Do you use your work phone after business hours?

Today, many work tasks can be addressed using mobile devices at home, a situation that blurs the boundaries between work and everyday life. This blurring of the boundaries between the job and non-job domains can be challenging and beneficial for employees and their organizations.

A study at the University of Jyväskylä reveals that the combination of work and other daily activities may have more benefits than previously supposed, and points out the importance of communication that goes beyond the limits.

A smartphone allows phone calls, emails, and file transfers from the comfort of home. The question, therefore, is how to balance work and another life when technology blurs the boundary between them.

People easily think that by restricting employees’ hours of work and their use of work phones, we can mitigate the negative consequences of using technology. A recent study at the University of Jyväskylä shows that there can be more effective ways to maximize the benefits of using smartphones, without decreasing employee flexibility and using these technologies.

“People often forget to talk about the positive effects, such as the autonomy and freedom that employees get when they have the flexibility to schedule their work,” says JYU postdoctoral researcher Ward van Zoonen, who along with colleagues examined the use of smartphones for work matters. Outside working hours.

Supportive interaction makes people commit to work

The study paid special attention to the benefits that flexible working and talking about household matters with the immediate supervisor outside of working hours bring to an employee.

“This reduces the conflict between work and the afterlife,” says van Zoonen. “If people in an organization strive for greater dialogue between different domains of life for employees, it is possible to create a functional environment where people can talk about different issues.”

Research results show that when employees communicate across boundaries and talk about their lives at work in other ways, they can receive new kinds of support and understanding from their immediate supervisor.

“This type of communication creates a low threshold for contacting the supervisor, which helps employees build a balance between the different domains of their lives and strengthens their organizational identification,” says Professor Anu Sivunen when describing the findings.

This means that, after all, strict work time restrictions to protect employees may not be beneficial if they prevent the positive results indicated in this research from being achieved.

The supervisor plays a critical role in the success of flexible work.

The data for this research was collected by two surveys, both answered by the same 367 employees of a Nordic company. They were asked, for example, how much they discuss their work with their family and how much they discuss their family with their immediate supervisor.

“Both supervisors and their employees answered the surveys, and the study really focused on their mutual communication,” says Sivunen.

“Generally, people in workplaces are interested in how communication within the work community is succeeding. It is often forgotten how an immediate supervisor can take into account the afterlife of an employer and therefore , help the employee obtain work-related benefits. “

According to van Zoonen, there is a need for this type of research in today’s working life.

“The use of a work phone in one’s spare time may be decreased, but such measures are difficult to implement in our current global environment,” he says. “For example, in international organizations, different time zones may make it impractical to work only from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.”

Furthermore, due to the current exceptional situation with remote work due to coronavirus, many work communities are faced with an environment where there are no daily face-to-face meetings in the workplace.

“Communication with the immediate supervisor during flexible work hours, also on non-work issues, could facilitate the daily lives of many employees if they could share the potential challenges of their family life or free time with their supervisor in these settings,” Sivunen says. “This would also make the supervisor better aware of the situation of the employee working from home and the related impacts on job performance.”