Work Weeks Are 15 Hours Longer with BlackBerry Devices

It’s great having a smartphone by your side, because you always have instant access to your email and the mobile web. It also means that you are always at the beck and call of your office, so you’re never completely off the clock. This latter fact makes it so that you are actually working more than you think you are and a new study is showing exactly how much more.

Peninsula is an employment law firm based out the UK and it conducted a study with about 600 employees who happen to be touting a BlackBerry. Largely because of this “digital ball-and-chain,” these employees are clocking in an average of 15 additional hours compared to their non-BlackBerry counterparts.

As you can imaginge, this can lead itself to a lot of overworking, a lot of burnout, and a lot of frustration. That’s not good for overall health and that’s not good for a life-work balance. According to Peninsula, business should enact BlackBerry blackout periods and not encourage staff to work from home unless absolutely necessary.

Since many employees are expected to be available (via the BlackBerry) when out of the office, they should be compensated accordingly when it comes to salary negotiations. If I’m putting in 15 hours of overtime, I want to be paid for it.

Also bear in mind that this was a UK-based study, so the figures may be a little different in Canada and the United States. I don’t have any numbers to back it up, but I’m thinking that we may have a more intense CrackBerry addition than our counterparts in the UK.

Source: Intomobile