Staff Well-being - Out of Hours email usage

[jthompson]

When this issue first came up here and I was asked about restricting access to email (in particular), I requested that non-technical measures be exhausted first, before we go nuclear.

 

A messages was then addressed to all staff from a member of SLT that included the following:

 

There is no expectation that you read or respond to any work emails sent outside of school hours. You can if you want, but you certainly don't have to. If you choose to send messages, do not expect a response.

 

The feedback from that message was really positive. There were plenty of people who perhaps didn't feel empowered to disregard out of hours emails from more senior colleagues who found a lot of reassurance in having SLT specifically state that they should feel free to leave this stuff at work.

[Andycat]

The Outlook app, as far as I can see, is Notifications or not. No "Peak" times etc. Unfortunately this is the only way we let people access mail on mobile devices (GDPR etc etc) so there is no schedule to set.

[Achandler]

Then you need to change your App. There is no GDPR implications at all as long as the mail app support remote wipe etc (which most do).

 

Do you allow them to access email on personal devices or is every device owned by the organisation, because if it is the former, then the GDPR argument is even weaker as you don't really control these fully anyway.

[FishCustard]

Well most of what we all posted are just opinions as it is up to each SLT how they treat their own staff.

 

What I will say is, it is generally understood in the business world that flexible working arrangements make your employees happier and more productive. That's why more and more companies are going down the road of flexible part time, flexible hours, working from home days, duvet days, all sorts of flexibly style arrangements in order to leverage productivity.

 

If you guys ban or control or curtail these kind of flexible practices then you could argue it is a fact that you are doing the wrong thing, and going the wrong way. But that's just my opinion

 

I entirely agree. Sending late night emails is not a "cause for concern" in my opinion on its own. Expecting that people act on them after hours, or the moment they get in in the morning however is. I wouldn't want to work somewhere that actively banned after hours emailing, equally I wouldn't want somewhere that expected you to be always responsive.

[Andycat]

Then you need to change your App. There is no GDPR implications at all as long as the mail app support remote wipe etc (which most do).

 

Do you allow them to access email on personal devices or is every device owned by the organisation, because if it is the former, then the GDPR argument is even weaker as you don't really control these fully anyway.

 

"We" don't make the rules :-)

[Achandler]

No you don't but you do influence the rules.

 

If you find a free App that supports Peak times and can be account wiped and respects O365 rules (I'm assuming O365), then get your SLT to promote that due to the benefits then you can make the change over slowly and make staff happier. SLT might claim the credit, but there's nothing you can do with that, I don't know what your SLT are like.

 

We don't allow work emails on none work devices any more, unless the user is happy to go into our MDM so we can wipe the emails off and we also force use of a particular App as well. But this is a Housing Association so we may have more influence and the organisation has more to lose probably but breaches etc.

[jthompson]

Going back to the question of getting reports of out of hours usage levels, what would 'healthy' look like anyway? If you presented reports to SLT that said "last week, 500 emails were sent by between staff members out of hours, not including multiple recipients", what are they going to do with that information? Is it a lot? Is it not a lot? It's going to be lower than during working hours, but there's no qualitative measure there. It's meaningless. If they want it to be zero, they're not being sensible IMHO (irresponsible, even), but if they're happy for some usage, what would be a good number (!) and how do staff know what the criteria are for acceptable versus unacceptable? Is 6pm more okay than 9pm? Is replying to stuff okay but starting a new conversation something to be be frowned upon? Should staff be using out-of-office options for this? Is prefacing your message with an apology okay? This is why people like us should be pointing out that it's not a technical problem.

 

Blocking access amounts to a curfew. A curfew on trained professionals, many of whom may feel that it insults their intelligence. How much is too much is a decision for each person to take, and they should be given appropriate space in which to do that (i.e. providing them with guidance on DND and notification options and have SLT explicitly state what the expectations are).

[FishCustard]

Exactly. This sort of thing is searching for a technical solution to a management problem, which almost never works. Edited February 13, 2019 by FishCustard

[JJonas]

I looked into this a while back and even got talking to G-Suite support about it. It is not something that can be enabled on G-Suite.

 

So I recommended that staff not send whole school emails outside working hours.

 

I myself have installed Quiet for Gmail and changed my email signature to reflect this (I am using Quiet for GMail. Email contact hours 07:00 - 18:00 GMT, Monday - Friday)

[titch]

Cheers all. Certainly not trying to jab a technology wedge in a people size whole. I just want a bit of stats that can be used to make people think before they email at night.

 

Youre all right in that I certainly wouldnt want it turned off but regardless of if you dont need something actioning there and then it is still something that plays on your mind out of hours. Get quite a few moanie emails come in the evening for some reason which I dont think are approriate even if they dont need actioning then.

 

I also agree that stats are pretty pointless when nothing to compare with but it is nice having a number. You can at least measure if it is going up or down?

[PotNoodleTech]

I don't have email on my own phone for this reason. It can wait till 7.30am the next day. I am not spending the "life" part of my work life balance thinking about work. If they want to pay me to be on call, like IT support in other companies then that is a while different ball game.

[MatthewL]

I know some German companies were doing something towards this and I seem to recall it was with Blackberry's but personally I think its not a technical issue but more of a management as discussed.

 

I don't have work email on my phone and even my personal email I use the peak hours to only get round not having my phone constantly delivering mail to me. I'm guilty of sending emails out of hours but never expect a response that evening,, its my choice to work not everyone else.

 

Just got to think back what would you do before email or even before access to email was available when out of the office/away from your desk. If anything is so important someone can pick up the phone and call me and have a conversation. Everyone is so reliant on tech/email these days they forget what its like to talk to someone properly.

[jthompson]

You've made a decision that that's where your lines are, but I think the reason this issue has bubbled up as part of the current wellbeing trend is because there will be many on the workforce who don't feel empowered to do that. As IT admins, looking after systems running 24/7/365 and supporting a workforce that historically does work out of hours a lot, we've been drawing our lines for years and have had to to stay sane. For others, the increased use of online services may mean that it's a relatively new problem for them.

[CamelMan]

This has just popped up here - although I agree its a staff choice issue rather that being a technical one, I've done a bit of research and this claims to do it:

https://www.codetwo.com/blog/a-ban-on-after-work-emails/

 

Not too expensive if you only license staff (assuming you can just target groups)

 

I am suprised that O365 doesnt have some sort of time based rule enforcement (unless Im being blind!)