Should checking emails on the commute count as 'working hours'?

The answer is yes to both Victoria. It depends on whether your preference is for Separation or Integration as the work-life balance researchers define the two concepts. Integrators will feel it gives them better balance, Separators may find it stressful.
More important in my view is the research carried out by my colleagues Gail Kinman and Almuth McDowall last year which revealed that half the workplaces they surveyed had no policy or guidelines on the use of email outside of working hours.

Hi Anna

I had not come across the concept of separation v integration before and it makes a lot of sense - that would be why it's no stress to me to deal with emails on the train and I am slightly flummoxed by the expression work-life balance. Obviously, I know what people mean by it but I don't find it that useful as a way of looking at my life. As I said above, work is not a thing apart from life, it is one of the things in our lives. Likewise, being a member of this forum is another thing in my life and I dip into it during the hours I am in the office. Where someone else would take a smoke break or a tea break, I have refreshing little dips into a debate. As Robey says, my work is about doing what I have to do to get everything done, not being present at a desk for a specified number of hours.

I have read about Millennials in the workplace being mystified by Boomer managers expecting them to put their phones away until lunchtime. Perhaps they are integrators too?

Hi Anna

I had not come across the concept of separation v integration before and it makes a lot of sense - that would be why it's no stress to me to deal with emails on the train and I am slightly flummoxed by the expression work-life balance. Obviously, I know what people mean by it but I don't find it that useful as a way of looking at my life. As I said above, work is not a thing apart from life, it is one of the things in our lives. Likewise, being a member of this forum is another thing in my life and I dip into it during the hours I am in the office. Where someone else would take a smoke break or a tea break, I have refreshing little dips into a debate. As Robey says, my work is about doing what I have to do to get everything done, not being present at a desk for a specified number of hours.

I have read about Millennials in the workplace being mystified by Boomer managers expecting them to put their phones away until lunchtime. Perhaps they are integrators too?

In my experience Elizabeth this is one concept that seems to resonate with people whenever I do a talk about work-life balance. It seems there are more Separators (by preference) out there than we might imagine. Being told about the continuum often gives them 'permission' to separate. Some have told me they feel expected to always integrate which doesn't suit them.

Both preferences have pluses and minuses - I explain this in a short blog post here: thebalancedleader.wordpress.com/.../

The important thing is to accept that just because you're an integrator not everyone around you will be - and to not fall into the trap of expecting them to be.

I am more of an integrator albeit I do not meet the typical demographic for such an approach give my age and lack of small children.
I find the distinction very helpful

I am finding this discussion fascinating. I work in a fairly traditional environment (City law firm) where a high value is placed on the amount of time bums are on seats. However it is also a knowledge industry, so should theoretically do better by looking out output rather than time.

I agree with Robey's view, but have seen little of that attitude in my working life, so it still feels pretty radical to me. Are there organisations, or even pockets of organisations, that really operate like this for those roles for non-time resource workers?

That concept of separators and integrators is useful, thank you. It is easy to assume that others have a similar attitude to work that you do and this spectrum is a neat way of explaining those differences.

It's interesting that many managers in my experience seem to veer between one perspective and another without really thinking about it, depending upon circumstances.

For example, if a high-performing employee arrives fifteen minutes late after being stuck in traffic, a manager will often think nothing of it because she knows he will make up the time by working harder and nothing will be lost. Meanwhile, a less well-regarded employee who arrived five minutes earlier might be told to take the time off their lunch break or to work it back by making sure they are ten minutes early tomorrow.

There is a correlation between a flexible attitude to "working hours" and SMART objectives. If a manager knows what to expect from her team and has an effective tool to tell her who is achieving this and who isn't, she is less likely to fixate upon who is on time and who isn't. She is ultimately going to be judged not on whether her team is at their desks on time but on whether her team is achieving the targets the company has set for it.

In non-time-resource teams, an obsessions with timeliness is often a proxy for the inability to measure effective performance in any other way. At the highest level, if a Director or similar is concerned with whether staff are at their desks or not, it's a signal that perhaps the company doesn't know what it should be measuring or doesn't have an effective tool to measure it.