Smartphones blurring line between work and home

People from New Zealand are increasingly having problems juggling work-life of people's inability to switch off from work because of smartphones and other devices.

Andrea Twaddle, director of employment and resource management law at Hamilton firm DTI said that raising demands on employees, means that it is only a matter of time before cases are going to end up in court, Stuff.co.nz reported.

Twaddle said that tech could be seen as creating potential risks for stress or simply being an unreasonable amount of hours employees work.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data show that people from New Zealand are working longer hours than in many other countries, with 13 percent working for more than 50 hours a week.

Waikato University philosophy student Derek Riley, who is researching the effect of work-life balance on medical professionals for his PhD, said that mobile devices provide greater flexibility than ever but the line between work and home time has blurred.

He said that with the high technology today people can be contacted 24/7, which has started to creep into family time, and people can get what they call work creep.

Riley said that there is work time, there is family time, there is playtime, and people need to respect those times.

He added that on-call health professionals like surgeons and doctors, and nightshift workers were particularly affected by the lack of work-life balance.