blurring the work-life balance

THE DISAPPEARING GAP BETWEEN WORK AND HOME LIFE

Loop Technology partner Clearswift has unveiled its next research report outlining the impact of social media and Web 2.0 on today’s workplace. The research has brought to the fore the rise of a new group of workers - ’Generation Standby‘ – who never seem to fully switch off from work or home. Generation Standby are so attuned to this way of working that even in these economically challenging times, one fifth (21%) would turn down a job that did not allow them to access social networking sites or personal email during work time.

The characteristics of this group is that they are regularly ‘home-ing’ from work due to the increased pressure to work longer hours, regularly carrying out social and private tasks at work. The trend is most pronounced amongst 25 – 34 year olds, with 57% undertaking personal tasks such as checking social networks, email, online shopping at work. Although 66% of all employees say they make up the time they spend using the internet for personal reasons by working later or through lunch.

And it is men who are more likely to ‘home from work’ than women:
• Logging into social networking sites: 48% men vs 36% of women
• Checking personal email: 69% of men vs 54% of women
• Shopping online: 34% of men vs 20% of women

Social networking and Web 2.0 key to employee morale

Whilst the majority of employees are willing to be flexible when it comes to longer hours or different hours, as the business demands, they do expect some ‘give’ in return:

• 79% respondents said over and above job role and pay, the most important things to them in a job included being trusted to manage their own time, and being trusted to use the internet as they wish
• 62% of employees feel they should be able to access web / social networking content from their work computer for personal reasons (compared to 51% of managers) in order to complete ‘home-ing from work’ tasks.

Hilary Backwell, Clearswift - Global HR Director: “Call it multi-tasking or life-splicing but increasingly, fuelled by advances in technology, employees are blurring the boundaries between home and work. What this report has shown is that ‘Generation Standby’ employees are now enjoying, and expecting, greater levels of flexibility and mobility than ever before – but this cultural shift raises new questions about trust in the workplace, the use of new technologies, the balance of power in the employer vs. employee relationship and levels of control that businesses now have over people and content.”

A copy of the report is available for download here.

Additionally, you can benchmark your approach to social media in the workplace by using our online tool here.

About the Clearswift ‘Web 2.0 in the Workplace’ 2010 report Survey conducted in January/February 2010. Sample size: 1,629 managers and employees in UK, USA, Germany and Australia.

Supporting points:
§ A recent survey by IDG found that 50% of companies were already using or planned to use web 2.0 technologies in the next year (IDG Market Pulse April 2009).
§ According to survey of 500 of America’s fastest growing companies, 34 percent of companies reported that they were using social media to communicate with vendors and suppliers (Inc.com, Nov 09 http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2009/11/inc500-social-media-usage.html)