Wednesday, June 06, 2007

How mobility helps maintain work-life balance

I write about enterprise mobility for a living. One of the oft-cited benefits is that it helps workers to maintain a proper work-life balance. This claim is more commonly made on the left-hand side of the Atlantic than on the right-hand side. Over here, there is at least some recognition that knowing when and whether to turn the Blackberry off, or stop doing the emails on the laptop, is an issue. In North America, it seems much more common to assume that being able to do work outside of normal working hours, away from the workplace, is somehow more 'balanced'.

This piece from AP doesn't claim that it's illustrating a more balanced life, though it does suggest that the impetus for taking laptops on holiday so as to continue working is coming from employees, not from employers. It's hard not to despair reading this sort of thing - another example of computers making people easier to use.