BlackBerry users work longer hours
Being always connected and always online is, for many, a great advantage in the working world. But that can also mean that working hours are being stretched.
A recent study by employment law firm Peninsula has found that employees who use BlackBerry phones extend their working week to 55 hours – an extra 15 hours on the national average.
What this report is really showing is the way that modern office hours are becoming increasingly irrelevant as workers send and receive emails and keep on working long after they get home and should be relaxing. Of course, it’s not the BlackBerry that’s to blame, it’s the users who feel they have to work like this to get ahead. And once you’ve started down the line of “always on” communication it’s very hard to stop – even harder to tell your bosses that you don’t want to be contacted at the weekend any more!
Over the next few years there might well be some form of backlash to this lifestyle as people start to reclaim their non-working hours. You can’t work all the time!
