After-hours work anxiety impacting on families

Employer expectations of work e-mail monitoring during non-work hours are detrimental to the health and well-being of not only employees but their family members as well. William Becker, a Virginia Tech associate professor of management in the Pamplin College of Business, co-authored a new study that showed that such expectations result in anxiety, which adversely affects the health of employees and their families. ‘The competing demands of work and non-work lives present a dilemma for employees,’ Becker said, ‘which triggers feelings of anxiety and endangers work and personal lives’. Other studies have shown that the stress of increased job demands leads to strain and conflict in family relationships when the employee is unable to fulfil non-work roles at home. Their new study, he said, demonstrates that employees do not need to spend actual time on work in their off-hours to experience the harmful effects. The mere expectations of availability increase strain for employees and their significant others – even when employees do not engage in actual work during non-work time.