Digitalization of Work E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 340

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Digitalization of Work brings together researchers and international experts whose work and practices are based on a variety of disciplines such as work and organizational psychology, social psychology, ergonomics, communication and information sciences, and management sciences. This book closely examines the challenges associated with recent or emerging ways of working related to the digitalization of work. It acts as a directory of contributions that enrich recent thought and approaches to the deployment and accompaniment of the ways in which work is organized, including practices and environments likely to gain relevance in coming years (remote working and management, coworking for salaried employees, flexible office spaces, working from home and nomadism).

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

PART 1: Uses of Technology for Business Purposes: Background and Consequences

1 “Spillover” Work via Technology: Organizational Antecedents and Health Impacts

1.1. What is spillover work?

1.2. Organizational background of spillover work via technologies

1.3. The health implications of spillover work via technologies

1.4. Avenues of reflection and practical perspectives

1.5. References

2 Nomadic, Informal and Mediated Work and Quality of Life

2.1. Introduction

2.2. Relocated and mediated work: definition and implications for the quality of work life

2.3. Empirical case study

2.4. Contributions of the field study and practical perspectives

2.5. References

3 Leadership and the Use of Technology: Health Implications

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Organizational culture and leadership

3.3. Leadership: an ever-present theme

3.4. Leadership in the Industry 4.0 era

3.5. Conclusion

3.6. References

PART 2: Telework: Organizational, Collective and Individual Issues

4 Telework: What is at Stake for Health, Quality of Life at Work and Management Methods?

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Telework: a challenge for social cohesion and health at work

4.3. Telework space–time: work–life balance and gender equality

4.4. Telework: a challenge for management policy and culture

4.5. Conclusion

4.6. References

5 Telework in Lockdown: The Employee Perspective

5.1. Introduction

5.2. The existing literature on imposed teleworking during a pandemic situation

5.3. Collection method and procedure

5.4. The subjective experience of confined telework

5.5. Lessons from confined telework from the employees’ perspective

5.6. Conclusion: limitations and perspectives

5.7. References

6 (Re)creating the Inhabited Workspace: Rematerialization Practices of Remote Work

6.1. Introduction

6.2. “Going to work”: from work as a place to work from anywhere

6.3. Space, materiality and remote work

6.4. Understanding the (re)creation of workspaces

6.5. Analyzing the types of inhabited workspaces

6.6. Practices of (re)creating inhabited workspaces

6.7. Inhabiting the different workspaces: a “meta-work” for which the individual is solely responsible?

6.8. References

PART 3: The Flex Office and Coworking: Conditions of Appropriation and Psychosocial Impacts

7 The Flex Office: What are the Challenges for Organizations and Users?

7.1. Introduction

7.2. The origins of the flex office concept

7.3. On the organizational side

7.4. On the user side

7.5. The challenge of transforming the organization

7.6. Research and implementation of the post-Covid-19 flex office

7.7. References

8 Working in a Coworking Space: What are the Psychosocial Issues?

8.1. Introduction

8.2. Coworking spaces: definition, characteristics and user profiles

8.3. The impact of coworking

8.4. Conclusion: prospects for future field studies

8.4. References

List of Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

Chapter 2

Table 2.1. Composition of the research questionnaire, part 1 (modalities of noma...

Table 2.2. Composition of the research questionnaire, part 2 (scales and dimensi...

Table 2.3. Descriptive statistics for the variables included in the model (mean,...

Chapter 6

Table 6.1.

Employees in a “classic” organization working partially remotely

Table 6.2.

Full-time remote employees

Table 6.3.

Participants who are business owners and work full-time remotely

Table 6.4.

Self-employed participants

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1. Workload and expected availability as a function of the frequency of...

Figure 1.2. Rumination and sleep quality as a function of the frequency of work-...

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1.

General research model for the study

Figure 2.2. Multiple linear regressions: influence of the modalities of nomadic,...

Figure 2.3. Multiple linear regressions: influence of the forms of nomadic, info...

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1.

Quinn and Rohrbaugh’s (1983) two-dimensional model

Figure 3.2. The four phases of leadership (source: Kelly (2018)). For a color ve...

Figure 3.3. Leadership 4.0 matrix (source: Oberer and Erkollar (2018)). For a co...

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1. Jeanne’s “office” (#1), delimited by the barrier of objects and plan...

