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- Not 'switching off' from work after your regular working hours can harm your intrinsic motivation.
- This is based on the findings of a new study, conducted by two researchers from Cornell University.
- Both employers and employees need to take responsibility for the latter's work-life balance, says an SA psychiatrist.
Working outside our normal work hours has become the "new normal", and the transition to remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated this. It's easy to fall into the habit, but researchers warn that it can have a negative effect on motivation.
“People increasingly work during non-standard work time (i.e., weekends; holidays) … [But] working during non-standard work time decreases intrinsic motivation by causing people to consider better uses of their time,” wrote the researchers from Cornell University in New York.
The team analysed the effect of working during weekends and holidays versus the standard, Monday to Friday period, and how it undermined participants' intrinsic motivation when it came to performing their jobs. They described intrinsic motivation as “a pursuit of work for the interest and enjoyment it provides”, which is an important driver of work persistence and wellbeing.
Said co-author, Kaitlin Woolley, associate professor of marketing in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business: "Even if you're still working 40 hours a week, you're working during time that you've mentally encoded as time off, or as time that should be for a vacation, and that can make you feel suddenly that your work is less enjoyable."
Their study was published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
Students included
The researchers also included students in their study, as they wanted to find out how studying and working during non-traditional hours impacted focus and job satisfaction, respectively.
"We had this feeling that sometimes the ability to work when we want to could also impact how we feel about our work," said Woolley.
Woolley conducted the study with Laura Giurge, a former postdoctoral research fellow at Cornell, now an assistant professor of behavioural science at the London School of Economics.
First part of the study
For the first part of the experiment, the researchers approached Cornell students who were studying in a campus library on President's Day, a holiday in the US. They tested whether studying during this non-standard work time decreased the students’ intrinsic motivation to study.
They did this by reminding half the participants that they were studying during a holiday, while the other half didn’t receive a reminder.
When asking the students how enjoyable, engaging, and fun they found their materials to be – in other words, measuring their intrinsic motivation for their campus work – the group who received the reminder reported that their work was 15% less enjoyable.
The work experiment
The researchers did the same experiment with full-time workers and their perception of work enjoyment. For those who received the calendar reminder, work was 9% less enjoyable on the holiday Monday, compared with a typical Monday.
Final part of study
The final part of the experiment included participants being surveyed on a Tuesday. This time, they didn’t receive a reminder that it was a typical workday. They were surveyed again on a Saturday, with some participants reminded that it was a "a weekend day", while others didn’t receive the reminder.
While both groups felt lower levels of job satisfaction on the weekend day, the effect was stronger in the group who was reminded about it.
“We argue that working during non-standard (vs standard) work time undermines intrinsic motivation for work by triggering upward counterfactual thoughts about how one’s time could have been better spent,” the team wrote.
Why the difference?
It appears that the thought of "collective time off" – being free at the same time our friends and family are also free – may explain the findings above.
"The real benefit of time off on the weekend or on holidays is that it's not just that I have time off, but my family and friends have time off, too," said Woolley. "And so one thing that we suggest for managers is, can you create a 'weekend shift' so people feel like they're in it together with other people?"
Work-life balance
Having a work-life can be hard for people who feel pressured to achieve, said Woolley.
"It's hard sometimes for workers who aren't in a position of power, whereas I think managers have the responsibility to create that environment for their employees. I do think people are becoming more aware of the importance of that, and shaping their jobs and their life choices to allow for it,” she said.
Several studies over the past two years have indicated that while working from home during the pandemic offers better flexibility in work arrangements, it does not necessarily foster better work-life balance and, consequently, lead to greater life satisfaction.
Burnout, achieving balance
A 2020 survey by global online employment platform, Monster, revealed that 69% of employees were experiencing burnout symptoms while working from home, as reported by CNBC. They found that employees feared losing their jobs if they didn't work hard enough.
While burnout is recognised as an “occupational phenomenon” by the World Health Organisation (WHO), health professionals in SA and worldwide were starting to see cases of burnout that extended beyond being solely work-related, said professor Renata Schoeman, of the South African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP).
“In the work context, burnout is usually the result of an imbalance of resources and demands … That is even more apt now, where we have the limitations of working from home, with a home office not as well equipped as the work office, but so much more is expected of us and we are juggling work, family and household needs even more frantically than usual,” she said.
But the onus of avoiding employee burnout was on both employees and employers, she said. While employers should put strategies in place to prevent burnout, employees also need to take responsibility for their own stress management, Schoeman said.
“Turn off notifications, switch off the phone and computer. Don’t let technology – and work pressure to be contactable all hours – rule your life."
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