Reading Work e-mail After Hours Causally Linked to Employee Stress

A workers’ health is adversely impacted by the employer’s expectation that and the employee will read work-related e-mail after hours. A new study finds that an employee’s mental stress is adversely affected by such expectations.

The recent study by Virginia Tech found that “employer expectations of working email monitoring during non-work hours are detrimental to the health and well-being of not only the employees but their family members as well.”

The demands created by having work and non-work lives presents of a dilemma for employees and triggers a feeling of anxiety that adversely affects health.

“William Becker, a Virginia Tech associate professor of management in the Pamplin College of Business, co-authored a new study, "Killing me softly: electronic communications monitoring and employee and significant-other well-being," showing 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,’ Becker said, ‘which triggers feelings of anxiety and endangers work and personal lives.’”

“Other studies have shown that the stress of increased job demands leads to strain and conflict in family relationships when the employee is unable to fulfill nonwork roles at home -- ‘such as when someone brings work home to finish up.’”

“Their new study, he said, demonstrates that employees do not need to spend actual time on work in their off-hours to experience the harmful effects. The mere expectations of availability increase strain for employees and their significant others -- even when employees do not engage in actual work during nonwork time.”

Click here to read more, Mere expectation of checking work email after hours harms health of workers and families.

…

Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters).

A Deviation Off-Premises Bars Claim

The “Coming and Going Rule” has always been a grey area in determining compensability in the workers’ compensation arena. A bucket full of cases and statutory modifications have tried to establish clarity.

The Going and Coming Rule: Parking Lot Injury Held Not Compensable

A NJ appellate court ruled that an employee who was severely injured in a parking lot as a result of a slip and fall was not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits since the injury occurred “off the premises” and the employer did not control the employee’s parking.

The Court also ruled, that even though a separate corporation that owned the parking lot, the corporate veil could not be pierced in absence of the proof of fraud by the employer. The employer merely rented the store premises and not the parking lot. 

Cottone v Medical Supply Corp. and NJ Manufacturers (Intervener) 
2013 WL 1136114 (N.J.Super.A.D.) Decided March 20, 2013