Survey: Aussie staff drowning in tech workloads - News - Business

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Survey: Aussie staff drowning in tech workloads

By Rachel Lebihan, ZDNet Australia
April 24, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Survey-Aussie-staff-drowning-in-tech-workloads/0,139023166,120264809,00.htm

For one in every two Australian workers the convenience of having a mobile office in their pocket is counteracted by the 24x7 work ethic it encourages, according to a new nationwide survey by recruitment company TMP Worldwide.

Of 5000 employees surveyed, 44.4 percent put the feeling of being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week down to technology.

-In this case we're really talking about those things like mobile phones, laptops and Internet connection at home," practice manager of technology recruitment for TMP Worldwide's Australian operations, Martin Nicholls, told ZDNet Australia -In many cases people feel obliged or expected to take the office home with them."

According to the survey, those employed in advertising felt the hardest done by with 77.8 percent of respondents in this line of work saying they felt the 24x7 pull. Of those surveyed and employed in the construction industry, 58.8 percent said they felt as if they were always on call, and over half of the survey participants aged 35 to 55 described themselves as -drowning under their workloads".

-There's no dispute that technology is making workers more productive, it's just adding hours and hours onto our working lives, Nicholls said, pointing out that 97 percent of survey respondents said technology was making life easier.

-People almost feel guilty, when they're sitting at the dinner table, to switch the mobile phone off," Nicholls said. -That's really having an affect on stress levels as well."

In other survey findings, about 25 percent of respondents didn't feel they were adequately trained to use the technology at their disposal.

-One quarter basically felt they weren't trained to get the most out of the technology sitting in front of them," Nicholls said, adding that companies weren't then necessarily getting the productivity gains they could from technology.