A report put together by United Kingdom based Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has linked higher levels of stress and pressure in work place to employees checking email outside work hours.

According to the report, while personality type affects the degree to which pressure is felt, it explained that organisations are being urged to put policies in place to stop employees letting work overspill into home life.

It explained that the recommendations are from a report by Future Work Centre, called You’ve got mail!, which polled 2,000 people across a variety of industries, sectors and job roles.

The report, due to be presented at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology annual conference in Nottingham, found a strong link between ‘push’ email – where email is automatically sent to your inbox – and perceived email pressure. It found ‘push’ email was used by 49 per cent of respondents.

According to CIPD, of those surveyed, 62 per cent said they leave their emails on all day. Younger people were most likely to leave their email on all day (80 per cent of 15 to 24 year olds) than older people (50 per cent of those aged 55 and over).

Perceived email pressure was found to be highest in IT and marketing, Public Relation, media and internet sectors, “of this group, 30 per cent received more than 50 emails a day and more than 65 per cent said their email was always active.

The study also found checking email before work and at night was associated with higher levels of perceived email pressure, while managers were also found to experience significantly higher levels of perceived email pressure compared to non-managers.

Insight Director at the Future Work Centre, Dr Richard MacKinnon, said: “Our research shows that email is a double-edged sword. Whilst it can be a valuable communication tool, it’s clear that it’s a source of stress of frustration for many of us.

“The habits we develop, the emotional reactions we have to messages and the unwritten organisational etiquette around email, combine into a toxic source of stress which could be negatively impacting our productivity and wellbeing.”

Newly appointed CIPD president, professor Cary Cooper, said organisations should have policies preventing email access outside of working hours, adding that this should be led by management behaviour.

He said: “If a manager sends an email at night to a subordinate or colleague then the message is that we expect you to be available 24/7. The alternative is to close the server down at the weekend and in the evening and there are companies that are doing that,” he said.

Cooper added that there were links between perceived pressure of emails and personality, citing that ‘Type A personalities’ – highly ambitious, driven, time-conscious people – would be likely to be most affected. He warned that besides potentially damaging their own health and affecting their families through poor work-life balance, a business could also suffer if an individual was then off with a stress-related illness.
Besides, the Future Work Centre report also found a link between personality and perceived stress caused by out of hours email communications. Referring to a measure of personality called the core self-evaluation – which assesses locus of control, neuroticism, self-efficacy, and self-esteem – the report found that people with lower core self-evaluation (less confident people) experience greater interference between work and home than those with higher core self-evaluation (people who think of themselves in a more positive way).

The survey suggested that this may be because those with higher core self-evaluation believe they have more control over their situation and are therefore less impacted by their jobs.

Meanwhile, CIPD, the professional body for Human Resources people development, and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), recently launched new research into employer-supported volunteering (ESV).

The research found a lack of understanding between charities and companies about the costs and benefits involved in ESV, with some companies unwilling to contribute to the costs involved in hosting volunteers. Similarly, some of the businesses interviewed reported that charities often overlooked the additional benefits of a one-off placement, including the potential of sponsorship or support from the company in the future.

Another barrier revealed by the research was that many charities benefit from skilled volunteering, such as help writing strategies, but feel that people are less likely to volunteer in their professional capacity than for typically unskilled volunteering tasks such as painting or gardening.

The research highlights the significant gaps in employer knowledge about volunteering, and explores assumptions made by each sector that risk undermining the potential of volunteering initiatives.

The research, ‘On the brink of a game-changer?’, has been published to explore how better collaboration between business and the voluntary sector is key to achieving successful ESV placements.

The Conservative Party’s election manifesto pledged to require large businesses and public bodies to offer employees three days’ paid volunteering leave, which could result in much higher demand for volunteering opportunities.