From Work to Life and Back Again: Examining the Digitally-Mediated Work/Life Practices of a Group of Knowledge Workers

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study exploring the technologically-mediated practices of work/life balancing, blurring and boundary-setting of a cohort of professionals in knowledge-intensive roles in Sheffield, a regional city in Northern England. It contributes to a growing body of CSCW research on the complex interweaving of work and non-work tasks, demands and on the boundaries that can be supported or hindered by digital technologies. In the paper, we detail how a cohort of 26 professionals in knowledge-intensive roles devise diverse strategies for handling work and non-work in light of a set of interconnected forces, and we argue that boundary dissolving and work-life blurring, and not just boundary setting and Bbalancing^, are essential resources within such strategies. We also show how boundary sculpting pertains not only to work pervading personal spheres of life, but also the opposite, and that establishing, softening and dissolving boundaries are practiced to handle situations when the personal seeps into professional life.

Life-swap: how discussions around personal data can motivate desire for change

“…Many of the solutions or ideas for action generated by our participants to improve their WLB or increase levels of physical activity are similar to and extend strategies previously documented in the literature [24][25][26]. Arguably participants could have come up with these solutions themselves, or could have referred to more formal sources of advice without the need for sharing and discussing data.…”

Sharing the Office, Sharing the Care?

“…From one side, technology has become a constant presence in people's life and the same devices are used for both private and work-related issues. On the other side, the blurring of life into work is more and more significant in terms of how it affects people's ways of setting and working boundaries [14]. As pointed out by Ciolfi and Lockley [14], "such shifting boundaries in people's lives are tied to shifting definitions and models of work and non-work.…”

“…On the other side, the blurring of life into work is more and more significant in terms of how it affects people's ways of setting and working boundaries [14]. As pointed out by Ciolfi and Lockley [14], "such shifting boundaries in people's lives are tied to shifting definitions and models of work and non-work. New forms of labour and of employment, particularly in knowledgeintensive sectors such as the gig economy, mean that freelancers, portfolio workers and professionals working in split roles or multiple part-time roles are dealing with almost constant blurring: of work spaces, times and tasks".…”

“…According to a recent study of the European Commission [16], caring responsibilities are reasons for inactivity for almost 31% of inactive women while this is only the case for 4.5% of men. This happens to knowledge workers too (see for example [4,6,19]) for whom the boundary between the working and the private spheres is blurring [1], specifically because of the demands of this type of work including the atypical working patterns and the ubiquitous presence of digital technology [14,26,33]. From a management perspective, the enactment of policies to support balance of work and life roles may be beneficial to employees' performance [8,22] and these effects are not direct but rather mediated by employee wellbeing [25].…”

Flexible Turtles and Elastic Octopi: Exploring Agile Practice in Knowledge Work

“…There is no one name for this work style or type of worker, and indeed scholars have not necessarily helped to narrow the range of descriptions or monikers. When mobility is a particularly accented aspect of a worker's life, he tends to be labeled as a 'mobile worker'; tautologically, these workers are shown to use mobile infrastructures frequently (Ciolfi and Lockley 2018;Ciolfi and Marc McLoughlin 2017;Cousins and Robey 2015;Francisco et al 2018;Koroma and Vartiainen 2018;Yuan et al 2010). When a worker's mobility spans a wide distance or blurs work-life boundaries, the label is often shifted to 'digital nomad' (Czarniawska 2013;D'Mello and Sahay 2007;Jarrahi et al 2019;Pittinsky and Shih 2004;Reichenberger 2018).…”