Comments on: CA looks at webstress

By: mette weber

mette weber — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:37:21 +0000

Transitvans ,why scary ?
what is the worst that can happen ;-)

By: transitvans

transitvans — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:31:05 +0000

It’s almost scary just how much we’re coming to rely on web applications to do our jobs…although they improve our speed and efficiency, this is only when they’re functioning properly!

By: Shaun McGuinness

Shaun McGuinness — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:58:10 +0000

web stress - you bet! One of the down sides of living in my lovely part of the world (the French Pyrenees) is the internet connection. And as I use a web based CRM package and do virtually all my work online it can be incredibly frustrating watching the timer tick down as documents etc upload to my UK server! Most of my work is done via email and whilst email language can sometimes be misunderstood I don't think I could run my business without it. In fact I could not run my business without email! I think its called "progress?" Hampshire Accountants Accountants Hampshire

By: mette weber

mette weber — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:39:54 +0000

Dear DH
You are right we have to be carefull … we always have, and we have to take risks well ;-)
I love email, I am consultant and I live of email and always answer them. I am carefull-if it is a important messagde, I ask people for a “request read receipt” which a lot of people answer. If I do not get repons from importatnt. I call. It takes a lot of good planning. I spent probably 1-2 hours a day to check and answer emails and opdate my blog and read and update Facebook . For me it is important inspiration and networking.

By: DH

DH — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:57:17 +0000

I used to love email – but I find that if you are not careful, people don;t read the messages and information is lost and time and money are wasted. I had a boss once who used to say, tell em that it’s coming by email and it is their problem if they don’t read it or action the work. However, I don’t think I agree with that anymore.. I find it more effective to pick up the phone,,, not easier,, but more effective!

By: Paul Maurice Martin

Paul Maurice Martin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:24:35 +0000

It’s a problem at home too – maybe particularly for folks like me who are severely disabled to the point where web-based activity is pretty much one’s entire productive life.

By: Yellow Umbrella

Yellow Umbrella — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:37:09 +0000

Very interesting!
… and all the more reason to “manage your geeks” better and be nicer to them as their boss :)

I’ll use this info as even more evidence in my workshops :)

Anja

By: mette weber

mette weber — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:03:44 +0000

Just yesterday I expierend a lot of webstress.
Writting om my new book in Bali and at the same time it is essential for me to be able to be on the internet, checking and answering working emails from Denmark …and guess..what … the internet were eighter not working og working so slow that I had to do suduko while waiting to update some stuff. I lost a lot of emails while sending them.
It took me 5 hour to do what normely take me 1hour. So talking about webstress……I was sooooooo frustreded.
Left for a massage … felt better …actualy much better after that and to day the internet is a bit faster. …. decided first to go on the intenet 4 pm not to spoil my whole day. Not easy to work from here, except for working offline writting on the book, so maby I did choose the right place to write ;-)
..

By: Bay

Bay — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:54:13 +0000

Hi Alex

What an exciting opportunity to be part of what has to be a very worthwhile study. Well done!

I just wonder whether the scope is not too narrow. Let me explain.

One of the major causes of stress today has to be email; and I wonder whether business leaders recognise this. For example I was out of my office with no email access for less than 2 days last week and I returned to over 100 emails which took me the best part of another day to respond to (and there are still a couple of less important ones that remain unopened!) This has a major impact on the other things on my ever-growing “to do” list!

My business also needs me to network, so over and above this and keeping up with my networks, I am trying to get the hang of social media and so also need to spend time on my blog, Facebook, and Twitter. Consequently I am increasingly getting the sense of being on a treadmill and losing control (i.e. about to fall off the back! :) ) Some of this is just the inevitable consequence of trying to develop my own business, but I wonder whether managers have understood the implications of all this technology.

If an employee gets 50 emails a day and on average they take 3 minutes each to respond to, that means 150 minutes a day or 2.5 hours! Clearly this has to have some impact and I doubt whether most organisations make enough allowance for this – or the stress it is likely to cause in a deadline driven environment that is trying to improve communication!!

Coincidentally, it also makes a mockery of basing work on a fixed number of hours rather than inputs and outputs! Perhaps you can use this as an opportunity to break down that anachronism!

Anyway, that’s my ha’pence worth. I hope it contributes to your efforts!

Keep smiling
Bay

By: Daily Lifestream update (July 15th)

Daily Lifestream update (July 15th) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:05:07 +0000

[...] Shared CA looks at webstress [...]