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

For me the debate is about whether employers should be providing more guidance about emails in general and access "out of working hours" in the face of flexible working and an #AlwaysOn culture.

There's an interesting article here on this subject:

www.hrmagazine.co.uk/.../

Good spot, Elizabeth.

This:

The loyalty and flexibility I’ve been shown I think I’ve given back in spades... You can’t simply build a wall between work and life. Instead let’s work out how to live life well at work, and get the job done.

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.

For me, this is about 'culture'. As Peter Drucker is famously quoted as saying, "Culture will eat strategy for breakfast every time". If your company culture tends towards counting every hour spent 'at' work and defining it as such (industrial age model), then my guess is that will set up a culture where employees will start to become resentful of being asked to do more than their 'monitored' hours. If, however, employees are treated like adults and feel empowered to do what they have to do to get the work done (knowledge worker age), then it will be an arrangement that will work both ways. When the time is right, an employee will feel engaged and deliver discretionary effort (to deliver against the vision and values of the company), which may include checking emails during a commute - giving valuable time back. Equally, when they need some time back from their employer for, say, a family or personal matter, they will get it without question because the employer knows they deliver on their role brief - they are effective. In my experience, work at getting the culture right and this becomes a redundant question.

I absolutely agree Simon. Developing a great culture is essential. Translating that into a policy is equally important so people know what is expected of them. Colleagues of mine did some award winning research last year which showed that over half of organisations have no policy on accessing ICT out of hours leading people to fend for themselves and resulting in our "AlwaysOn" culture (www.bbk.ac.uk/.../dr-almuth-mcdowall-awarded-prestigious-ian-beardwell-prize)