How is ‘smartphone fatigue’ affecting the UK’s workforce? 

At Thumbtel we’ve been talking about the importance of work-life balance for over a year. We hear lots of people complaining that they don’t have enough time for hobbies, they are stressed or haven’t enjoyed their weekend or holiday because they ended up working.

In fact, only today I received an email from someone (I won’t name), who told me that she could have a chat about work, yet she was on leave. I promptly told her to step away from her laptop and that we’ll speak after Easter. Often easier said than done.

In our view, too many people refuse to, or find it hard to switch off from work and their mobile phone is most often to blame. But we wanted proof.

71% of senior managers find personal time is interrupted by work calls.

We interviewed 1000 people in the UK and found that senior managers/professionals are at the top of the list of those who claim to be regularly interrupted by work calls in their personal time, with 71.3% saying they face disruptions on a regular basis.

65% senior managers agreed that they are experiencing smartphone fatigue, due to the demands of calls, texts, emails and notifications. In fact, almost 7 out of 10 (65%) senior managers believe that smartphones are responsible for work/life imbalance.

A further 63% of 25-34 year olds agreed that smartphones are responsible for creating a work/life imbalance, with just over half (53%) of 25-34 year olds agreeing that they never fully ‘switch off’ from work, due to their smartphones and 56% saying they regularly receive work related calls that interrupt valuable personal time, such as holidays, weekends or evenings.

“It’s clear that there’s an issue relating to the pressures of managing work and home calls from smartphones with 4 out of 10 people (42%) agreeing that they never fully switch off from work due to their smartphones ,” says our CEO and founder, Andy Munarriz.

No matter what age you are or the type of role that you work in, it seems to be affecting us all. Smartphones really are taking over our lives, particularly when it comes to taking time out from work.

This has been recognised in France, where a relatively new employment law (January 2017) states that organisations with more than 50 workers must guarantee employees a “right to disconnect“from technology due to the stress and burnout it causes. We are looking forward to seeing businesses in the UK following their example.

If you’d like to ensure that you and your team have a work-life balance and are able to switch off from work when you’re not working then why not start a free trial of Another Number for Teams and use its ‘do not disturb’ mode, to start enjoying your time off.