Expecting work emails after hours may harm health: Study

Are you expected to monitor your work email even after office hours? Such an 'always on' organisational culture can be detrimental to your health and well-being - even if you do not actually engage in working off-hours, a study has found.

The study shows that such expectations result in anxiety, which adversely affects the health of employees and their families.

"The competing demands of work and nonwork lives present a dilemma for employees, which triggers feelings of anxiety and endangers work and personal lives," said William Becker, an associate professor at Virginia Tech in the US.

Previous studies have shown that the stress of increased job demands leads to strain and conflict in family relationships when the employee is unable to fulfil nonwork roles at home - "such as when someone brings work home to finish up."