Productivity, Attention and Organisational Impact

Faced with greater challenges to manage and organise available information, increased workload demands and higher role expectations, employee stress levels have been on the increase [1].  

Technology use for work purposes during private time means that employees are less likely to detach psychologically from work, relax and recover from the effort they put in during the working day.  

Lower recovery levels lower productivity during the workday and increase workplace telepressure [2].

Workplace telepressure and the subsequent use of workplace technology within a private domain leads to a continuous lack of recovery from work stressors and lower sleep quality over time, which has the potential to lead to burnout in the long run [3, 2].  

Lack of recovery from work can also lead to poor job performance, increased levels of sickness and health-related absenteeism [4, 5].  

It can also lead to presenteeism, which involves workers being physically present in the organisation, but being either physically or mentally unwell and can be a direct consequence of workplace burnout [6].  

Workers need restorative sleep to reduce work fatigue and engage in optimal cognitive functioning during the working day [4].  

In the UK in 2013, the cost of stress, anxiety and depression-related presenteeism was estimated to be £737 per employee per year [7].  

NHS Scotland predicts that between a third and two-thirds of absenteeism from work is stress-related [7].  

An official government survey found that one in three absences at work were stress and anxiety-related [8].  

These organisational impacts were evident before the mandatory working-from-home order that was introduced in March 2020.