Bedtime working

It may be a side-effect from the recession, with burdens of longer hours and increased workloads, but a new survey has revealed that a quarter of employees do work on their laptop in bed, before going to sleep (much to the annoyance of their partners).

The report by Credant Technologies also found that over half of the respondents work in bed for between two and six hours every week, and 8% admitted that they spend more time on their mobile devices during the evening than talking to their partners.

This got me thinking about our modern, mobile way of living and working. In the old days, work was restricted to the office, and the home was for family and social life. Simple. Nowadays, whilst it is often valuable to be able to work from anywhere, at anytime, I do think that this fast, frenetic world we live in can be detrimental to good old-fashioned family values.

The danger is that employees with laptops and Blackberrys now feel that they are expected to work overtime, in the evenings, on the beach, and now in bed! And to make matters worse, the current downturn means that people may find it even more imperative that they are seen to be working hard, whatever time of the day or night that may be, so that they can try to hold on to their job.

But which way is this all going to go? Is it going to become the norm in years to come? Will the traditional 9 to 5 office job disappear into obscurity, to be replaced with remote working from anywhere in the world at anytime of the day or night? Well, perhaps not, but I just hope that the disctinction between home and work life doesn't become even more blurred that it already is now.