Figure 6.2. The hammock in Audrey’s office (#6). For a color version of this fig...

Chapter 7

Figure 7.1.

The habitability pyramid (source: (Vischer 2007))

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Begin Reading

List of Authors

Index

Other titles from iSTE in Science, Society and New Technologies

End User License Agreement

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Technological Changes and Human Resources Set

coordinated by

Patrick Gilbert

Volume 5

Digitalization of Work

New Spaces and New Working Times

Edited by

Émilie Vayre

First published 2022 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

ISTE Ltd

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London SW19 4EU

UK

www.iste.co.uk

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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USA

www.wiley.com

© ISTE Ltd 2022

The rights of Émilie Vayre to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), contributor(s) or editor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ISTE Group.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022931283

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78630-789-7

Introduction

Whether the path is steep, the wall vertical or the ground eroded, the peaks of thought persist in pointing to the future

Juan La Veryce, 21:1003

NOTE.– To improve readability, this book has been written in accordance with standard grammatical rules. However, the authors wish to make it clear that the book is intended for everyone, regardless of gender.

With the digitalization of work, the spaces and temporalities of work and “out of work” have been totally reworked. Workspaces are multiple and heterogeneous (individual offices, flex offices, coworking spaces, home, public transport, etc.). The temporalities of work and those relating to personal, family and social activities are no longer delimited by the working day. The modalities of work, management and cooperation are being disrupted by digital technologies and the mediatization of relationships.

For a little more than a decade, there has been a renewed interest in mediated and remote work (formal or informal, occasional or regular, nomadic, at home or in dedicated third places), particularly in large organizations, which are totally re-structuring their spaces, but also the modes of access and occupation of these spaces. However, the effects of these new work environments and new work methods on the relationship with the organization and work, individual and collective practices, the articulation of professional and personal activities, and health and quality of life at work remain ambiguous.

The aim of this book is to report on the issues and impacts of recent or emerging forms of work. With this in mind, we will address three main themes:

– The use of technology for professional purposes – particularly informal use – and its determining factors from an organizational and management point of view, as well as its impact on the quality of life at work and the health of employees (Part 1 of the book).

– The organizational, collective and individual challenges of remote working – especially home-based telework – and the reconstruction of social, temporal and spatial reference points that this involves (Part 2 of the book).

– Strategies for developing new workspaces – flex offices and coworking spaces, how they are used and their psychosocial impacts (Part 3 of the book).

Eight contributions support these three main themes, based on a review of international work in these fields and/or the results of empirical studies conducted by their authors. Each contribution also aims to give an overview of scientific knowledge and field practices. We therefore mention lines of thought and recommendations relating to approaches aimed at contributing to and supporting the digitalization of work and the transformation of workspaces and working conditions, where possible, within organizations.

The book brings together contributions (i) from researchers and practitioners who are experts in the three topics mentioned above, (ii) mobilizes various disciplines (work and organizational psychology, social psychology, ergonomics, information and communication sciences, management sciences), (iii) and has an international dimension (researchers and practitioners working in Italy, Belgium, Canada and France).

Chapter 1 deals with “spillover” work via digital technologies (C. Hellemans and É. Vayre). It proposes to characterize this notion by insisting on its objective and subjective dimensions. It presents the organizational factors of “spillover” work and its impact on health. Chapter 2 focuses on nomadic, informal and mediated work practices (M. Périssé, A.-M. Vonthron and É. Vayre). After defining what they cover, the authors, through an empirical study, illustrate what their repercussions are on recognition at work, organizational involvement and work–life balance. Chapter 3 deals with changes in organizational culture and leadership styles and their effects on work and workers (V. Dolce, M. Molino, C. Ghislieri and É. Vayre). It ends by questioning leadership 4.0 in the era of the fourth industrial revolution.

Chapter 4 reports on the challenges of teleworking from home from the point of view of employees’ health, their quality of life at work and management methods (É. Vayre, T. Gachet-Mauroz, J. Devif and C. Morin-Messabel). It targets in particular on the identification and prevention of risks associated with the deployment of this type of working. Chapter 5 proposes a specific focus on imposed teleworking, as experimented at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic (A.-S. Maillot, T. Meyer, S. Prunier-Poulmaire and É. Vayre). Based on a qualitative study, it addresses the way in which the reorganization of work, in this context, altered the subjective experience of work, the time structuring of the activity and professional relationships. Through the metaphor of the inhabited workspace, Chapter 6 reports on the practices of (re)creating different workspaces deployed by remote workers (C. Estagnasié, C. Bonneau, C. Vasquez and É. Vayre). The authors discuss the possible consequences of this re-materialization of work in spaces that were not originally designed for it.

