Is the idea of working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day a thing of the past?

Working from home (Ryan McVay, ThinkStock)
Working from home (Ryan McVay, ThinkStock)
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A new CareerBuilder survey conducted in May finds 63 percent of full-time workers in the information technology, professional business and financial services and sales industries think the eight-hour workday is outdated and unrealistic.

According to the survey, 20 percent of respondents said they don't stop thinking about their job until they fall asleep, and more than 40 percent say they wake up thinking about work.

Younger workers, between the ages of 18 and 24, are more likely to be thinking about work when they go to sleep than any other age category.

Michele Siekerka, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, said for many Garden state residents the workday doesn't end at 5 p.m.

"Everyone is just so tuned in through technology that it's very difficult to find a black and a white between your work life and your personal life, I think we all live in the grey these days," Siekerka said.

She said the technology has pros and cons.

"The advantage would be flexibility certainly, the idea of being able to have your work travel with you makes you more flexible, but the disadvantage I think is consistency, maybe ability to depend on people at a certain place at a certain time, sometimes that can be disruptive to a workplace as well," she said.

She also said employees do need some down time.

"People need the ability to shut off the technology, they need to go off the grid," she said. "Getting off the grid refreshes folks, the last thing we need is perpetual burnout, and I think we see it all the time."

She added the bottom line is "you have to be able to set the tone at the top for what is expected from your workforce, so if you are expecting your workforce to be on 24 hours a day the workforce is going to be prepared for that, but they also need to recharge their batteries.

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