Employee engagement is important for businesses here in Kentucky and across the country. Organizations want their employees to be fully committed and engaged in their work, because that translates to higher levels of productivity, larger profits, less absenteeism and lower turnover. Likewise, employees themselves yearn to have meaningful work that inspires and engages them.
If we are engaged in our work, how do we demonstrate that commitment to our employers? Do we demonstrate it by working long hours? Staying late at the office? Being available 24/7? Responding to emails immediately? Staying plugged in all the time?
There are certainly a myriad of tools that allow us to stay connected to our work, including smartphones, laptops, iPads and email, just to name a few. The good news is that these tools liberate us from the workplace. We can now work anywhere, at any time. But what’s the bad news? We can now work anywhere, at any time. We can work from home, a coffee shop, the airport, the car, a restaurant, a child’s baseball game or dance recital, and even from vacation.
But how is that working out for us? Many of us feel burned out. In fact, one-third of American workers report feeling chronically overworked. This desire to prove that we are committed to our jobs is leading many of us to demonstrate that commitment in maladaptive ways that can lead to a lack of work-life balance, which is unsustainable and unhealthy. When we work hard without rest and renewal, our balance gets out of whack. Work takes over, and our non-work responsibilities get shoved aside or done haphazardly because our minds are constantly on our work.
So how do we achieve and maintain work-life balance? By unplugging from work. That means detaching from work — mentally, physically and electronically.
Unplugging can be challenging for several reasons that have been documented by researchers. First, people hope to advance their careers or are worried about their job security, so they feel a great need to demonstrate their dedication to their jobs. They mistakenly believe that the best way to do that is to work more hours and be available all the time.
Second, research now suggests that many people are actually addicted to their smartphones and email. Recent studies from the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that most people consider Facebook, Twitter and email harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, primarily due to our need to feel wanted, productive and important. In fact, Harvard professor Leslie Perlow said many of us are essentially sleeping with our smartphones. We sleep with them right beside our beds and never turn them off because we worry, “What if someone needs me?”
However, contrary to popular belief, being constantly connected to work does not increase productivity. We think we are being more productive by being “on” all the time. We think that multi-tasking enables us to get more done, but the research clearly reveals that it does not: Multi-tasking makes us less productive, takes more time than focusing on one task at a time, and leads to poorer quality work. Moreover, it also deeply damages our ability to concentrate in the long run.
We need to unplug from work to refresh and rejuvenate.
Human beings perform best when they alternate between periods of intense focused activity and renewal. Anyone doing fitness training knows that you have to train hard and then let your body recover. The same is true for work: You need effort and recovery. Working hard and then giving yourself time completely away from work leads to better focus and productivity when you are working. Not taking the time to refresh leads to stress and burnout.
Another reason we need to unplug from work occasionally is that relationships take time. We may think that we are spending time with our families when we are in the same room with them, but if we’re not engaged with them and we’re tapping on our smartphones during that time, we may as well not even be in the room with them. People who don’t unplug usually have resentful family members who complain that they are “always working.” Relationships require real presence.
Employees who unplug from work at the end of the day and on weekends experience a number of important benefits, including:
• less fatigue and burnout
• less stress
• improved health
• higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment
• better problem-solving skills and more creativity
• greater work-life balance
• higher life satisfaction