The book concludes with a discussion of the phases of development of the flex office (Chapter 7), its effects on the organization of work and its users, and the organizational transformations that it could bring about (N. Cochard and D. Mincella). Chapter 8 presents the characteristics of coworking, but also the way in which work and work life within these spaces affect performance, productivity, socio-professional integration and the relationship between work and non-work life (J. Devif, C. Morin-Messabel and É. Vayre).

Although this book was originally conceived and designed before the Covid-19 pandemic, this context has strengthened the importance of the questions and issues it addresses. It should be read in the light of recent, current and future transformations. It sheds light on them both through the prism of earlier scientific work in the field, offering rigorously documented knowledge over time, and through more recent work, anchored in an unprecedented period, the duration and impact of which we cannot control.

Understanding recent and current forms of work, and building knowledge to fully grasp the issues and impacts, are resources for transforming organizations and work. This means: questioning the ways in which work and the conditions in which it is carried out are envisaged, defined and conceived; questioning decision-making processes, management, evaluation, coordination, leadership and cooperation methods; reconsidering the relationship to work, the attachment and identification with work organizations, the relationship to others, managers, teammates and collectives; rethinking the place that work occupies in our lives, the temporalities of work and workspaces and effectively the relationship between professional and personal life.

This book lists works that can enlighten and enrich reflections and explorations around forms of work organization, professional practices and work environments that are likely to be deployed and favored in the future (e.g. teleworking, remote management, coworking for employees, flex offices, homeworking, nomadism), taking into account the risks that the virus may resurge, that other pandemics may occur, or even that other types of crisis may arise.

Introduction written by Émilie VAYRE.

PART 1Uses of Technology for Business Purposes: Background and Consequences

1“Spillover” Work via Technology: Organizational Antecedents and Health Impacts

1.1. What is spillover work?

When we talk about “spillover” work, the first thing we think of is the number of hours of overtime worked per week, compared to what is set out in the employment contract. With work mediated by information and communication technology (ICT), many companies are promoting, or even encouraging, flexible spaces and flexible working times (Taskin 2006; Peters et al. 2009; Allen et al. 2013; Grant et al. 2013). Asynchronous remote working means that the employee can work outside the premises of their company (space flexibility – we obviously think of home-based teleworking, or coworking spaces). But asynchronous remote working also means that the employees can choose their own working hours: working within a flexible organization might suit them better than working traditional office hours (9 am to 5 pm), since it allows them to juggle different constraints or preferences, especially family ones (starting work in the morning before taking the children to school, leaving the office earlier, going shopping outside of “rush hour”, resuming work in the evening, in a quiet place, after the children have gone to bed, in order to “make up” their hours, etc.). In other words, with the new work organizations made possible by technology, the notion of spillover can no longer be understood solely in terms of a traditional working schedule carried out on the company’s premises. The “calculation” of working time with regard to the employment contract is thus complicated objectively, as well as subjectively, as we will see, on the basis of Clark’s (2000) work on boundary theory, and the preference for a particular mode of managing these boundaries (Kreiner 2006; Kossek et al. 2012).

1.1.1. Objective parameters of spillover: location, duration, frequency and intensity of spillover

Location: let us start with two scenarios: either (i) the employee works their regular hours at their workplace or (ii) the employee teleworks their contracted hours. In the first case, spillover beyond the prescribed working time may be anchored at the workplace, or outside the workplace, probably most often on public transport or at home. The situation is relatively straightforward and the spillover easy to identify if the working time and hours are prescribed in the employment contract, in line with standard practice. In the second case, things become more complex. With remote working, the autonomy to manage one’s own schedule is generally much greater: the employee can often work the prescribed hours on a more flexible schedule, or even completely on their own, the nature and content of the work permitting (more on this in section 1.1.3 on controlling spillover). Thus, whether there is spillover or not no longer pertains to the time of day. In order to identify this spillover, we must count the working time over the day in relation to breaks, or even interruptions, of varying lengths. Indeed, it is conceivable that an employee may still be working in the evening, because they have interrupted their work for several hours during the day to look after their children or to take advantage of a leisure activity outside of traditional social time. This would be a “false spillover” from the point of view of the number of contractual working hours.

