Forget the good old days of 9 to 5. Email and mobile phones have blurred the line between work and play, with more than a third of Australian employees saying their bosses contact them outside work hours.
The survey of 1792 employees by online career networking site linkme.com.au found that more than half of these employees were afraid to tell their bosses they objected because they valued their jobs and feared losing them.
Mobile telephone calls accounted for most of the contact, followed by email and text messaging, and in some cases it was a combination of all three.
Linkme chief executive Campbell Sallabank said the instant nature of communication made it harder to ignore the boss.
''There's an expectation when your boss rings or emails you that you should respond. And particularly if it's sitting there in front of you either as a ringing telephone or an email alert, it's very tempting for people to actually respond to it, but a lot of people actually do feel resentful about it,'' Mr Sallabank said.
He said technology made it hard to distinguish between work and play, but that it was still possible to set boundaries.
''If you see that you've got a phone call from your boss and you really don't want to answer it at that point, let it go through to your message bank and then you can SMS them back, saying, 'I can't talk now, let's go through it first thing Monday morning.' And with emails you can certainly send a very short response saying [the same thing].
''I think just to suggest going through it the next morning at work unless it's urgent sends a signal that it really doesn't need to be gone through now.''
Only 15.9 per cent of those surveyed would not respond to work emails or phone calls outside work hours, compared with 30 per cent who checked emails outside work hours and a worrying 23.2 per cent who checked emails while on holidays. But Mr Sallabank said communication with the boss could solve these issues.
''If you leave work with things that need to be looked at, then you're better off calling or speaking to your boss before you leave and getting the issue off the table.
''Also have a separate chat to them saying, 'Look, I know the situation may arise out of hours where we might need to talk about something. If you need to call me the best time is after 8 o'clock when the kids are in bed.' That sets some ground rules in a positive framework.
''And if emergencies do genuinely arise, look at having some flexibility ... So you might be working after-hours in one case but you might be able to come in a bit later or have a longer lunch one day.''
The solution to the problem could also be deceptively simple: use the off button.