By Joanna Seow

PUTTING in extra hours is no longer confined to staying late in the office.

Employees are also spending time outside of their normal working hours checking e-mail and reporting to the office despite being unwell, a phenomenon that may be causing 'mounting stress and encroachment of work into personal life'.

According to an international workplace survey by recruitment firm Robert Half, respondents from around the world said they spend an average 30 to 44 minutes a day outside of working hours checking their work e-mail. One in four Singapore respondents fell into this category, the highest among the countries surveyed.

Local human resource experts suggested several reasons for this, a key one being the increasing ease with which people can access their e-mail.

'The availability of technology to enable checking of e-mail while on the move' explains why people are more inclined to do just that, said Ms Laletha Nithiyanandan, the vice-president of human resource consulting at Kelly Outsourcing and Consulting Group.

'Some people are just so 'addicted' to being connected,' she added.

A bank corporate communications officer told The Straits Times she typically checks and replies to work e-mail via her BlackBerry several times outside of office hours on weekdays, up until 10.30pm.

Besides preventing e-mail from piling up, she explained, 'this also allows me to be more aware of things that will require my immediate or urgent attention the next work- day, so I can prioritise the work that needs to be done'.

Human resource experts also cited Singapore's connectedness and position as a regional hub for multinationals. Checking work e-mail outside of the office is more prevalent among executives with regional or global responsibilities because they have to work through different time zones, said Mr Josh Goh, the senior manager of corporate services at The GMP Group.

'Such job responsibilities include, but are not limited to, IT, banking and finance, fast-moving consumer goods and advertising, where quick turnaround time is demanded because of the cutthroat nature of the business or because of customers' expectations.'

Going online at home often has to do with remaining available to colleagues and clients in different time zones.

Mr Paul Heng, the founder and executive coach at NeXT Career Consulting Group Asia, said: 'Staying online is one way of enhancing corporate survival.'

In some cases, the extra hours are necessary, as there is simply not enough time to clear e-mail at work. For Assumption Pathway School principal Wee Tat Chuen, work hours are already taken up meeting staff and spending time with students: 'Very often, I do not get to check all my e-mail during work hours.'

The Robert Half survey also quizzed respondents about the most common reason to report for work despite being sick. Fear of falling behind on their workloads emerged as the leading cause, with 61 per cent of Singapore respondents ranking this as a top concern, while 50 per cent were worried about being perceived as not working hard.

'Whether it is to facilitate meetings or complete critical tasks that require being in the office, employees who go in even when they are sick do it out of responsibility for their work,' said Ms Nithiyanandan.

This is often the case for Ms Rena Tan, Robert Walters' marketing manager for Asia: 'Being away from work even for a day can mean having to clear over 100 e-mail messages the next day. Hence, sometimes I do have to go back to work even if I am not in the pink of health, so that I can prevent critical projects being stuck at a bottleneck.'

NeXT Career's Mr Heng suggested the ageing population may mean some companies are using the economic crisis to 'remove the older, and more expensive, employees' - compounding the observed behaviours among mature workers.

He also observed that the economic climate further compounds this, as employees worry about being axed. This sentiment is shared by Ms Joanne Chua, the manager of Robert Walters' human resource specialist recruitment division.

'People are afraid of losing their jobs in this market downturn. They do not want to create the impression that they are lazy,' she said.

Singapore is not alone. Busy cities like Hong Kong and those in Japan also see more and more people working longer hours. These trends may be causing problems for both individuals and companies.

Mr Tim Hird, the managing director of Robert Half Singapore, said: 'Since the onset of the economic crisis, mounting stress and encroachment of work into personal life...has become an increasing trend worldwide.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.