Work after work: The impact of new service delivery models on work hours

Abstract

In many professional service organizations (PSOs), a single server such as a physician or lawyer delivers services to customers across multiple channels. In these settings, there exists a risk that work obligations encroach on the personal lives of the servers. We empirically examine this concern in the primary care setting of physicians providing care to patients following the introduction of a new service delivery channel, e‐visits. Our data cover an 8.5‐year timespan and include 3.3 million patient encounters, including about one million e‐visits. We find that e‐visit adoption nearly doubles the number of hours containing work (defined as office visits or e‐visits) each week. Of the additional hours containing such work, only 49% are in weekday business hours; the rest are in weekday evenings or early mornings (37%) and on weekends (14%). We also show that increases in office or e‐visit workloads lead to more post‐workday activity in the e‐visit channel. We conclude the analysis by examining the impact of these workloads on e‐visit work content, as measured by the number of words and amount of time spent on each e‐visit; we estimate precise but practically small effects of workload on these work content outcomes.

Public policy and operations management

“…Such instances reveal potentially missed opportunities by otherwise excellent OM contributions to add to our understanding of public policy. For instance, Bavafa and Terwiesch (2019) showed that the introduction of an additional service‐delivery channel (e‐visits) for physicians nearly doubles their number of work hours, consequently encroaching on their personal lives. The authors acknowledged the immense potential implications of their work for public policy.…”

“…Our hope is that editors will yet encourage public‐policy ideas with the necessary caveats, even if somewhat speculative, on research with public‐policy implications. For example, in Bavafa and Terwiesch (2019), a relatively simple approach the authors have since observed in practice is to limit e‐visit hours, and all electronic communication with a doctor, explicitly to a specific time frame (e.g., 4–5 p.m. every day). Whether such a requirement would be appropriate as public policy is not clear but may generate work‐life balance benefits to burdened providers.…”

Work During Non-Work Time of Public Employees

“…For the RQ3:"During which periods do employees work during non-work times? ", we found in existing literature (Mar & Buzeti, 2021;CIPD, 2020;Bavafa & Terwiesch, 2019;ILO & Eurofound, 2017) that employees work at different times during non-work times.…”

“…As we know from practice the performance of work during non-work has expanded with the mass use of ICT at work and the problem started to be more visible because of mass spread of remote work during COVID-19 pandemic. We found and identified 18 scientific literature on the selected topic of work during non-work time (Andrade and Matias, 2021;Lee et al, 2021;Mar and Buzeti, 2021;Wendsche, de Bloom, Syrek and Vahle--Hinz, 2021;CIPD, 2020;Lutz et al, 2020;Mohd Fauzi et al, 2020;Bavafa and Terwiesch, 2019;Eurofound and ILO, 2019;Schmoll, 2019;Thulin, Vilhelmson and Johansson, 2019;Gadeyne et al 2018;Houdmont et al, 2018;ILO and Eurofound, 2017;Ďuranová and Ohly, 2016;Eurofound, 2016;Kreiner, 2006). Based on the research questions (RQ), we have analysed the following literature: RQ1: How is work during non-work times becoming more widespread among employees?…”

“…Following a review literature (Mar and Buzeti, 2021;CIPD, 2020;Bavafa and Terwiesch, 2019;ILO and Eurofound, 2017), we have identified the most frequent periods of non-work times (morning, evening, night, weekends, annual leave) during which employees carry out work.…”