Stress, fatigue and even depression: the price of staying connected on vacation

Information overload is the price Western citizens pay for integrating the benefits of technology into their lives. Employees burnt out, tired and multiple pathology enhancements is the bill that this hyperlink may eventually show up. It is not in vain that WHO has included ‘burnout’ in its classification of diseases and health problems since 2019. New communication dynamics in companies are forcing managers and employees to “integrate” in their relationships.digital disconnect“So, learning to draw a new distinction between the personal and the professional, which was at the entrance and exit of the factory two centuries ago and is now blurred on the screen of a mobile phone.

“Digital disconnection emerges as a necessity in the face of negative consequences from use. technology crossing the labor line, particularly affecting personal space” is how the UAB researcher defines the concept. David Gutierrez, in his article ‘Workers’ digital disconnection’. It is a serious danger to both people’s health and the results of companies. ” productivity A worker who does not disconnect will fall because he will feel more and more exhausted and less committed to his work because ‘it never ends‘” warns the EAE Business School professor Esther Gonzalez.

The French were pioneers when it came to legislation on the subject. In 2016, Le République, headed by François Hollande, reorganized its working arrangements to oblige companies to “ensure that their personal and family lives are respected, as well as their time of rest and vacation.” In Spain, the 2018 Data Protection and Guaranteed Digital Rights Act was the first to approach the issue and expanded it with the new teleworking law in 2021.

“technostress» it constitutes a psychosocial risk that the employer is obliged to evaluate in order to take the necessary preventive measures to ensure the health of workers”, recalls the researcher from the University of Valencia Eduardo Enrique Talens’s photo., in his article ‘The right to digital disconnect in the workplace’. And stress at work is one of the main causes of mental health problems like depression. According to research published in the journal Molecular PsychiatryOne in five cases of depression is attributed to overwork.

While the absence of digital connectivity is a threat to both the manager and the casual employee, the more important an employee is in the day-to-day life of a workplace, the more complex it is to use. “How much more qualified If you are, the harder it is to disconnect because more people depend on you and miss you more when you’re not there. We are heading towards a future where these people will earn good salaries, but it will be increasingly difficult for them to find time for themselves,” warns the EAE Business School professor.

How is disconnection guaranteed?

” job duty guaranteeing disconnection requires limiting the use of technological work and business communication tools during periods of rest, as well as respecting the maximum duration of the working day and any limitations and measures related to legal regulations or traditionally applicable working hours”, the new telework law.

One key experts agree on to do this is for the company to set up ‘firewalls’ to prevent unnecessary messages from reaching the worker during rest periods. An example is typical “outside the office” when he receives an email and the mail never reaches his mailbox.

The digital disconnect also means an exercise in internal organization responsible for middle managers; this allows employees to exchange information when they go on vacation and know that there is no change during those vacations. “Can you wait for that message?” or “Does the one on vacation have to buy it now?” Two questions everyone should ask before texting or calling someone out of the office.

In this sense, more formal and Institutional Whatever the communication, the easier it will be to set up these firewalls and propagate them to outsiders. In other words, it is very difficult for the company to control what information is exchanged through messaging tools such as WhatsApp, where it is inevitable to confuse the personal with the professional. But if the routine is to communicate only through programs like ‘loose‘ or intranets are easier to control.

While the law puts the disconnection ball on the roof of the company, workers must make their own efforts not to ‘voluntarily’ disconnect. Try to reduce hyperlinks for devices whose statistics are as addictive as those of the UPF-BSM study: The first thing eight out of 10 employees do when they wake up and the last thing they do before going to sleep is to check their status. mobile. “We live in paradox We are increasingly concerned about the well-being of workers, but at the same time we have created an environment where it is increasingly difficult to implement that well-being,” adds a professor at EAE Business School.