‘Always-on’ culture

The almost universal use of smartphones, tablets and laptops means work, including accessing emails and instant messages, is now just as easy to do at home as in the office. For employees whose work devices are also for personal use, it can be even more difficult to avoid looking at work outside of official working hours.

Employees may feel that they are always ‘on call’, that they should respond to emails and messages even when they are not working. This makes it difficult for them to disconnect from work, eroding the boundaries between work and personal life.

This can have a negative impact on work-life balance, which is an employee’s assessment of how personally favourable the combination of their work and non-work roles is for them. A healthy work-life balance means different things to different people. It’s not so much about splitting time 50/50 between work and leisure but more about ensuring fulfilment and contentment in both areas of life.

The resulting ‘always-on’ culture that this difficulty in disconnecting generates impacts productivity and morale and contributes to employee stress and pressure which, when long term and consistent, can lead to burnout.

Its effect can also disrupt healthy team dynamics. If some team members are seen to be responding to emails at all hours while others are not, it can cause tension between colleagues and create a competitive environment rather than a collaborative and supportive one.

In 2017, France introduced a ‘right to disconnect’ law to tackle the ‘always-on’ culture and some organisations have put email policies in place that limit the times when employees should respond to emails, promoting a more positive culture. Volkswagen was reportedly the first company worldwide to implement such a policy when it configured its servers so emails could only be sent to employees' phones from half an hour before to half an hour after the working hours and not at all outside working hours.

However, researchers at the UK’s University of Sussex Business School found that while banning staff from accessing emails outside office hours can help employees to switch off, it can also hinder them achieving work goals, causing more stress for some.

Monitoring of employees

Technologies that enable remote meetings and other forms of communication and collaboration outside of the office (such as video conferencing platforms, cloud-based services and storage for document sharing and instant messaging applications) have supported a shift to more flexible working. These technologies have allowed for new ways of working including hybrid working models, where employees work partly in the physical workplace and partly remotely and those where employees are ‘homeworkers’, always working remotely.

These new working arrangements have driven a demand for digital tools that enable organisations to monitor their employees’ activities. Monitoring can be for the good of the employees, as well as for that of the organisation.

These monitoring tools are designed to track attendance, workload, performance and productivity, as well as deter rule breaking such as spending time playing online games or online shopping instead of working.

They can also support employees and limit burnout by collecting information about the hours that employees are active, including when emails are sent, to ensure that they are getting enough time away from work.

Monitoring programs can record keystrokes or track computer activity by taking periodic screenshots. Other software records calls and meetings, or accesses employees’ webcams. Artificial intelligence can be used to monitor and analyse messages sent between employees. The applications of such software include real-time monitoring of employee sentiment and spotting cases of harassment, non-compliance and other inappropriate and illegal actions.

However, using technology in this way can make employees feel that they are under surveillance and that their privacy is being invaded. This can cause stress, damage trust and hinder open communication, all of which can negatively impact an organisation’s culture.

Organisations should therefore balance operational needs with legal considerations – for example, data protection regulations, and ethical implications such as respecting employee privacy. They should be transparent with employees and clearly communicate why and how monitoring tools are used.

It is worth noting that Amazon was fined €32 million by French regulators for what they considered to be an excessive system for monitoring employee activity and performance.

Lack of face-to-face communication

The increased use of digital communication tools and the rise in flexible working arrangements have led to a decrease in face-to-face interactions. This can have implications for organisational culture.

For instance, it impacts employees’ ability to create personal connections with colleagues, which means it is harder for teams to build trust and team spirit, and it can foster feelings of isolation among employees. This can weaken inclusion and teamwork aspects of an organisational culture.

Digital communication via online chats or off-cameras video meetings can lead to misunderstandings due to the absence of non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and body language, which can create conflicts and negatively impact a collaborative culture.

To overcome these problems, organisations can prioritise opportunities for on-camera video meetings. Employees can also be encouraged to engage in non-work-related online conversations like those they would have had in office corridors or kitchens, for instance. Those working remotely or in a hybrid working environment can join online team-building activities designed to strengthen relationships and interpersonal connections.

A blog by Hotjar, a software company, describes its approach to fostering a connection between remote workers:

‘Working remotely means team members have very little interaction with other departments even when they’re all working towards the same goal. It’s easy for teams to go for months without interacting with each other or even knowing who is in a different department. This can lead to discomfort or avoidance when working together.

We encourage people to have one-on-one video calls with as many people as they can in their first week – regardless of whether they’re in the same department or not.

On an ongoing basis, we have something we’ve named the ‘donut call,’ which randomly matches two people from across the company for a 30-minute video call. It aims to replicate standing around the watercooler having a chat about your weekend with someone from another department.

Fostering connections between different departments creates a more cohesive team and introduces a level of comfort for people who are working together remotely.’

(10 ways to build a productive and happy remote team)

Some employers believe that the collaborative culture needed to support their organisation’s success can only be fostered by some level of face-to-face interaction between staff, however. This might vary from meetings in the office to a requirement for employees to be in the office a minimum number of days a week or month.

Summary

There are undoubtedly many benefits for organisations that embrace new technologies but, to mitigate their negative impacts on organisational culture, they should establish clear boundaries to ensure a work-life balance, promote transparency, foster human connections and emphasise employee wellbeing.

Reference
1. Casper, WJ, Vaziri, H, Wayne, JH, DeHauw, S, and Greenhaus, J (2018). 'The jingle-jangle of work–nonwork balance: A comprehensive and meta-analytic review of its meaning and measurement'. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(2), 182–214. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000259

Written by a member of the Strategic Business Leader examining team