Boundary Management: Setting boundaries between work and private life according to personal needs

Digitization, globalization and, not least, the sharp increase in knowledge work are enabling us today to perform a wide range of work tasks regardless of time and place. This circumstance inevitably leads to a partial dissolution of boundaries between work and private life, not least due to the spread of home offices and flexible working hours. It is thus becoming increasingly difficult for organizations as well as managers to directly influence the health behavior of their mobile-flexible employees. This change in work culture - away from the directive-bound employee to the largely autonomous workforce entrepreneurship - has led to a considerable increase in mental stress in recent years (including feelings of being overwhelmed, not being able to switch off from work and sleep problems). Studies indicate that the opportunities of this newfound autonomy to find more self-fulfillment also pose devastating dangers to the same extent. New competencies are required from managers as well as employees to be able to assert themselves in this new/digitized work context. In particular, a high degree of self-management is required and thus also the ability to set self-determined health-promoting and productivity-enhancing boundaries between different areas of life, such as work and private life. Managers are also called upon to set a good example and support their employees in this transition to a new work culture. At the organizational level, an innovative work context must be created that enables organizational members to meet the demands of the new working world in a way that conserves resources. The previous work context of working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, is increasingly losing significance as a frame of reference and must be rethought.

Boundary Management Challenge

According to the Boundary Theory (Nippert-Eng, 1996), individuals differ in the way they delimit different life worlds (work, private, hobbies, friends) from one another or integrate and mix them. For example, while strongly segmenting people prefer to set clear and impermeable boundaries between work and private, strongly integrating people have the need to let these life worlds flow into each other as optimally as possible. Between these two poles there is a colorful world of "mixed types" who integrate or segment based on their identity. This is expressed, among other things, by the fact that tasks and circumstances perceived as important, which correspond to one's own identity, are treated integratively, whereas tasks and circumstances perceived as unimportant, which correspond less to one's own identity, are gladly clearly demarcated. Thus, in a mobile-flexible team, very different needs and thus views usually come together with regard to the rules of optimal cooperation. This circumstance leads to an increased experience of stress for all those involved. It is necessary to develop appropriate rules and individual boundary tactics for the team, so that everyone can pursue their individual need for boundaries and thus create health- and productivity-promoting boundary congruence. Individual boundary tactics then refer to the personal strategies that are used in principle or situationally to ensure a type-appropriate work-life balance. For example, segmenting people prefer not to work in the same place where they live. This spatial separation helps to keep life worlds as separate as possible and to use commute time to switch from the work role to the private role (or vice versa). Strongly integrating individuals, on the other hand, can sometimes hardly distinguish between work and private life and also like to combine the two, for example by linking a meeting with a work colleague friend with a leisurely after-work beer.

Communication as the first step in the right direction

Several workshops and lectures on boundary management were held at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts last year, and the initial results and feedback are encouraging. The low-threshold approach to boundary management and the resulting exchange of personal boundary management preferences has had a particularly positive effect. By enabling team members to share why and when they prefer to segment or integrate between work and private life, a common understanding can be created about where regulations are needed to reduce unnecessary friction and the resulting stress. It is not uncommon for supposed boundary conflicts to be resolved simply through the exchange and awareness of different points of view. In one team, for example, it emerged that some team members perform part of their work on weekends, resulting in e-mail traffic, which in turn was experienced as stressful for those team members who prefer to perform their work during the regular working week (Mon.-Fri.). The need for clarification was that the segmenting team members felt an unspoken pressure to be available on weekends as well. As it turned out, none of the integrating team members were expected to receive responses to their emails on weekends. As a result, the team rule was that emails could still be sent on weekends, but there was no expectation that they would be answered or acted upon before the next regular workday. Thus, in this specific case, the team has ensured that everyone can work according to their need and have a common understanding of how email traffic is handled on weekends.

Make boundary management an issue

Where do you set your boundaries? How do your boundary needs correspond with those of your stakeholders? What boundary tactics can you use to create boundary congruence when needs differ? Recommendations for the introduction of boundary management in workplace health promotion:

• Get to know yourself: How important is it for me to distinguish between my professional and private life? Specifically: Where is it particularly important for me to be able to clearly demarcate boundaries? Then: What can I do to ensure that these boundaries are respected? Develop appropriate boundary tactics accordingly (e.g., record telephone times or availability in the e-mail signature).
• Address boundary management as a team: Find out what the boundary management preferences of your employees and/or team members are. Where do the needs diverge and/or is there a need for clarification? A boundary type quick test is provided free of charge by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts as a basis for discussion: https://www.hslu.ch/de-ch/hochschule-luzern/ueber-uns/medien/magazin/archiv/2018/10/10/gesunde-grenzen-setzen/ (print version) or https://rcc.hslu.ch/?id=168 (online version).
• Seeking support: Boundary management can be learned. Personal coaching or a team workshop help to create boundary congruence and thus a positively experienced work-life balance by imparting knowledge and guidance on individual boundary management.

Author:
Leila Gisin is a work, organizational and personnel psychologist, research associate at the Institute of Business and Regional Economics IBR at the Lucerne School of Business. www.hslu.ch