Pew Survey: Tech Increases Productivity, But Also Time Spent Working 82
An anonymous reader writes: A survey of American workers conducted by the Pew Research Center found that email was their most indispensable tool, topping even broad access to the internet. 46% of workers say their productivity has increased thanks to email, the internet, and cell phones, while only 7% say those technologies have caused it to decrease. While many workers say technology has created a more flexible work schedule, they also say it has increased the total amount of hours they spend working. Almost half of the surveyed employees say their employer either forbids or explicitly blocks access to certain websites at the office. How have these technologies affected your work environment?
Re:I answer work e-mail from home. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a reasonable expectation, and to "remember" someone for not responding to an email that could wait until the next day is beyond draconian.
People have lives that start at the close of business. Yes, yes, I realise that for some people, there is no close of business, but I have told every boss I've ever worked for that when I walk out the door, I'm unemployed until I walk back in the following work day. I do not give out my personal mobile number to colleagues, only to the boss -- on the understand it's for emergency use only. I don't want to be "online" at all hours as I've got a family, and they come first. Work for me is a means to make money and do something I find relatively interesting -- it's not the be all and end all. I don't live to work -- I work to live. Try it. Get a girlfriend, have a beer, go see the sights with said girl. Getting off the grid is healthy and let's you enjoy life.
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I am online all the time, I answer work e-mail from home at all hours. I can't technically discipline anyone for not replying to me off-hours, but it does get remembered.
British law states that, "workers have the right to 11 hours rest between working days (eg if you finish work at 8pm, they shouldn’t start work again until 7am the next day)." and "Workers have the right to: (a) an uninterrupted 24 hours without any work each week, or (b) 48 hours each fortnight". source [www.gov.uk]
I set my phone to not check my work email outside working hours, and not at all while I'm on holiday. I don't think it would be a bad thing if the majority of people were normally prevented from acces
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Duh (Score:4, Interesting)
Talk about overstating the obvious. You can't leave work anymore. Every boss or company problem invades you digitally. Whether it's an e-mail or a text message you're always on the clock and expected in most cases to be available. This used to be true for tech workers but it's now anybody.
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Depends on the job (Score:4, Interesting)
>> Whether it's an e-mail or a text message you're always on the clock and expected in most cases to be available
That really depends on the job, my friend. I don't have any work email on my mobile devices. I do publish my cell phone number on all my email sigs, at my desk, etc. What happens in practice is this:
1) You send me email when I'm not in the office: I learn about the next time I sit down or RPC in - during business hours.
2) You send me a text: you get "twitter length and quality" answers from me. After every 3-5 messages I'm likely to ask you, "is this something I need to sign on and look at immediately?" If that answer is "no" I'll have you send me an email and I'll look at it during business hours.
3) You call me: OK, you've got my attention, but thanks to recent changes in culture a live phone call is considered invasive and for high-priority stuff only.
The result is that I'm really only pulled into business work about once a week, maybe twice if I'm on vacation.
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I think it's really a problem of culture, and not technology. Even back when we just had landlines, your boss could have been calling you constantly, and required that you stuck close to the phone and made yourself available for phone calls. The problem isn't cell phones and email per se, but the expectation on instant availability that they've helped to foster.
Therefore, we need to break those expectations. I've actually told my boss that if he emails me outside of work hours, I might check my mail and
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1) Not if everyone figures out "hey, pla actually has a life! I want in on that!" and does the same thing; and,
2) You won't find me putting up with any company that has a "work yourself to death" culture for long enough to get promoted anyway.
If nothing else, I thank the Millennials for changing the BS work-before-life attitude that evolved in the '80s. Perhaps in another 20 years we'll actually have halfway decent working cond
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This might result in you getting overlooked for promotions, but so be it.
1) Not if everyone figures out "hey, pla actually has a life! I want in on that!" and does the same thing; and,
2) You won't find me putting up with any company that has a "work yourself to death" culture for long enough to get promoted anyway.
I agree with this. Part of the reason I'm ok with trying to set this kind of expectation is, I'm generally not willing to work in a position where I need to be on-call 24/7. If someone wants me to be in that position, I would be willing to do that for a short stint if I were rewarded with a large amount of money. I am even willing to say that in job interviews, because I want no misunderstanding. I don't want to be hired for a job that includes terms that I find unacceptable.
