Comment: The curse of the BlackBerry could strike your company

 

Gallery

By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 12 Oct 2006 at 17:33

It started with mum spoiling twilight kickabouts by calling you in for tea, and continues today with emails from the boss; the spectre of obligation nagging on our shoulders. In the connected age, though, workplace pressures aren't so easy to shrug off as mum's Findus crispy pancakes; they follow you from office to pub, shadow you all the way home and beep impatiently from your jacket on the banister. The curse of mobile email is hard to escape.

To listen to the bluster emanating from the likes of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, and its telecoms co-conspirators, you'd think that life without mobile email is impossible. If you believe research from T-Mobile and YouGov, nine out of ten BlackBerry owners say it's a business lifesaver, while 40 per cent said they'd have ruined customer relationships had they not responded immediately to mails. 'BlackBerry is no longer simply nice to have - it's a crucial ingredient in businesses success,' says Derek Williamson, marketing mouthpiece for T-Mobile. 'It's helping businesses to avoid legal issues, improve customer service. Mobile working has truly come of age.'

He would say that, wouldn't he? T-Mobile stands to make a decent income from the traffic generated from mobile email, a market that's expected by Research Analytics to top $11 billion globally next year and is growing exponentially.

But according to research from America's Rutger University and UK legal experts, far from helping companies avoid legal problems, IT departments equipping employees with always-on email could find themselves in the dock.

The danger of being always on call is that hard-pressed employees, already spending well over the recommended 48 hours a week at the coalface, extend their days by responding to emails after hours. The Trade Union Congress (TUC) says this could affect family or social lives and lead to stress or depression.

'There are all sorts of legal problems with this,' says Edward Goodwyn, a partner at IT law specialist Pincent Mason. 'If an employee could prove that being on call all the time had contributed to stress and the company had provided the BlackBerry, they'd be liable, as they might be if the employee was using the device while driving the car and had a crash, unless explicit warning had been given.'

The TUC also argues that if employees are expected to respond to emails out of hours, that time should be considered 'on call' and should be counted as part of staff's contracted hours. Sent an email in the middle of the night? Take the rest of the week off. 'Companies need to respect that people have the right to their own time, to be left alone in the evening or on holiday,' says Hannah Reed, the TUC's senior employee rights officer.

'If people are always on call, that should be recognised in their hours.' Try explaining that theory to your personnel department.

The always-on ethic is endemic. A survey by communications consultants The Aziz Corporation found that more than two-thirds of British bosses took a BlackBerry or laptop on holiday with them this summer, with half of them checking emails once a day. Twelve per cent even admitted to accessing mobile email as a welcome relief from the family. Either they have the children from hell or what they were really worried about was the repercussions of not answering messages when they arrived back at work.

Lawyers say stress from gadget overload would be a hard case to prove, but the possibility of legal action over repetitive strain injuries are more likely. BlackBerry Thumb, a form of 'texting tendonitis', has been cited by medical experts from London to Australia as being a genuine condition.