decompress may prove effective. One such option may be company-wide meeting free days. This practice, which has already been implemented across numerous companies including Atlassian and Mastercard, may provide an opportunity for teams to maximize their working time, thereby reducing the need to contact one another during off hours. In fact, even one no-meeting day per week has been shown to increase satisfaction and productivity, while decreasing stress. |
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< | Given my definition of work, it inevitably becomes unlikely that something that limits job hours per week or yearly is unlikely to work, since client-facing jobs like big law are not as flexible. Should we as a society just stop trying to progress? I think the answer to that question is rhetorical: no. |
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> | Companies can also think about implementing more formal workload management to ensure resources are maximized, but not overused. Consistent evaluations of worker utilization can lead to a more efficient and effective organization, as well as a healthier employee base. |
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< | Since society wants to progress, the solution to overbearing work hours, stress, anxiety, when the workplace will consistently encroaching more on our lives is a shorter work week with longer hours on the workday and breaks. 4 Day Week Global has implemented this strategy with many organizations. The organizations they have worked with had a 36% increase in revenue, a 42% decrease in employee resignations and a 54% reported increase in work ability from employees. By not requiring an employee to work an extra day, they can mitigate stressors of having to constantly check their phone and feel like work is an even larger part of their identity. That is why I think the future of work should be a 4-day week. See. This will help mitigate the inevitable progression of employers into our day-to-day. If a 4 -day week is implemented, the 4 work days inevitably will be more challenging, but there is a greater expectation of accomplishing goals that day. This in turn will likely lead to improved efficiency. A shorter workweek is also in demand. According to a survey by Bankrate, 81% of workers want a 4-day workweek. |
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> | Unionized Demands |
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< | The climate also will thank us if we choose to switch to a shorter workweek, since there would be less commuting. Many estimates say that a full day off would reduce our carbon footprint by almost 30%. With a reduction in our carbon footprint, we can keep our planet in better shape. According to a 2019 meeting held by the United Nations, there is only 11 years to prevent irreversible climate change. Now is the time for urgency to take steps that can help not only our mental health, but also our planet. |
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> | As knowledge workers become an increasingly important part of large unions, like the UAW, there is an opportunity to use bargaining power to address this growing issue at the government level for relevant industries. The primary asks should be: create a formal system for tracking working hours for knowledge workers, which can help with the allocation of appropriate overtime bonuses, obligate employers to provide at least 2, 30-minute breaks during working hours for knowledge workings, require employers to post expected working hours on job postings, and mandate vacation time for all employees. While unions may only represent a subset of knowledge workers, these changes can help set the standard for non-unionized industries to follow. |
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Like many (perhaps most) forms of labor-management negotiation, the macro-negotiation you are describing proceeds within the prevailing limits on our imagination about how work is organized, and then calls upon workers to trade off their various interests within those limits. Perhaps a shorter formal workweek is the optimal compromise, but your original point of departure was not an expansion of the formal workweek, but the increasing appropriation of the worker's attention and disruption of psychic life by the pervasive-communications network enveloping increasingly-remote knowledge workers. In the grand tradition of pork-chop unionism, you propose to bargain that away for a one-time 20% pay hike. |
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> | Independent Work |
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< | Actual effort to treat the worker's psychic integrity and control of the workplace boundary as the primary goal of the organized knowledge-worker force would lead to very different negotiating outcomes, one hopes. As the membership of the UAW comes over the next decade to balance more equally member workers who make knowledge and member workers who make cars, we shall see how the negotiation evolves. I think the best route to improvement here is to put a less focused emphasis on the "deal du jour," and to look a little more broadly at what workers might think about work, and demand from those who claim to control "the job."
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> | While the above solutions require change to come directly from employers or the government, there is still an opportunity for employees to take control of their time back into their own hands. Technology may be the root of the problem discussed, but it may also present itself as a potential solution. The rise of technology has allowed more individuals to become their own boss through self-employed freelance work—an increasingly more common option during the layoffs of the pandemic and the Great Resignation that followed. And freelance workers are in great demand, with a 2023 UK study claiming 96% of companies will use freelance support during the year. If employers refuse to make major shifts, knowledge workers may have to resort to being the leaders of their own work-life balance. |
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