What is work these days? How do you define it? Is it work when you're at the beach thinking you have to check your e-mail?" In one survey of 1,600 managers from multiple companies, about half checked e-mail continuously while on vacation or just before bedtime. 26 percent admitted to Perlow that they brought their mobile device into bed with them.
The blurring of work and personal life doesn't only affect highly paid white-collar workers. Union workers, or those with regulated work hours, are also using mobile devices.
That is raising new legal questions: Brazil, for example, just passed a law requiring employers to pay overtime when employees use smart phones at home to answer messages from work.
Chicago police sergeant Jeffrey Allen is suing because he was not receiving overtime for checking and answering work-related e-mails, calls, and texts at home on his department-issued device. The lawsuit, now awaiting a trial, is among a few emerging cases testing how the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act applies to smart phones.
"If an employer wants you to wear the ball and chain, and work during your off hours, I think they should have to pay something for that," says Paul Geiger, Allen's lawyer and also a counsel for the city's police union.
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