Paying for Flexible Work Schedules

Over at Wired Workplace, Brittany Ballenstedt has an interesting point: according to new polling data, some workers want more flexible schedules so much that they're willing to pay for the technology that will allow them to work outside of regular work hours, usually for smartphones:

For example, just 11 percent of U.S. information workers today use a smartphone at work. But two-thirds of respondents noted that they want more flexible work hours, while a third want to work from home at least occasionally. A third of respondents also said they use their own mobile phones for work.

The survey also found that teleworkers work, on average, two hours more per week than office workers, largely because they can access applications anywhere. For example, 81 percent of information workers with smartphones use them from home, while 62 percent use them for work while traveling, and 64 percent use them while at their desks. And 29 percent of smartphone users spend three or more hours a day with the device, Forrester found.

Even though I've seen this pattern play out with many of my friends who foot the entire bill for their smartphone useage even though they're using it to extend their productivity and availability hours for their employers, I find it a little worrisome. First, if workers genuinely need technology because their employers want them to stay productive, their employers should probably be paying for it, and making sure such technology has proper information safeguards, etc. Second, this reminds me a bit of early industrial-revolution piecework pay systems, where workers paid for their own material, did the work at home, and were paid for what work they handed it. Obviously, that's not a situation that's great for workers, either from an economic or a work-life balance standpoint. And third, I think it's probably in employers' interests to protect employees from themselves to a certain extent. It's great if employees want to work hard and work long hours, but at some point, employers have to step in and encourage a healthy work-life balance so their workers will stay functional. Some industries, like consulting, may rely on working some employees 100-hour weeks until they burn out. That's not a strategy that will work for most employers.