Smartphones allow people to be accessible to others 100% of the time. While that, in theory, may improve productivity, it also has the potential to be very disruptive to the work-life balance and the lives of both the phone owner and others.

Research has suggested that an employee now receives an interruption to his/her work — either a phonecall, text message, email or personal visit — on average about every four minutes. Such frequent interruptions are more likely to harm than assist productivity, because they make concentration and focusing on a single complex or important task much more difficult.

Smartphones certainly have benefits in that they:

• Can improve customer service through a rapid response to an enquiry or 'crisis'
• Can actually assist work–life balance because they open up the possibility of working from home and/or at a time that is convenient for the user.

However, the downside of using Smartphones is that employees:

• May not have any free time because they are always at risk of being contacted about work
• Can become addicted to the technology and can’t get by without checking their phones, even during leisure activities
• May send emails late in the evening to ‘prove’ to others that they are still at work

The problem with blurring the boundaries between work and non-work is that people lose the recovery time needed to refresh. A refreshed employee is more likely to come up with good ideas and be more productive.

So what can organisations do to control this problem and yet still make best use of the technology? Articles suggest that prescriptive guidelines are unworkable and cultural change is the best approach. For example:

• Senior managers become role models for acceptable use and do not try and contact employees at unreasonable times
• Not rewarding behavior that seeks approval for working outside of usual hours
• Trying to avoid copying people in on emails if not essential