Always on: the relationship of smartphone usage and work-life balance of organizational employees in Metro Manila

Abstract

The researcher conducted a quantitative descriptive study to answer the question, "What is the relationship of smartphone usage of organizational employees, both during and after work hours, with work-life balance?"? Furthermore, the objectives of this study were: to determine the smartphone usage patterns of organizational employees both at home and at work; to determine if smartphone usage at home leads to the spillover of an organizational employee's work to the home domain; and to determine if smartphone usage at work leads to the spillover of an organizational employee's personal life to the work domain. Through purposive-snowball sampling, the researcher collected 107 respondents who are smartphone-users and who work in different industries in Metro Manila, such as Advertising, Media, BPO, IT, etc. The respondents were asked to answer an online survey questionnaire consisted of four parts: demographics, 5-item preliminary part, 12-item scale about smartphone usage patterns and 10-item scale about perceived work-life balance. The results show that the most frequent activity at home and at work is sending and/or receiving work-related and personal texts respectively. Moreover, it has been found that organizational employees generally don't turn their smartphone off before going to bed and the first thing they do in the morning is check them for any notification. Pearson's Correlation yielded low or no significant relationship between smartphone usage at home and perceived WHI, between smartphone usage at work and perceived HWI, and lastly, between the overall smartphone usage of organizational employees and their work-life balance.