Study: Banning out-of-hours email likely to be harmful to some employees

[jthompson]

Being tasked with implementing an email 'night-mode' is something that's cropped up fairly regularly on here lately, so I thought I'd post this if anyone needs any ammunition to push back on such requests.

 

Some research from the University of Sussex: Banning out-of-hours email likely to be harmful to some employees.

 

Presenting strict policies on email use could be particularly difficult for employees with high levels of anxiety and neuroticism, the study warned...

 

...organizations should instead personalise work-email action recommendations according to the different goals that different people value.

[hardtailstar]

I've always thought banning or putting in technical measures is overkill.

 

Just educate staff to turn off the laptop or sign out of emails on phone.

 

Personally I wont look at emails outside of work unless I am requested to by my manager.

[jthompson]

Well, that's a view shared by plenty of other EduGeek members, I expect. The problem is that there'll be plenty of other staff in education who won't feel empowered enough to mark out their territory in quite the same way, particularly if they're new to the profession and are getting emails from line managers or senior staff out of hours. Their also expected to work out of hours anyway, which won't help.

 

One thing I don't quite get about the VW or Lidl examples is what actually happens to their out of hours emails? Are they rejected, held in a queue or delivered as normal (just with account access being blocked)? I'm willing to bet that there'll be exceptions to the rule all over the shop.

[PotNoodleTech]

It's what I said all along. Flexibility is the key to a happy workforce that has been proven over and over again.

 

Anything that's inflexible, is bad.

[mavhc]

Just turn off notifications when you're not at work, can still read emails if you're bored then.

[HPlum78]

https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2019/10/09/tech-can-tackle-uks-unhealthy-always-on-working-practices-but-only-if-company-bosses-want-to-use-it-microsoft-report-reveals/