Over the summer break, I have had the most wonderful chance to immerse myself into doing the things I love without the time constraints of a schedule or routine. One of which is listening to podcasts, lots of them.
One podcast that I was happy to scroll through all the available episodes is by Occupational Psychologist, Adam Grant. His show on “Work Life” has one episode on “When work takes over your life” which discusses some very relevant issues relating to well-being in the workplace, which I know is becoming a priority right now.
The overarching theme of this podcast episode related to whether it is necessary to have boundaries between our work and our life in order to experience positive wellbeing. We all have our own perspectives on what work-life balance looks like, and this post does not aim to recommend the perfect situation. However, Grant highlighted that we can see there are two main perspectives or dimensions to how we perceive a work-life balance, and this depends on whether you’re an Integrator or Segmentor.
I was therefore keen to find out a little more about these work-style preferences and what this may mean for our well-being. Bock (2014) reports Googles review of employees to identify their working habits and defines them as:
Integrators
Do you merge individual time with work time? An integrator may enjoy having their email on their phone so they can check in when new work comes in. Your work life and personal life are often connected; this could be in terms of the physical environment in which you conduct your work or the how your work is related to your personal life.
Segmentors
Do you like to keep your individual time and work time separate? Then you might be a segmentor. A segmentor likes to create distinct boundaries between their work and personal life. This might mean that you prefer to complete work at the workplace and avoid work-related conversations or focus when at home.
Perhaps you can see yourself as both an integrator or segmentor depending on the situation. This distinction of work preferences is known as boundary management and there is more complexity beyond this tw0-fold dichotomy of being an integrator or segmentor such as the direction in which we integrate from work to personal or personal to work (Hecht & Allen, 2009) and also whether our preferred boundaries are our actual boundaries (Powell and Greenhaus, 2010).
Why is how we manage our work life boundaries important?Research demonstrates that Segmentors report better well-being. It seems that there can be positive effects of leaving your work behind at your workplace rather than bringing it home with you. Findings from Wepfer, et al (2017) indicated that employees who integrate work life activities (as scored on a self-report likert scale ratings) were less likely to engage in recovery activities and reported higher levels of exhaustion.
Does that mean integrators are more susceptible to burnouts or negative impacts on well-being? Not necessarily, it simply showcases the different styles of approaching our careers, and helps to identify that some individuals are happy to have both their work and personal life connected. There are also numerous benefits to this; such as a higher reported level of job satisfaction (Kreiner, 2006).
Essentially, there is no right or wrong way to approach how we perceive our work life balance, however it is important that as institutions we recognise these different preferences for boundary management and ensure situations and working styles allow for both these preferences to be respected.
Challenges to Boundary Management within Educational Institutions
Within modern society, segmentors may be finding their ability to disconnect from their workplace difficult.
Here, Grant raises the concept of Technology Boundaries to help deal with the constant flow of notifications or the need to be checking emails. Whilst empirical evidence within this area is still developing (Wilmer, et al, 2017), research has documented associations between the presence of mobile-phone technology and it’s limits on our attention (Thornton et al, 2014).
This is an interesting point, as there is clearly a bank of evidence to support the distracting element of technology in our attention, memory and everyday cognition (see Wilmer, et al, 2017), for this reason, a suggestion of ‘unlplugging’ or engaging in a ‘technology free bubble’ helps to maintain the boundaries and use technology effectively (Grant, 2018). We often see similar strategies in our clsssrooms, whether it is a phone box, or no phones on the desk, or my personal favourite of eyes up, phones down, hearts open. It seems easier to create these boundaries when we’re in control of the situation in our own classroom.
But boundary management can become more challenging when using online platforms such as email. When should we be emailing? Have we defined how and when we use emails? Certainly emails have sometimes been inaccurately viewed as a formal instant messenger. Simply defining the boundaries may not be enough, asking questions regarding our cultural norms of using emails may also be helpful in addressing workload and wellness of both teachers and students.
I also think it is important to clarify, like Grant also does in his podcast that this is not an advocation that boundaries are set so that work can only be completed during set times. This is where the concept of ‘Engaged Workaholics’ is relevant. What if you work best after hours? What if you want to continue your work? It appears that this perspective can actually act as a buffer against stress relating to work. However, the question still remains can this act as a buffer relating to burn out? Whilst this is a discussion for another time, engaged workaholics may feel stifled by boundaries but this does not mean they can’t work. It simply creates guidelines around when to share their work or pass on to-do lists.
Whilst not all aspects of work can fit neatly into boundaries (I would be happy to hear some discussion points about this!), clearly there is a reason to pause for thought.
– What can we do to enhance everyone’s wellbeing within our community by using Technology Boundaries?
– What can be achieved through sharing expectations of how you aim to manage your boundaries between work and personal life with your team?
– How can we control our workload and protect our wellbeing?
I am particularly interested in exploring Boundary Management in more depth, so feel free to add any comments or questions.
Add a comment to identify your work-life strategy – do you see yourself as an integrator or a segmentor?
References:
Block, L. (2014). Googles scientific approach to work life balance and much more. Available from: https://hbr.org/2014/03/googles-scientific-approach-to-work-life-balance-and-much-more [Accessed 23 July 2018].
Grant, A. (2018). Work Life: When work life takes over. Available from: [Accessed 30th June 2018].
Hecht, T. D., & Allen, N. J. (2009). A longitudinal examination of the
work-nonwork boundary strength construct. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 30(7), 839–862. https://doi.org/10.1002/job
Powell, G. N., & Greenhaus, J. H. (2010). Sex, gender, and the work-to- family interface: Exploring negative and positive interdependencies. Academy of Management Journal, 53(3), 513–534. https://doi.org/ 10.5465/AMJ.2010.51468647.
Thornton, B., Faires, A., Robbins, M., and Rollins, E. (2014). The mere presence of a cell phone may be distracting implications for attention and task performance.
Soc. Psychol. 45, 479–488. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000216
Wepfer, A. G., Tammy D. Allen, Rebecca Brauchli1 & Gregor J. Jenny1 & Georg F. Bauer. Work-Life Boundaries and Well-Being: Does Work-to-Life Integration Impair Well-Being through Lack of Recovery? Journal of Business Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-017-9520-y
Wilmer HH, Sherman LE and Chein JM (2017) Smartphones and Cognition: A Review of Research Exploring the Links between Mobile Technology Habits and Cognitive Functioning. Front. Psychol. 8:605. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00605
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