Of course, it helps that I'
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A few questions - why are you checking work email outside of work? Why are you giving work your personal cellphone number?
It's an important question, because unless they give you a blackberry or a phone, you really have no
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+1
So many people I work with have their work email on their devices. They are always surprised when I dont have my email or calendar on my phone and every time I tell that that until the office wants to pay for my service they will not have their information on my personal device. Why they are willing to do it I have no idea
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Liking your employer has nothing to do w/ keeping your work and personal life separate. There is no reason to use your personal cell phone for office emails, and likewise, your office laptop for personal errands. It's best to have separate things cleanly demarcated. Either your office provides you a cellphone for official purposes, while you maintain your own laptop/tablet and cellphone for your personal banking, checking out movies and restaurants, FaceTime w/ relatives and so on
It's a bit like George
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I took 2 separate lines, of which one is available for work usage, in case I don't get a phone from my employer, and another is ONLY for personal/family reasons. I don't use the first line for family at all, and I don't second line for work.
The disappointing thing is that too many people conflate work and personal stuff on to common devices, be it their work laptop, personal cell, tablet, et al. It's a good idea to keep things separate, so that in case one does get reimbursed for usage, it's straightfor
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If they want to invade us during non-business hours, then they should still pay us too. If not, then stop it.
Of course (Score:2)
Productivity goes up. Less labor is needed. The value of your labor goes down. You have to work more. Also, unemployment is higher.
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The job market sucks - much of it because employers are squeezing everything they can out of the workforce they have .
No, the job market sucks because a) there's a huge swath of the world willing to work for much less than you, and b) the developed world has succeeded at making the developed world a terrible place to employ people. Instead of just another thoughtless blaming of the current economic situation in the developed world on employers, you should ask what are the incentives that cause employers to try to squeeze more of existing labor than to employ more people?
There's always been greedy people, but history is
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Simple: they're trying to maximize profits. At current productivity levels availability of labor is not the main limiting factor for production, thus unemployment exists; since unemployment exists, the law of supply and demand makes it possible to pay less and demand
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Simple: they're trying to maximize profits. At current productivity levels availability of labor is not the main limiting factor for production, thus unemployment exists; since unemployment exists, the law of supply and demand makes it possible to pay less and demand more from employees, thus the employers do just that.
Then what is the main limiting factor? Resources, land, and capital aren't all that expensive either. Instead, I think it's a standard regulatory problem: disincentivize employment and as a result less people are employed.
Give social security generous enough that not working becomes an okay life strategy. Force employers to actually compete for employees, even for McJobs, and wages will rise and business models only profitable by exploiting desperate people will collapse due to lack of such people. Simultaneously, use toll barriers to protect against offshoring and tax all income generated within the country, no matter where the corporate headquarters are nominally located.
You still have to come with a funding source for this social security. Employers already compete for employees, there's no need to "force" them to do that. And protectionism won't succeed when you cut your economy off from the success and innovation of the places that aren't failing hard.
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you should ask what are the incentives that cause employers to try to squeeze more of existing labor than to employ more people?
We all already know this answer.
The American economy in the last 40 years has become increasingly tied to the the stock market and the quarterly expectations of shareholders.
That is why.
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The American economy in the last 40 years has become increasingly tied to the the stock market and the quarterly expectations of shareholders.
Bullshit. The stock market doesn't do anything more now than it did forty years ago. And why should shareholders have short term quarterly expectations instead of long term expectations? You completely miss the big picture.
Consider this scenario. I'm a pension manager for a large company or municipality and I have absolutely no long term stake in the welfare of the pension fund (an unfortunately common problem in the developed world over the past forty years) with a considerable sum in . I have no incent
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Replace pension manager with CEO and you see the scope of the problem.
There is a big difference. The pension and fund managers are the kingmakers. They have control over a vast amount of voting shares in companies. Their disinterest and short term greed translates into similarly endowed CEOs.
Another factor which I didn't mention is bailouts. A lot of these players, both fund managers and CEOs can rely on some degree of public funding to ease their bad decisions.
The underlying fault to this whole mess IMHO is Other Peoples' Money (OPM). When decisions are made by people
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People say our economic system is capitalism, but it's not, it's managementism. The managers of others money have all the power.
