Answering Work Emails Beyond Work Hours Increases Stress & Exhaustion, Says Study

Answering your work emails outside work hours could boost the risk of stress, emotional fatigue, headache and body pain, highlights a new study.

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Conducted by researchers from the University of South Australia, they surveyed over 2,200 academic and professional employees across 40 universities from June 2020 to November 2020.

Researchers found that 21 percent of those surveyed had supervisors who expected them to reply to work-related texts, calls and emails after work. Moreover, 55 percent of individuals admitted sending digital work-related communication to another colleague in the evening. 30 percent admitted to doing so during the weekends and also expected a response on the same day.

The study highlighted that employees whose supervisors expected them to reply to the messages after work saw higher levels of stress -- 70.4 percent -- compared to those who did not -- 45.2 percent.

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The former was reported to also be more emotionally exhausted at 63.5 percent compared to the latter at 35.2 percent. Around 22 percent from the affected group also reported health problems such as headache, back pain compared to 11.5 percent from the other group.

A similar impact was also seen when contacted by their work colleagues. Individuals who were constantly communicating with their work colleagues or bosses had higher levels of psychological stress at 75.9 percent compared to 39.3 percent who weren¡¯t communicating. Around 65.9 percent reported emotional exhaustion compared to 35.7 percent and 22.1 reported health issues, compared to 12.5 percent.

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One of the study's authors, Amy Zadow, said in a statement to the Conversation, highlighting a toxic society-wide problem of digital communication out of work hours, ¡°The personal and social implications of blurred boundaries between home and work are serious. When employees are answering calls or responding to emails at home, this affects their recovery from work - both mentally and physically.¡±

She added, ¡°We can focus on the immediate problem and reduce the extent of digital connectivity out of work hours. (But) ultimately our problem with out-of-hours emails and messaging reflects broader societal issues relating to the pressures of productivity, job insecurity and diminishing work resources.¡±