Duration: the duration of the spillover could range from a few minutes to several hours per week or even per day. It is obvious that this duration will be decisive in assessing the extent of the spillover and its impact on health. We can only refer here to the extreme situation of “karoshi”, which Uehata reported 17 cases of in 1978 at the 51st annual meeting of the Japanese Occupational Health Association. The term is used in cases of death or permanent disability, following a stroke or ischemic heart attack caused by “overwork”. The term karoshi has been used in Japan as a socio-medical term in the context of workers’ compensation: the recognition of the link between the death and the working conditions there depends mainly on the actual length of time worked during the week preceding the accident. The criterion used in Japan is a working time of 24 hours (three times that of a normal working day) on the day preceding the accident or 16 hours per day (twice the normal time) during the entire preceding week. Iwasaki et al. (2006) explain that the number of people working 60 hours a week and more increased rapidly between 1975 and 1988 (when the karoshi was discovered), reaching nearly 8 million (in Japan), and that while in the 1990s, the number declined to 6 million, probably due to the economic recession in Japan, the number has tended to increase again since the early 2000s.

Frequency: the frequency of spillover refers to the number of times (regardless of duration) that the employee works outside the contractual time of their employment and thus exceeds the number they are contractually required to work per day, week or month. It goes without saying that mobile technologies, such as smartphones, tablets or laptops, facilitate a regular and even continuous connection, which comes to be expected by the company. The frequency can be very infrequent or almost constant; it can be counted from work spillover in the morning before working hours, in the evening after contractual hours, at weekends, or even on holidays and vacations (Box 1.1). It is highly likely that the higher the frequency of spillover, the greater the impact on worker health. It should be noted that the criteria used in Japan for the recognition of karoshi as an occupational disease take into account, as we have seen, not only its duration (24 hours a day), but also its frequency (16 hours of work per 24 hours during all the days of the previous week).

Intensity: the intensity of the spillover is much more subjective and open to debate. We consider that intensity is the sum of the efforts made during the spillover work. A light intensity would be, for example, “just” checking emails outside of contractual hours, without processing them, and without continuing to think about them afterward (we will return to this aspect later with the notion of rumination). A stronger intensity would consist of reading and processing the emails, for example, which may involve a high degree of attention, reflection, a search for information, necessary many contacts, etc. Of course, the more complex the emails to be managed, the higher the intensity. Another example of a high intensity of spillover would be the drafting and finalization of a complex report under heavy time constraints. We can therefore see that the intensity will depend on the nature and quantity of the work to be done in relation to the worker’s skills and the time they are willing to devote to this spillover work.

Box 1.1.Use of technologies when spillover work: different uses for different purposes

We surveyed 157 people with higher education, working in different sectors: private and commercial (23%), education (12%), medical, paramedical and psychological care (14%), public administration (24%), other miscellaneous (27%).

In response to the question “Do you use technology for professional purposes outside of your workplace?”:

– 60.1% say they use their smartphone in the morning or evening, before or after their normal time of work;

– 46.8% say they use their smartphone on the weekend;

– 44.9% say they use it on their days off.

Laptop usage figures are also high:

– 52.5% say they use their laptop in the morning or evening, before or after their normal time of work;

– 48.7% say they use their laptop at the weekend;

– 36.7% say they use it on their days off.

To the question “What kind of tools do you use on these technologies for professional reasons outside your workplace?”:

– communication tools (email, videoconferencing, etc.) for 72.2% of smartphone users and for 65.8% of laptop users;

– Web-based information search tools (search engine) for 42.4% of smartphone users and 56.3% of laptop users;

– office tools (word processing, spreadsheet, etc.) for 10.8% of smartphone users and 63.9% of laptop users;

– tools specific to my work activity for 10.1% of smartphone users and for 44.9% of laptop users.

1.1.2. Subjective spillover and the meaning of spillover: boundary theory and preferences

So far, we have considered spillover from an objective and quantitative point of view, in terms of exceeding the number of working hours stipulated in the employment contract. Another way of looking at spillover is to understand it in a more qualitative way, in terms of exchanges (balance and imbalances), with reference to both professional and personal areas of life. Spillover is present when one domain of life encroaches on another domain of life, whether it is work that encroaches on private life, or private life that encroaches on work, whether this spillover is agreeable (positive spillover) or, on the contrary, disagreeable (negative spillover).

