The product of availability: Understanding the economicunderpinnings of constant connectivity

Constant connectivity and total availability to clients is the rule rather than the exception in many contemporary workplaces. Enabled by developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs), total availability of employees is possible and presumed. Scholars have explored how new technological affordances, cultural shifts, individual personality traits, and/or the development of social expectations that reinforce norms of constant connectivity have led to this state of affairs. We argue that a key factor has been overlooked in current scholarship about stress, intensive work, and constant connectivity. That is, current economic conditions are creating a marketplace in which firms increasing sell the availability of their employees as part of the services offered by the firm. In this paper we use qualitative data to illustrate how total availability is an integral aspect of the 'product' offered by professional service firms and is becoming increasingly prevalent in other service industries. We conclude with a discussion of how the HCI community might address this situation as a design challenge. Drawing on the work of Goffman and Perlow, we suggest that designers attend to the ways in which organizations might maintain front stage impressions of total availability while collectively managing individual time to restrict total availability behind the scenes.