Why flexible working is bad for your health

While companies are taking more measures to improve the health and wellbeing of their workforce, some may actually be having an adverse effect.

Flexible working, which is seen as a help to those wishing to have a better handle on their work-life balance, may actually be taking a psychological toll on members of staff who utilise the method, experts have said.

Working remotely or part-time shuts employees off from social networks and career prospects. The line between work and home can also muddy as workers ‘graze’ emails and take calls outside their working hours.

Professor Gail Kinman, an Occupational Health Psychologist from the University of Bedfordshire and the British Psychological Association, said to the Guardian: “If you keep picking at work, worrying about it, your systems never really go down to baseline so you don’t recover properly. You might sleep, but you don’t sleep properly, the effectiveness of your immune system reduces.