1.1.2.1. The theory of boundaries

Clark’s (2000) boundary theory is a theory about the balance between work and family domains. Work and family can be seen as two separate domains of life because (for employees, probably less so for the self-employed) they traditionally take place at different times and in different places, each with its own rules, roles and expected behavior. However, whether we like it or not, the boundaries between private and professional life are not watertight: we can attend to aspects of our private life during working hours, such as making an appointment with a heating engineer, worrying about the children getting home safely from school or organizing an outing with friends, just as we can attend to work-related aspects during private time, for example, by checking work-related emails at home in the evening after we have left work, or by finishing reading or writing a report. According to this theory, people cross the boundary between the domains of work and family on a daily basis (Clark 2000), as the boundaries are characterized by flexibility. The availability of mobile technologies obviously makes these borders more porous.

Flexibility is to be understood both in terms of the malleability of roles related to a life domain and the permeability of roles related to a life domain (Ashforth et al. 2000). Both terms refer to observable and unobservable flexibilities: malleability refers to the ability of one role domain to expand or contract to meet the demands of another role domain. This is the case, for example, when a nurse who is taking time off to look after her children (mother’s role) agrees to come back to work (nurse’s role) to respond to an emergency that has arisen from a temporary lack of staff. Permeability refers to the fact that a person is physically involved in one area but psychologically involved in another. To use the same example, this would apply if the nurse refused to return to work but could not stop thinking about her work and her patients while continuing to care for her children during her time off – or if the nurse agreed to return to work but continued to think about her children and the different activities she could offer them when she was back with them.

We can therefore argue that malleability determines the spillover, while permeability qualifies it. In this way, we can understand how information and communication technologies affect the malleability of the borders between domains of life, since it is possible to work from home in the evening with a laptop or a smartphone. But we can also understand how these technologies modify the permeability of boundaries, since their continuous accessibility, or even constant notifications, make it more difficult to concentrate on the task at hand (belonging to another life domain than the one that the incoming message notifications relate to).

However, one question remains to be addressed, which relates to the preference for this flexibility. Does the individual prefer to have zero flexibility and totally segment their spheres of life, or do they prefer to have a certain degree of flexibility between their spheres of life, and even a kind of harmonious total integration?

1.1.2.2. Segmentor or integrator?

If ICT facilitates, or even brings about, a spatial, temporal and psychological overlap between work and family roles (Fritz et al. 2010), how does the individual position themselves in relation to these overlaps? Before the availability of mobile technologies, it was auspicious to say that a balanced life was achieved when life domains were separated; nowadays, the debate remains open: teleworking at home during standard working hours allows individuals to manage some of their private life constraints, such as putting on a load of washing, popping to the convenience store, going shopping outside of busy hours, making a start on the evening meal, etc., which is often appreciated. In a similar way, checking your emails at the end of the day during private time allows you to answer them calmly, become aware of potential problems for the next day and anticipate them in order to reduce their severity, or even to arrive at work later the next morning.

People who prefer to separate life domains are called “segmentors”. In contrast, people who prefer to integrate them are called “integrators”. Between these two extremes, some researchers have proposed more nuanced typologies, taking into account the “direction” of the interruptions from one life domain to another in particular. Thus, Kossek et al. (2012) distinguish six functioning types. “Work warriors” only let their private life be interrupted by work. “Family guardians”, on the contrary, only let their work be interrupted by their private life. Two types of integrators also exist: the “Overwhelmed reactors” who let their two spheres interrupt each other regularly without control, and the “Fusion lovers” who allow it while controlling it. The authors also mention a type of moderate integrator, who tends to accept moderate interruptions between work and private life domains, excluding, it seems, the family domain: this type has been called the “Non-work eclectics”. Finally, there are the “Dividers”.

These personal preferences are influenced by the constraints and imperatives of the various domains of life which, through the ubiquity made possible by mobile technologies, are present constantly and simultaneously. Thus, it is not unlikely that an individual’s “preferences” may not actually be preferences at the outset, but rather refer to “acquired” modes of operation, set up to adapt to the constraints and imperatives of the various spheres of life. The question then becomes one of control by the individual over the constraints and imperatives associated with the different spheres of life.

