Wired workers can't shut down

Some 42 per cent of staff feel the need to catch up on work while supposedly resting, and 23 per cent check their in-boxes at the weekend, according to a new report from Gartner.

Business users receive an average of 22 emails a day, but only just over a quarter of these demand immediate attention, the researcher said. More than a third of all business emails are unnecessary, or are "occupational spam" sent by colleagues, the report added.

Maureen Caplan Grey, senior research analyst at Gartner, said: "Email has become the corporate security blanket of this decade. If executives don't get their 22 emails per day, they actually miss them and begin to feel out of the loop. The thought of communication happening without our knowledge keeps us tethered to the workplace."

Psychologist Cary Cooper, a professor at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, told vnunet.com that taking computers or mobile phones on holiday killed the benefit of the break.

"This is appalling," he said. "Checking email while on holiday is a symptom that someone hasn't got their work in perspective and that they are insecure in their job."

"People have to learn to say no," he added. "They should certainly not take computers or mobile phones on holiday. Instead they should set up messages saying they are on holiday and then to stick to them."