AOL stops clocks for 'stressed' staff

AOL UK suspended time on Monday - and it had nothing to do with the clocks moving forward to British Summer Time at the weekend.

The firm has asked its staff not to wear watches to work, has stopped its office clocks and has covered up time displays on computers or fax machines.

An AOL spokewoman said the aim was to establish whether employees become more productive and less stressed at work if they don't have the opportunity to clock-watch.

The idea materialised during a marketing and PR brainstorming session around the online service provider's flat-rate internet access package. If members no longer faced time constraints around that, the thinking went, what impact would such freedom have on staff?

But BUPA Professor of organisational psychology and health at Umist [University of Manchester Institute of Science of Technology], Cary Cooper, is unsure that watching the clock is the real problem in the workplace.

"It's the long working hours culture that's the issue, particuarly in IT. The interactive nature of what people are dealing with seduces them into working longer on something than they want to, and that spills over into their private lives, so they become less effective and make more mistakes," he explained.

"Working consistently longer hours is damaging to people both physically and mentally. It burns you out, takes you away from your family and means you don't have time to rest and recuperate. It might be a more interesting exercise to tell people to simply go home when they feel like they're not adding value any more," he added.

Studies elsewhere also indicate that technology itself is putting personnel under stress.

A report by the International Labour Organisation released in October last year revealed that workers in the UK have suffered mentally from the rapid introduction of technology "due to increased time pressure of tighter deadlines and demands in terms of quality and quantity of production".

The study added: "The impact of the information technology revolution has accelerated competition and it is therefore not surprising that more and more cases of disability are related to developing chronic conditions such as depression and work-induced stress."