“But being available to work both day and night limits the opportunity for people to recover – doing things such as exercise and catching up with friends and family – and when there is no recovery period you can start to burn out.

“Our research shows that high levels of out-of-hours work digital communication can have a significant impact on your physical and mental wellbeing, affecting work-family relationships, causing psychological distress, and poor physical health.

“Conversely, workers who kept their work boundaries in check experienced less stress and pressure.”

The research showed that those who were expected to respond to after-hours communications from colleagues on the weekends reported higher levels of psychological distress (56 percent compared to 42 per cent); emotional exhaustion (61 percent compared to 42 percent); and poor physical heath (28 percent compared to 10 percent).

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported that nearly one in two Australians will experience a mental health condition at some time in their life.

UniSA’s Professor Kurt Lushington says that dealing with work-related stress is increasingly important.

“Managing out-of-hours communications can be challenging, but organizations do have the power to discourage ‘work creep’,” Prof Lushington says.

“Setting up policies, practices and procedures to protect psychological health by developing a strong Psychosocial Safety Climate is likely to limit damaging out-of-hours digital communication. And, on a broader scale, this is already being considered in various Enterprise Bargaining Agreements and National Employment Standards.

“The starting place is measuring work demand so that an organization can mitigate the risk in the first place. Once they do this, they can develop protective actions that can prevent the development or continuations of harmful workplace norms.

“At the end of the workday, everyone should have the right to disconnect.”

Source: Eurekalert