1.1.3. Spillover control: myself and others

If the connection through technologies is potentially permanent, the individual can also decide to make himself partially or temporarily inaccessible, by disconnecting, by disabling automatic notifications or by deciding quite simply not to respond to them, at least for a while. The spillover will therefore depend on the control exercised by the worker over the solicitations he receives… or that he creates himself. Needless to say that it is not always easy to be in agreement with oneself, or even to live with oneself. Nor is it uncommon to observe a rather rapid abandonment of our own rules of life and our good resolutions. Moreover, our freedom and free will are dependent on our commitments and our willingness to establish harmonious relationships with those around us. Decisions are therefore not easy, and conflicts are likely until we find a modus vivendi acceptable to the majority.

The situation of teleworking, enabled by technology, certainly exacerbates this. In teleworking, where it is commonly accepted that the boundaries between areas of life are blurred, self-imposed rules are crucial to finding one’s way through the “fog”. Getting up at a specific time, taking a shower before starting work, dressing in something other than a tracksuit for work, taking breaks – but not too long – respecting one’s schedule, not stopping work too early or too late, creating an activity or ritual to symbolically transition from work to personal time (putting on music, going for a little walk, changing clothes, taking off one’s shoes, having a glass of wine, etc.). These rules, which are not always easy to respect, come into contact with the expectations and rules of others around us: the people who share our lives, friends, as well as colleagues, our hierarchical superior (who is supposed to represent the rules of the organization), and even clients. If, as Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory explains, people tend to imitate the behavior of those around them, and more strongly of those with whom they identify through emotional attachment, then it is likely that we will adopt behaviors similar to those of our partner or even our colleagues. But it is still necessary that each other’s constraints and imperatives be sufficiently transparent and similar; the opposite would complicate things further.

Understandably, the control we will have over our objective and subjective spillover will also depend on the control that others put in place in their own professional and private lives, as well as in ours via interdependence.

As you can imagine, the constraints imposed by the organization that employs us will determine our spillover.

1.2. Organizational background of spillover work via technologies

Companies tend to value speed, even immediacy, which they consider necessary and adaptive to the market. The cult of urgency present in today’s economic world has been noted by many authors (Aubert and de Gaulejac 2003; Felio 2014). Information and communication technologies have made it possible to concretely actualize this cult of urgency: the ubiquity and immediacy of sending, receiving and, quite often, responding. ICT can be used and made available on a continuous basis, but should this always be the expectation?

Let us analyze some characteristics of the organization or work that might encourage spillover work, based on the work of researchers (Thomée et al. 2010; Kinnunen et al. 2011; Sonnentag 2012).

The workload and the level of responsibility at work are certainly the main factors conducive to spillover work. The level of responsibility is often linked to the number of employees for whom one is responsible, and this leads to management work beyond the primary tasks of the function, which are often carried out as spillover (management of emails, preparation of meetings, development of a team strategy, etc.).

The expected quality of work, for example, requiring evening or weekend work, perhaps outside the noisy and busy environment of the workplace.

The nature of the activities during the working day: if the main activities of the day are meetings, training or appointments (managers, trainers, teachers, therapists, estate agents, recruitment consultants, to mention just a few examples), or traveling (trade representatives), with time-consuming journeys, then it is very likely that managing emails, writing reports, preparing for the next day, etc., will spill over to the end of the day.

The physical atmosphere of the work environment: too much noise, linked to the number of people working nearby and the soundproofing of the premises (think of open spaces, shared offices, etc.), encourage individuals to carry out certain tasks requiring high levels of concentration via technology.

The amount of leeway given to the worker by the organization: tight deadlines and/or rigid schedules will increase the likelihood of spillover work via technology.

Support and mutual aid between workers, which makes it possible to compensate for a temporary workload that is too heavy for one worker and alleviates its spillover.

The expected availability outside normal working hours, from the boss, colleagues, third parties (customers, suppliers, etc.), often a function of the company culture, but linked to the very nature of the work: a self-employed person (doctor, plumber, etc.) will in all likelihood be more available, even outside normal working hours, given their professional responsibilities, their links with customers and the desire (or need) to win their loyalty. If the person works with colleagues or clients on the other side of the globe, the notion of spillover becomes more complex: what is classed as spillover in the European time zone will not necessarily be spillover in the US or China.

