QA Hang Are you being worked to death?

Not too long ago, employees used to leave their personal lives at the door as they clocked in. Today, the trend dubbed ‘Liberation Management’, encourages us to 'be ourselves' and drop the formal, professional attitudes of the past. And while workplaces increasingly allow us to work flexible hours, we are expected to be responsive around the clock.

Is this a healthy work-life balance?

Peter Fleming, Professor of Business and Society at Cass Business School, City University in London, weighed up the evidence. In his paper, published in the current issue of the journal Human Relations, Fleming examined the dark side to today's apparent freedom and autonomy for workers.

He used a concept known as biopower developed by French scholar, historian, and social theorist Michel Foucault, an expert in the workings of discipline and control. Foucault said that there is actually more control in modern, neo-liberal societies than in old-fashioned hierarchies.