VP at the Center for Organizational Effectiveness explains how the ‘always on’ economy is fuelling Canada's work-life balance crisis
What is often considered a non-negotiable benefit among employees is now a growing concern, according to a recent study.
Work-life balance has emerged as the leading workplace stressor for Canadians, and the ripple effects are hitting pension plans and benefits programs harder than most employers realize. That’s the central finding from the latest Psychological Safety Study, now in its third year, conducted by the Center for Organizational Effectiveness.
“The big indicator for anyone that is responsible at an organizational level for supporting the well-being and benefits of employees, is that it's a year-on-year process and planning, said Oliver Brecht, vice president of the center. “There's no point being strategic over five years, because it's not a set and forget. This needs to be revisited each year, each quarter, to understand what exactly we're seeing from our employees and how can we best service them? Because the needs and wants, particularly when we're talking about Psychological Safety Study, it not just dictated by what's inside your organisation, but also what's outside the organisation.”
Brecht sees work-life balance pressure being driven by large external forces, especially geopolitical instability and cost-of-living strain, which are reshaping how employees experience work and how tightly work spills into personal life. He also suggests that weaker psychological safety makes the problem worse because it erodes employees’ ability to set boundaries, challenge unhealthy ways of working, and speak up when those systems are no longer sustainable.
In that environment, work-life balance becomes less about individual discipline and more about whether the workplace gives people enough safety and control to protect their time and energy.
Brecht points to the “always-on” economy as the core of the problem. AI, instant or direct messaging, and a globalized workforce have created a world where there is always something an employee could respond to, at any hour. Notably, before the digital shift, physical separation created natural boundaries.
“If I wasn't standing next to you, if I wasn't on a phone call to you, we were relatively separate from each other. So there was a clearer boundary and a slower transition of information. That digitisation of information transfer means that there is an ability to do something. So it's got to be clear for employees about how we respond to that. Otherwise, it quickly can create an assumption at an employee end that I've received something, therefore I need to respond to or do something with it immediately,” noted Brecht.
He also draws a direct line between chronic burnout and pension risk, arguing that employees who are left to deteriorate move from psychological safety issues into psychological injury. At that point, they either can’t contribute to the organization or they leave altogether and both outcomes hit future retirement planning.
"If employees are burning out, it is going to impact their ability to work. And that therefore is going to impact at an organisational level, their ability to contribute, but a pension level as well and their ability to contribute to their futures," he said.
He also argues that benefits need to become more relevant across the full arc of an employee’s working life, rather than existing mainly as something people turn to when a problem has already escalated. The stronger approach, Brecht suggests, is to offer support at key life moments - from the start of a career to major transitions and retirement planning - while also recognizing the personal events that can affect performance and well-being, whether those changes are positive, difficult, or somewhere in between.
He also frames hybrid work as part of an unfinished adjustment. Society has only been operating in this extended hybrid model for a relatively short period, so it’s still evolving, and organizations should expect uneven progress rather than a settled formula. He believes the issue isn’t just employees taking work home; it’s whether employers are redesigning work in a way that supports flexibility and psychological safety in a hybrid setting.
For all the gains promised by digital transformation, Brecht suggests organizations still depend on people to keep work moving and productivity intact. While technology can improve quality, reduce risk, and speed up processes, it fails to remove the need for engaged employees who feel able to contribute. If workers are disengaged or psychologically harmed, the result is not just a well-being problem but an operational one, because breakdowns start to show up across the business, he said.
He also argues that work-life balance and psychological safety are still too often treated as soft issues because the industry has not yet done enough to clearly measure their impact on business performance. He believes that’s beginning to change, especially as more attention is being paid to psychosocial risk and the prevention of psychological injury, which are easier to quantify. But the bigger challenge now is helping employers draw a straighter line between employee well-being and hard business outcomes.
The first practical step, he said, is to ensure employers are genuinely hearing employees, especially during a period of heavy disruption driven by AI, geopolitical pressure, and broader workplace change. Employers need to take a hard look at whether the organization has actually brought employees along through those changes — whether people were informed, given space to respond, and supported as new ways of working were introduced.
He suggests employers should compare the organization today with what it looked like 18 months ago and ask whether employees were meaningfully included in that transition. If the answer is no, then the immediate job is to reopen those channels, gather honest feedback, and show employees that their views matter. That, in his view, is how organizations begin to rebuild psychological safety: by giving people confidence that they can speak up, challenge decisions, learn, and contribute without risk.
To that end, he emphasized employers should focus on what they can actually control - the workplace environment, job design, organizational systems, and day-to-day interactions between staff. Those are the levers that shape engagement, injury risk, and disengagement, and they are where the gap between well-being and business risk is starting to close, said Brecht.
On AI, he remains a clear supporter but pushes back on how most organizations are handling the transition. In his view, AI adoption requires proper behavioural change models, not just a rollout plan. More importantly, he sees a blind spot in how employers think about the impact.
“The bit I'm failing to see at the moment from industry is job design change that goes beyond task and actually looks at how this changes the nature of the job,” he said. “AI might be taking away a lot of the administrative burden, but it leaves people with highly emotive things to deal with each day. We're shifting things from one side to the other. So it's really important that we're considering that, not just implementing AI in a groupthink capacity where it's like we need to be quick, we need to innovate. What's this actually doing?”