Organizational strategies put in place for training or career development. Let us take the example of e-training: if its cost is covered by the company, can the worker take it during his working day? Furthermore, what is the limit between “essential” training recommended by the organization, which should logically take place during the working day and “voluntary” training required for career development?

The resources, particularly material resources, available to workers. While technical equipment is generally not a problem in large organizations, this is not necessarily the case in smaller organizations, particularly in the non-profit sector: there is no or not enough equipment available (computer, connection, printer) that is good enough or efficient enough for certain activities.

And, of course, the rules regarding connection and disconnection, whether they are absent, present but little known, present but not respected, present, or respected but little appreciated.

A study by Kreiner (2006) looked at the interaction between boundary management preferences (preference for segmentation vs. integration) and the degree of flexibility present in the organization, reflecting on the fit or mismatch between what the individual prefers and what is possible within the organization. It showed that people who prefer their life domains to be more integrated than not, but without this being offered in the organization (e.g. no possibility of teleworking, no possibility of connecting to the server outside normal working hours), experienced less conflict between life domains, but more stress in other domains related to work or the private sphere (because, in all probability, the constraints in the life domains are there, and are not easy to manage without the possibility of flexibility). The results of this study also showed that having neutral attitudes in terms of preferences was more beneficial for well-being than having strong preferences for segmentation, even when these preferences and the possibilities of flexibility offered by the company were well aligned.

Box 1.2.Work demands as a spillover factor through technology

Workers face different types of demands in the course of their work, which can have a significant impact in terms of spillover.

Thus, on the basis of the same survey of respondents, as in Box 1.1:

– 72.2% say they have a lot of responsibility at work;

– 66.4% feel that in recent years their work has become increasingly demanding;

– 52.9% say they are often forced to work overtime;

– 44.3% feel they have to be available outside normal working hours because of the specific nature of their work;

– 28.6% report that their colleagues expect them to be available for their work outside of their working hours;

– 35.7% believe that their superiors expect them to be available for their work outside of their working hours.

When the data is cross-tabulated, we can note that the greater the workload, the higher the use of ICT outside of working hours; and the more employees are expected to be available outside of working hours, the higher their use of ICT outside of working hours.

Figure 1.1.Workload and expected availability as a function of the frequency of business-related ICT use outside of working hours

1.3. The health implications of spillover work via technologies

While research points to the broad advantages of using technology, including outside the workplace (asynchronous communication facilitating time management, flexibility, autonomy, better concentration, better performance, etc.), it is rather the limitations, or even the inconveniences, that are highlighted in scientific studies, even though it may be refuted that most research is aimed at sounding the alarm or identifying problematic situations to promote the prevention of health risks.

Let us therefore look at the impact of spillover, via technologies, on health. “Health” is understood here in the broad sense of the term, which, much like the World Health Organization’s definition, includes not only the physical aspects but also the psychological and social aspects of health. We will not focus our attention on the physical problems specific to the use of screens for many hours, such as eyestrain or neck pain, nor on questions relating to the ergonomics of the “workstation” when conducting spillover work via technologies (ergonomics of the office chair at home, or even the living room sofa!). Our attention will be focused on the impact of spillover on psychological health, and in particular on the issues of hyperconnection and addiction to connection, the need for recovery and burnout.

1.3.1. From hyperconnection to connection addiction

The expressions continuous connection, telepressure, hyperconnection or mobiquity are used to describe situations in which there is a high reliance on ICT. These situations of hyperconnection raise many questions about their consequences in terms of stress, burnout and disruption of private life. Hyperconnection is generally studied among executives because they, by the very nature of their work and their responsibilities, are more affected by the phenomenon. Bobillier Chaumon et al. (2018) have, moreover, highlighted a feeling of dependence on ICT among executives. Vayre and Vonthron (2019) have shown, for their part, that overflow work via technologies reinforced cyberaddiction and eroded the work commitment of executives (especially their motivation).

Organizations seem to have understood the spiral phenomenon between the widespread use of ICT, particularly emails, the growing sense of urgency to respond and the demand for immediate answers. But do they consider their share of responsibility for the impact of ICT spillover on their employees?

Box 1.3.What are the boundaries between connection, hyperconnection and addiction?

Drawing a line between the normal and the pathological is a constant demand and challenge for psychologists. The very definition of work addiction remains a topic of debate in scientific studies. The first definitions focused on the number of hours worked, but these definitions were deemed insufficient, particularly with regard to the phenomenon of presenteeism.