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The Smartphone Enables Employees Achieve Work-Life Balance

The Smartphone Enables Employees Achieve Work-Life Balance

Introduction

Work-life balance is one of the most discussed topics today. Maintaining a healthy balance between employees work duties, personal responsibilities, and family life is a concern for most companies (Wikipedia, n.d.). One of the world’s technological innovations is smartphones whose inbuilt sophisticated technology makes it protean, ubiquitous and a readily accessible device to people both at home and in their workplaces. Today, smartphones remains an essential tool for survival in every aspect of life. Recent research shows that the number of smartphones users is increasing, and predicts that there will be a shift from 2.1 billion as at 2016 to approximately 2.5 billion users by 2019 (Statista, 2018). Recently, debates about whether smartphones enable employees to achieve work-life balance or not have arisen. The aim of this essay is discussing whether smartphones are enabling or disabling personnel achieve their desired balance between work and lifestyle.

Smartphones Enable Employees Achieve Work-Life Balance

First and foremost, people aspire to give proper prioritization of their work and lifestyle, and this is made possible by smartphones. According to the International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences by Rabia and Abdul in 2014, smartphones connect employees with their colleagues all over the world enabling them to collaborate more efficiently and quicker. Smartphones access the internet and are installed with data apps that allow employees to access corporate data and engage actively online. Important to note, smartphones streamline workflows, and this significantly contribute to enhancing employees’ productivity (Rabia & Abdul, 2014). Smartphones have changed the way in which employees are expected to work, creating more time for people to interact with their families and friends over the phone while they are still working (Deloitte, 2016). Most companies are embracing this technology of smartphones and moving into globalization in which work is no longer restricted in the workplace. With Smartphones, employees are working from anywhere, and telecommuting is on the pace.

Second, smartphones act as a powerful real-time tool for professionals to balance both their work roles and lifestyles. While smartphones remain to be highly valued in most employment settings, mobile workplace continues to be the setting where they are required most. A review on Pakistan in 2014 by Rabia & Abdul showed that approximately 80 percent of employees use smartphones to keep track of both family and corporate responsibilities concurrently. Although some people argue that mobile phones disrupt employees while at the workplace, smartphones help personnel get updates from families on any emergency issues that arise and require their urgent attention (Statista, 2018). Profession-wise, smartphones devices enable employees to connect to the internet and skip trace any information deemed essential and helpful in resolving any challenge within the workplace. Recent research shows that most employers are innovating mobile apps in which employees can reduce their task lists from outside the workplace (Skinner & Chapman, 2013). Employees use smartphones to connect with their couple relationships at a distance to express intimacy while still in the workplace.

Additionally, a Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University revealed that smartphones are transforming organizational behavior, and changing the future. The survey showed that CEOs encourage employees to use smartphones as a device of improving efficiency of the company (Pitichat, 2013). Further, the research revealed that using smartphones in the workplace strengthens employer-employee relationships hence improving productivity. On another research by Derks & Bakker in 2014, smartphones enhance the quality of employees’ leisure and social connectedness while in the workplace. Poor balance between work roles and employees personal life not only affects the personnel but also affect the company and its goals (Applied Psychology). Sometimes employees are stressed to the extent of having a burnout. Most companies support employees’ wellbeing and offer them time to recover from prolonged and challenging work schedules to avoid burn-outs while at work (Derks & Bakker, 2014). In this perspective, the use of smartphones while at work significantly help in getting employees more engaged and involved in personal matters for a short time as a way of relieving tiredness.

Smartphones Disable Employees in Achieving Work-Life Balance

Now that we have evaluated what is needed on our part, are we in compliance of the same? We are consuming a lot of time with our smartphones in social interactions, and this disrupts our concentration on work duties. In 2017 survey report from Deloitte showed that Americans collectively check their smartphones 12 billion times per day. Similarly, another survey that was conducted in the UK showed that approximately 14 billion people used smartphones for emails while the remaining 18 million for voice calls and calendar management. Also, another survey conducted in Australia showed that over 480 million peoples interacted over smartphones marking an increase of 40 million consumers compared with the 2016’s survey (Deloitte, 2016). The Deloitte survey study shows that smartphone use is getting digitally disrupted, and this creates an extended range of interactions with employees that distract their day to day professional roles. Although smartphones are everyone’s favorite devices, they are distracting people in their life and work patterns.

John Fike’s 2016 article, “Is Your Smartphone Slowly Killing You? How Personal Electronics Impact Health,” argues that smartphones have not only changed people lifestyles but also have made researchers focus on the long-term health effects of their daily usage. While smartphones efficiently provide a prompt means of communication with co-workers, family, and friends; their prolonged use is hazardous to people’s health and causes brain and heart cancer to people (John Fike, 2016). A study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer found that risks of getting cancer are highly elevated to the heavy users of smartphones. There is also research by the international journal of therapies and rehabilitation research in 2015 that substantiates the effects of over usage of the smartphone in a non-neutral neck position.  Further, studies by the American Cancer Society established a link between excessive use of smartphones by employees with the increased rates of cancer and other tumors in the body. These studies show how the use of smartphones by employees harms their health and disable their work-life balance.

Conclusion

Technology can be our best friend, and technology can be our biggest threat as far as work-life balance is concerned. Proper prioritization of work and lifestyle for people is important. Smartphones are a major technology whose impact in our lives cannot get ignored. Smartphones enable people to connect and collaborate with colleagues and families over the world. Smartphones enable employees to work from any point and track both professional and family issues concurrently, and this helps in balancing work-life patterns to individuals. Also, smartphones enable people to connect and establish linkages with friends and companies in the most efficient manner. Although smartphone has been an essential survival tool for every individual, the device exposes users to health hazards that whose impact on work-life balance is adverse. However, the strengths of smartphones in enabling employees to achieve work-life balance exceed the risks. Therefore, I strongly agree that smartphones are useful devices in effectively allowing the employees to achieve work-life balance.

References

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