Sounds on the mark to me.
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Jeavon's Paradox (Score:3, Interesting)
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Blocked, you say? (Score:1)
I'm the BOFH, bitch - block this (*grabs crotch*)
Okay - in all seriousness, there are times when I wish I could get a policy adopted to block the hell out of facebook. OTOH, there are times when I think it's a good thing that employees can take a few minutes here and there to let their brains wander - and that article is why. Folks do spend more hours doing work stuff than their parents did, and thanks to smartphones/VPN, that work very often gets unrealistic deadlines, and thus the excess work often goes h
Email is a productivity killer (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sure, kill the training pipeline, why not..
Technology doesn't make lives easier. (Score:2)
I never promace that the stuff I make will make their lives easier. Actually I state it will make their job harder... Because you will need to focus on the hard stuff (People relations, Understanding the business and exceptions...) and less time on the easy stuff (pushing papers, following a prescribed workflow, Double checking you math, Collecting data that already exists...)
I have been hired to make your job more difficult. But at the same thread it is more efficient. And because you are not doing a lo
Obviously Productivity is Increasing (Score:2)
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If the labor saves and invests its money, that money is not going towards shoring up demand. Less demand means people get laid off, which causes less demand, which causes layoffs, and so on - in other words, a depression
i make my own rules (Score:2)
Since my employer is working me 10+ hours a day, I do not feel any regret over checking my personal email or craigslist during the workday. There's plenty of work to be done; there should be some slack time too.
More productive with less people (Score:3)
Those surveyed were folks who still had thier jobs, and they are more productuive doing the work of multiple people thanks to computers. Let's get a little more balanced and see how email affected the folks who had jobs.
If you are in the tech sector, useful technology will usually make you more productive.
I use tech. Tech doesn't use me. (Score:3)
I have always made it entirely clear to my employers that I treat my free time as my free time. Any time outside of 9-to-5, my employer should fully expect to find me either three hours from the nearest computer, or three sheets to the wind, or asleep, or any of a number of other conditions that would preclude me actually "working". Note that I don't act like a dick about it - If something needs to happen off-hours, I usually count as the first one to volunteer to stay late... With the understanding that I will come in similarly late the next day.
That said, I do appreciate having an "early warning system" for serious problems... If a server goes down over the weekend, I'll make a point of preparing myself for the inevitable barrage of shit that will fly around Monday morning - Extra cup of coffee, maybe even go in a few minutes early so I can do my normal settling-in routine before everyone expects me in six places at once.
As for blocking websites - Do any companies seriously still not block at least some websites?
More than just technology (Score:2)
Technology is part of the reason we can't get away from work, the other is the change in overtime rules. It used to be that companies had to pay overtime for hours worked over 40. This meant that when people left their job, they also left their work at their job in general. Even if you could call someone at home and ask them a question, you didn't. Unfortunately, the overtime rules were eroded to the point that almost no one gets overtime. If you work in an office setting at all, you are expected to put in
Wow, office jobs must suck (Score:2)
Doesn't work. (Score:3)
"Almost half of the surveyed employees say their employer either forbids or explicitly blocks access to certain websites at the office."
That's why people bring their iPads and use their cellphone's connection to play games and buy stuff on company dime.
Of course ... (Score:2)
Opinion!=Fact (Score:4, Interesting)
This survey's results do not in anyway state that email increases productivity, instead they found that there is a general public perception that email increases productivity, but that perception is far from ubiquitous (only 46% of people apparently agree).
This is why (Score:3)
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I have (paid) on-call shifts. I don't constantly check my phone's email - that's not required - but I always answer the ringer. It's still very handy to be able to quickly check your email on the phone and see a screenshot or email update after being notified of an incident.... doesn't mean you need to be checking it all the time though.It's also very useful to be able to tap out emails quickly on the phone when dealing with multiple persons in an active incident.
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Phone calls are synchronous. They implicitly cause an interruption.
Email is asynchronous. It is written when the sender desires; it is read when the receiver desires.
Text messages are not inherently synchronous but can carry an expectation of synchronization.
I have never been able to figure out why people would shoot their mouths off about not wanting interruptions and then advocate the most interruptive solutions.
Time Spent Working Increases Productivity (Score:2)
Let me fix that headline:
More Time Spent Working Increases Productivity