Employees Increasingly Addicted to Technology
According to the American Physical Therapy Association over 2.5 million employees use a Blackberry or similar hand held device. Their use has increased the number of musculoskeletal disorders, including repetitive stress injuries, which now account for one-third of all workplace injuries. So called “Black Berry Thumb,” defined as pain or numbness in the thumbs and hands caused by too much time using a personal data assistant (“PDA”) to check, compose and send emails and instant messages across the internet is the newest form of injury.
As employees often use PDA devices throughout the work day and outside work hours, including weekends, cases of swelling, hand throbbing, and tendonitis have grown. This is especially true for the large number of baby boomers whose PDA use can aggravate underlying arthritic conditions.
Aside from an increase in workers’ compensation claims, experts are predicting that before long employees will be claiming that employer demands to constantly monitor PDA devices are causing psychologically addictive and destructive behaviors. In fact, the expression “crackberry” has already entered the business parlance.
In a recent Rutgers University report cited in HR News, increasing numbers of employees are showing the same type of addictive behaviors found in cigarette smokers. They have a need to constantly check their PDA to make sure they are not missing something, leading to 24/7 attachment to the job. As a result, some predict that the same theories used in past tobacco litigation may find their way into the employment sector. Companies furnishing PDA devices and fostering a culture of constant connectivity will face the greatest potential for such suits.
Additional claims under federal and state wage and hour laws may also be triggered by non exempt employees required or allowed to monitor their PDA’s during off hours.
Employers may want to consider implementing polices clearly stating that employees are not expected to monitor job related data on a continuous basis. Also, organizations should be cautious before disciplining or reducing an employee’s performance rating for failing to monitor and respond to electronic messages during off hours and vacation time. In addition, companies should take seriously FMLA leave or ADA accommodation requests by employees claiming PDA addiction. While many employers may consider such claims preposterous careful analysis of any such request should be undertaken.
Legal and medical professionals who have studied this area warn that it is difficult to distinguish between choice and manipulation, and employers who have created the conditions leading to addictive conduct, or who implicitly require employees to be continuously connected, may be on the forefront of the next wave of leading edge litigation.
