Older workers are adversely effected more by business travel than their younger counterparts, according to a new survey.iBAHN, a provider of digital converged services for hoteliers, found that businesses are increasingly putting pressure on their employees to work as normal when travelling, which adversely affects older workers more than most.

The research reveals that three quarters (76%) of business traveller respondents felt under pressure to work normally even when travelling.

Most under pressure are professionals, largely male, in the 50-59 and 60+ age groups. Those under the least pressure were in the 18-29 age group (57.1%), which could indicate a move to more relaxed attitude to mobile working in the younger generations and a significant business traveller generation gap.

Julie Hurst, Director of the Work Life Balance Centre, comments: “As iBAHN’s survey shows, too many organisations are still focusing on the measure of the numbers of hours worked, rather than measuring objectives achieved. This is one of the most fundamental issues holding back the balance between working life and private life, and is especially relevant in the time sensitive business traveller environment where time
zone differences can encourage long days, but not necessarily productive ones.”

Graeme Powell, managing director EMEA, iBAHN, comments: “The business
traveller has a daily challenge to face in the form of getting to their
destination while maintaining levels of productivity. The traditional
approach is to make time on the move using available connectivity, but
this often creates more stress and can result in poorer quality work.
The age gap shown in our figures suggests that mobile working is the
norm for the next generation of business travellers, but what will be
the cost to work/life balance in the future?”
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