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

Victoria Dmochowski

Who checks their emails while travelling to and from work? I occasionally check my work calendar to refresh my memory of what's in store for the day but as I walk / scoot / cycle to work, dealing with emails has not become a habit for me.

Checking emails before getting to work can help people get ahead of the day or catch-up with what they missed by the end of it. If this is something your workforce regularly did, would you consider making the commute part of their working hours?

A researcher has said that the boundaries between home and work are being blurred due to improved internet access on trains but commuters say they like to have the time to transition between home and work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-45333270

What do you think? Could it lead to better work-life balance or increased stress and low productivity?

 

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  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    I blame it all on the change to terminology. We used to call it work-family balance and in the US many researchers still do. And the research historically focused on women. That was because women entered workplaces structured for men who were husbands with wives to do all the non-work stuff.

    Then somebody decided we should be more inclusive of those who don't necessarily have a family (think someone who dropped on the planet with no parents that might get old, siblings that might need support etc :) ) So we renamed it work-life balance. The 'life' bit really being shorthand for all those things that are not strictly work - it could be personal admin, recreational activities, studying, community volunteering etc etc. So how do we label that?

    And as an aside, research earlier this year by the charity Working Families revealed that modern fathers are finding the work-family balance as challenging as mothers do.

    In the meantime countless bloggers are spending time writing about how the terminology is wrong (and how we should aim for blend) rather than offering credible suggestions on how to make it right.
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  • in reply to Elizabeth Divver
    I blame it all on the change to terminology. We used to call it work-family balance and in the US many researchers still do. And the research historically focused on women. That was because women entered workplaces structured for men who were husbands with wives to do all the non-work stuff.

    Then somebody decided we should be more inclusive of those who don't necessarily have a family (think someone who dropped on the planet with no parents that might get old, siblings that might need support etc :) ) So we renamed it work-life balance. The 'life' bit really being shorthand for all those things that are not strictly work - it could be personal admin, recreational activities, studying, community volunteering etc etc. So how do we label that?

    And as an aside, research earlier this year by the charity Working Families revealed that modern fathers are finding the work-family balance as challenging as mothers do.

    In the meantime countless bloggers are spending time writing about how the terminology is wrong (and how we should aim for blend) rather than offering credible suggestions on how to make it right.
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