Comments on: 'Berry bad work-life balance?

Despite their potential negative impact, using mobile devices helps increase productivity, CIOs say in a survey.

[nytstryk]

Will I get paid for checking email 24 Hrs a day?

That is considered work right? Is the expectation now that salaried employees work 24/7 but only get paid for 8 or in reality 10 because we all know salaried employees never work just 40hrs a week. Will I get fired if I don't respond to an email on my "crackberry" after hours?

How about my downtime is "my time?" Anyone ever consider that? When I am away from the office, I do not want to think about work. Or maybe it's just me.

[ReVeLaTeD]

I'm a salaried employee and

My response to your comment is that you're knee-jerk reacting to what it means to be salaried.

Being an exempt (salaried) position means that you'll be paid for 8 hours, even if you actually only work 6 of them. Salaried employees usually get more side perks, such as paid jury duty leave and the lack of needing to track individual hours worked.

That said, some managers in some companies want to make sure their exempt employees aren't abusing the law, and will get miffed if you're not there within your 8 hour workday. Some of that is mitigated using Blackberries and other remote use devices - laptops at home, for example - but none of that can replace actually being on site in the workplace, ready to work.

In summary, will you be "expected" to work 24/7? No. Will you be fired if you don't reply to an email outside of your normal working schedule? Probably not. But you do need to make sure that you're making efficient use of your time. If you're 9-5 and you get an email at 7:30 AM, and you reply by 9-9:30, it's doubtful anyone will have an issue.

[gggg sssss]

Paid

If you are lucky, you will get to keep your job. More than you can say for unionized autoworkers whose continued bellyaching has resulted in their jobs being moved to China, tech support guys who didnt want to respond to pagers (in their) day who saw their jobs move to India. So, **** and click that wheel.

[Eddie-c]

Response to article

While the main audience of news.com are most likely people in the I.T. field, there are many people who, while not directly in said field, use the devices that the article discusses.

The title of the article is suggestive of a report based on view-points from both an I.T. perspective as well as end-users, but it only gives a fleeting mention to the negative aspect of mobile devices, namely
[quote]
"..but they also have a negative impact on work-life balance by making it more difficult to switch off from the office, according to a recent survey."
[unquote]



Kevin Fitzpatrick (CIO), Alan Shrimpton (IT Director), Steve Gediking (head of IT & facilities) & Paul Haley (IT Director) all have roles where they need to be contactable during & outside-of "office-hours"* and thus some level of mobile communications medium - be it cell-phone, pager (out-dated technology), or blackberry/smart-phone - are a necessity, therefore a "longer working day" is to be expected for their position.

* In a global economy, and especially being in either the I.T. field or an Executive position, to expect otherwise would be to delude ones' self or to be someone who should not really be in their role.


(Disclaimer: I have managed Mobile Solutions for a Silicon Valley company for three years and as such have knowledge of both sides)