E-mails, instant communication, and increasing demands from foreign employers are stressing out senior managers in Ireland so much that some have a lower quality of life than the terminally ill, new research has shown.
Ciarán O'Boyle, professor of psychology at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, examined 23 senior managers and 110 newly appointed managers, using a measure the college pioneered to examine the quality of life of hospital patients.
He applied the method to analyse the stress of Irish managers for a study he is conducting with the Irish Management Institute.
"For senior managers, the quality of life was lower than any group of patients we looked at, including those who are terminally ill and those with motor-neuron disease," Prof O'Boyle said.
"Newly appointed managers had a lower quality of life than patients with osteo-arthritis and peptic ulcers."
The research comes as Ireland observes Work-Life Balance Day, a Government initiative supported by State agencies that's aimed at encouraging companies to communicate or improve their work-life balance policies for staff. The annual event is chaired by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and includes representatives from employers' group Ibec, the Equality Authority and other Government departments.
The managers examined for the study "work for global organisations and are so busy responding to demands - they're money rich and time poor", the professor said. "Technology such as Blackberries and e-mail has really allowed the urgency of demands to get the upper hand.
"If a company's parent is based on the west coast of the US, it creates a whole time-lag problem and a need for availability. There is the increasing sense that people are expected to be available 24/7."
As manufacturing decreases in importance in Ireland and the country strives for a knowledge-based economy, people will become companies' most important asset, Prof O'Boyle said. This means that organisations will have to put a far greater focus on "work-life integration", said the professor, who is also head of the school of healthcare management at the college.