WASHINGTON — A new term has been coined to describe your need to respond
immediately to emails. It’s called “telepressure.”
The pressure to respond to emails when you are not on the clock can cause
trouble with your sleep and could be making you sick.
A new study by Northern Illinois University finds that this holds true on
weekdays, weekends, sick days, and vacation time.
The study finds workers who are fixated on responding to emails not only had
poorer sleep quality, but the were more likely to miss work for health
reasons, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Those emails also could be hurting productivity, as employees focus on email
instead of larger work tasks, according to Larissa K. Barber, an assistant
professor of psychology at Northern Illinois University.
Barber says workers are “getting implicit and explicit cues this is what you
should be doing to be a good employee.”
The research suggests that companies should set clear response times for
email. Without change, businesses could faces decreased work quality, higher
workers turnover and increased health care costs.
The research will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal
of
Occupational Health Psychology.
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