Turn off the blackberry for a happy holiday 
[Wednesday, 20 January 2010]

Handheld mobile communication devices such as BlackBerrys can mean greater work engagement of employees but blur the lines between work and home life, Australian School of Business research has found.

Dr Judi MacCormick, a post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the School of Organisation and Management and Kristine Dery from the University of Sydney conducted interviews with senior management at two global investment banks, to determine specifically how BlackBerries affect productivity. The paper, entitled “To be or not to be connected? BlackBerrys changing our terms of engagement,”  examined the capacity of technology to change how we interact with work.

While increased compensation reinforces higher levels of engagement between employees the study said, this often meant longer working hours, use of discretionary time, more multi-tasking, increased “technology

addiction” and a reduced ability to disconnect from the device and separate work from non-work spaces.
 

“This study is important because it investigates the impact of a new work phenomenon that is shifting our work paradigm,” Dr MacCormick says.


“In the old work paradigm, the place and time of work was clearly delineated. However, the capacity of mobile technology to enable ‘always on, anywhere, anytime’ connectivity is changing this paradigm. This technology can intensify and broaden our view of engaged behaviour because of the ease with which users can carry their work with them, and engage in work activities in locations and at times that were previously ‘off limits’. The boundaries between work and non-work are shifting and blurring,” she said.


The research involved 29 interviews with senior managers in global banking, one of the first industries to adopt the technology. It concluded that BlackBerry devices enabled employees to use their time more efficiently. However this created problems for a number of research participants who said it also lead to excessive use of email communication, decreased attention spans, reduced the effectiveness of meetings, and less delegating of tasks while on holidays. Many reported they used the work BlackBerry for arranging social activities or keeping in contact with friends and family, while they were supposedly working.

While the study found individual users could choose not to let the “anytime, anywhere, office, morph into an every time, everywhere office”, Dr MacCormick said organizations need to be more cognizant of the demands they put on their workers.

“A culture that reinforces and rewards excessive work patterns, enabled by the technology, may suffer longer term issues such as attrition, OH&S liabilities and reduced creativity and innovation,” she said.

The BlackBerry can enable significantly greater work life balance she said.

“One parent may see it as a god send, being able to attend to his children and still be at work. Another might describe the scenario as an example of boundary incursion. The ‘always on’ connectivity that allows for minimising downtime maybe valued by a hyperactive executive or viewed by another as losing the opportunity for white space in which creativity can be nurtured.”

“Hyper-connectivity can thwart creativity as professionals often need reflective time to do their most important work,” Dr MacCormick said.