Management surveys reveal a strong sense of disillusionment among senior executives over the growing demands placed on their time by bulging inboxes and constant phone calls, a problem that appears to be closely related to the global trend of longer working hours.

Senior executives also believe the internet and mobile communications have invaded their homes, led by e-mail and devices such as the BlackBerry.

But is technology really to blame for a deterioration in the work-life balance, or is this a more complex issue affected by social change? The trend to work longer hours is one that challenges history, according to a United States study.

In a paper for the National Bureau of Economics Research, Peter Kuhn and Fernando Lozano observe that the working hours for men have been lengthening over the past 30 years, despite rising levels of prosperity. This is a reversal of the working style for most of the 20th century.

At the same time, there has been a reversal in the correlation between wages and working hours. More than 20 years ago, the worst paid 20 per cent of workers were more likely to put in longer hours than the best paid 20 per cent of earners; now the top 20 per cent are twice as likely to work longer hours than the bottom 20 per cent of workers.

The number of hours clocked up by workers elsewhere in the world has followed a similar trajectory. In Hong Kong, the number of working hours has been inching up and now averages 48 hours over the whole workforce, while the number of people working more than 50 hours a week has risen from 28 per cent in 1999 to 36 per cent of the population, when last counted in the first quarter of the year, according to the Census and Statistics Department.

How much of all this has to do with advances in technology and the ever-increasing volume of communications traffic? A lot, according to senior executives polled in recent research studies. In a survey of 1,311 high-fliers in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific, conducted by the Association of Executive Search Consultants, more than half say they do not have a satisfactory work-life balance and nearly 60 per cent blame technologies such as e-mail, the BlackBerry and mobile phones.

This is not the first study to reveal that senior executives around the world are discontent about the volume of communications they face. A global survey of executives released by McKinsey paints a picture of line managers overwhelmed by the load messages they have to deal with every day.

Of the more than 7,800 managers polled, 17 per cent feel the flow of e-mail, voice mail and meetings is close to or completely unmanageable. Of those respondents, 80 per cent admit to having difficulties fulfilling their key responsibilities because they spend so much time managing communications. Nearly 40 per cent say they spend between half a day and a full day each week responding to valueless communications.

A report from New Scientist suggests that knowledge workers have simply been driven to distraction. Quoting findings by information technology research firm Basex, the report said workers are losing more than two hours of productivity each day to interruptions from e-mail, instant messages, phone calls and visiting colleagues.

The team that conducted the study, led by Gloria Mark and Victor Gonzalez, shadowed 36 office workers. They found that these employees were interrupted in their work once every 11 minutes, on average, by e-mail messages, telephone calls or visits from colleagues. It took them an average 25 minutes to get back to their original tasks, if at all, that day.

Unified communications and adaptive technologies

Technologists believe a good place to start reducing the communications clutter and making it easier for co-workers to interact is to create a single point of entry, through an IP network, for all communications devices and communications appliances. These include fixed-line phones, mobile phones, e-mail, instant messages, software phones and other means of communications. In recent years a market known as unified communications has sprung up around such solutions.

Bern Elliot and Steve Blood, in a paper published by Gartner Research, observe: 'Although a great deal of IT investment has been targeted at making individual worker activity more productive and at making system-to-system communications efficient, generally very little has been offered to improve those processes that are human communications-intensive. Properly applied, unified communications can greatly assist in achieving workflow improvements.'

A key concept in unified communications is 'presence', real-time information which allows users to ascertain the status of co-workers before they contact them, according to Forrester Research. A basic form of 'presence' exists on most desktops in the form of instant messaging software, which indicates whether a user is online or active.

In unified communications, advanced presence and 'find me' capabilities allow co-workers to reach each other at the first attempt by having their calls or e-mail correctly directed. It also allows them to ascertain whether a co-worker can be interrupted, as indicated, for example, by a silenced mobile phone.

A broad range of companies, from telecoms equipment manufacturers Nortel and Cisco to software manufacturers such as Microsoft, are looking to establish a presence in this promising market.

However, Ringo Chiu, chief information officer at the Securities and Futures Commission, believes the demand for such solutions is not quite there yet, and that the technology will take time to gain traction.

'The unified platform will be needed down the road, but I cannot see it achieving mainstream adoption within this year or the next,' Mr Chiu says. 'End users are still coming to terms with existing communications technologies, such as push e-mail.'

Working parallel with unified communications, software vendors are pouring money into the development of 'intelligent' communications management applications. These will be capable of screening and prioritising a user's e-mail, instant messages and voice calls.

Indeed, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is quoted in one of the company's quarterly open letters written by senior executives, as saying the firm's key challenge is to create software that 'matches the judgment and awareness of a human being' in determining the value of information.

'Rules and learned behaviour will soon be able to automate many routine tasks. Software will be able to make inferences about what you are working on and deliver the information you need in an integrated and proactive way. As software learns your working preferences, it can flexibly manage your interruptions,' the letter says.

Emerging software is signalling the beginning of this trend. One example is a small program in the beta stage of development released by Microsoft at the end of last year. SNARF, or Social Network and Relationship Finder, plugs into the Outlook e-mail client to sort out e-mail based on its relationship to the sender, conversation history and topic. ClearContext, a small San Francisco-based software firm, earlier this year launched similar information management software.

The buck stops with the user

While computers may eventually become our cyber secretaries, some believe the solution to better individual communications management and achieving harmony between work and life lies with the user.

'The work-life balance issue is a generational phenomenon,' says one chief information officer of a prominent blue chip company who, ironically, gave his interview on a Sunday morning to avoid a jam-packed Monday schedule.

'To be honest, the next generation of knowledge workers, the ones being churned out of university now, will expect to be always-on and always-connected, whether they are at home or in the workplace. We are talking about a generation that has been online, using e-mail, chat rooms, blogs and instant messaging throughout their teenage and university years.

'Computers started to appear only in the 1980s, so it is just people in their 30s, 40s or 50s who are finding today's 24/7, always-connected work culture invasive.

'The problem is that they are the ones in middle management, and those most likely to be given a BlackBerry or similar push e-mail device so they can stay connected with their companies,' the 45-year-old IT director explains.

For these people, the message is simple: get used to it.

'The concept of work-life balance is no longer feasible in the information age,' he says. 'We are dealing more with a situation of work-life integration, where people need to be more flexible. This may mean answering a call on a weekend. At other times, it may allow you to be with your family and still keep up to date with work.'

With a little discipline and time management, he says, technology need not overwhelm.

Echoing his view, Mr Chiu suggests that technology is neutral: how people use it and company policies dictate just how invasive new communication ways will be.

'Technology merely provides options for those who prefer to do their job as and when and where they like,' he says. 'Without these tools, they would have no choice but to stay in the office and finish whatever they had to do. At the end of the day, it is really a matter of choice determined by your predisposition, in response to a given situation.'