Research Methods for Business Psychology 2020/21.

Department of Organizational Psychology.

Qualitative research report based on the role of digital technology in
employees’ work-life balance

Thematic Analysis

Abstract

The research objective of this report is to analyse the impacts and responsibilities in the decreasing
work – life balance of the workforce in the present. The individuals being interviewed are based in
the UK and work in varied industries, and different shift patterns as not all of them are employed full
time. Also, some of the participants are self employed while others work for organisations that they
do not own. The methodology employed is by interviewing 4 individuals with the objective of getting
more information on their work – life balance, work structures and relationship with digital
technologies in relation to their work – life balance. Technology, in most cases, can create more
harm that good when relating to work life balance.

Introduction

Work – life balance is the amount of prioritization allocated between work life, personal life and
family life. It is the balance of personal or individual life with the professional life. Work life balance
is a very important aspect of a healthy lifestyle and work environment (Clement, 2020). When
employees have a work – life good balance they are reportedly less stressed and ill (Forbes, 2018).
Research shows that 46% of workers said that their main cause of stress is workload (Clement,
2020). Digital technology does not contribute to a healthy work – life balance as most workers
nowadays have a mobile phone with access to their work emails and messages. This means that they
are constantly working as well as constantly being contacted regarding working, independently of
the time of the day.

The developments and advancements in technology, without doubt, contribute to the productivity
and flexibility of the workforce. This was clearly seen during the Covid 19 pandemic, when most
workers where forced to work from home. Technology should be used as an ally to work smarter
and increase productivity, not the other way around. And with technology also comes the possibility
of being contacted at any time, anywhere by their employers ( Darmody,2020). The key concepts
being analysed are how technology affects work life balance and if the benefits are more than the
weaknesses of digital technologies and its advancements.

Technology has been crucial to shift from working from offices to working remotely, specially when
the covid 19 pandemic pushed everyone out of their offices. The main point to discuss is whether
technology benefits the well being of employees or if it makes it worse as technology can be a
source of stress itself. Technology has not yet proven an efficient way of benefiting work – life
balance, regardless of the advancements it presents in other aspects of the professional life.

Method

All individuals interviewed had access to information about the ethics and data management around
the interviews. All participants had access, and had participation rights meaning they could withdraw
their data at any point, and ask questions around how they data was going to be utilised, and if their
data was going to be shared with any other entities or organisations.. Participants were informed of
the aim of the study and their data, and how it was part of a study conducted for the University of
London, and that it was not going to be published or released. Participants were informed that the
interviews were semi structed and could be adapted to what suited participants better, and also
what benefited a better and more efficient data collection.

All information has been treated confidentially and no data that could lead to identifying a candidate
was requested, such as their name. All information is kept in a password protected computer under
a password protected site. There have been no risks identified in taking part in this research. All the
above complies with the 8 rules of GDPR : the right to be informed, the right of access, the right of
rectification, the right to erasure, the right to restricting process, the right to data portability, the
right to object and also the right on decision making and profiling ( Burgess, 2016).

Results

Following the six steps of thematic analysis procedure designed by Braun & Clarke the steps to
follow are :

- Familiarizing oneself with the data: analysing the responses to ensure trends, common
answers and feelings can be spotted. Also creating initial codes
- Generating initial codes: coding the features and characteristics of the data in order to
organise and collate the data relevant to each code
- Searching for the themes : collating codes into potential suitable codes to each theme
- Involved in reviewing the themes : cross checking that the themes are related to the work
and generating a map
 - Defining and naming themes
- Producing the report : opportunity to analyse the appropriate extracts

The thematic analysis will look into how the answers provided by the interviewed individuals
transcribes to the hypnotises and if it proves that digital technology contributes to decreasing the
work life balance of workers in the UK.

References
Jenny Darmody . (2020). Is technology doing more harm than good for our work-life
balance?. Available: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/careers/work-life-balance-smart-
working-tech. Last accessed 09/07/2021.

Matt Burgess. (2020). What is GDPR? The summary guide to GDPR compliance in the
UK. Available: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-gdpr-uk-eu-legislation-
compliance-summary-fines-2018. Last accessed 09/07/2021.