The Leading News & Information Service For The Facilities, Workplace & Built Environment Community

Email Ban Leaves People Feeling Disconnected

Dr Emma Russell
23 October 2019 | Updated 21 November 2019
 

Banning out-of-hours emails are likely to be harmful to some employees according to Dr Emma Russell, psychologist and senior lecturer in management at the University of Sussex Business School.

The newly published research, led by the University, states that while blanket bans could help some workers to achieve certain goals, they could impede other employees’ progress towards their own targets.

 

Anxiety

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

However, it is important for employees to be able to control their response to the growing accumulation of emails which can cause stress and feelings of being overloaded, the research authors said.

 

Personalised action plan

Dr Russell acted as the Lead author. She recommends organisations should personalise work-email action recommendations according to the different goals that different people value. Dr Russell said: “The take-away from our research is that ‘one size fits all’ solutions for dealing with work email are unlikely to work.

“Despite the best intentions of a solution designed to optimise wellbeing such as instructing all employees to switch off their emails outside of work hours to avoid being stressed, this policy would be unlikely to be welcomed by employees who prioritise work performance goals and who would prefer to attend to work outside of hours if it helps them get their tasks completed.

“People need to deal with email in the way that suits their personality and their goal priorities in order to feel like they are adequately managing their workload. When people do this, these actions can become relatively habitual, which is more efficient for their work practices.”

 

Big company restrictions

Restrictions on email usage are becoming increasingly prevalent with Volkswagen an early adopter, configuring servers so emails are only sent to employees’ phones half an hour before the start and after the end of the working day – and not during weekends.

Daimler also introduced a policy that switches off employee access to emails during holidays while Lidl bosses in Belgium banned all internal email traffic between 6:00pm and 7:00am the following day last year to help staff clear their minds and enjoy their time off.

 

French

A law was passed in France in 2017 requiring companies with more than 50 employees to establish hours when staff should not send or answer emails while New York City discussed proposals to become the first city in the United States to grant employees the 'right to disconnect after work' earlier this year.

 

The paper found that people tend to have one of four goals in mind when they are dealing with work email – to show concern to others, to achieve their work effectively, to preserve their well-being, or to have control over their work.

 

Email habits and personality

The University of Sussex Business School's study, published in the Computers in Human Behaviour journal, also details a comprehensive list of 72 actions that employees regularly perform to manage their work emails. 

Individual employee’s inbox management and interaction varied depending on what key personality traits and work priorities they exhibited and valued the most, a questionnaire and in-depth interviews with volunteers revealed. 

Dr Russell said: “In this paper, we explored individual differences in the actions that people use to deal with work email and how different work email actions impact people's goals differently.

“We deal with email differently depending on the goals that we are prioritising - and we tend to prioritise goals that fit with our personality.

“For example a very agreeable person will prioritise goals to show concern to others, which may mean they respond more quickly to work email or take care over the language and tone they employ when writing.”

Picture: Dr Emma Russell, psychologist and senior lecturer in management at the University of Sussex Business School.

Article written by Brian Shillibeer | Published 23 October 2019

Share



Related Articles

Wellbeing and Mental Health Drops Down Business Agenda

Despite wellbeing remaining an ongoing concern for workers, CIPD research suggests that mental health is beginning to slip down the business agenda amongst...

 Read Full Article
HSE Launches Free Workplace Stress Measurement Tool

The Health and Safety Executive’s new Stress Indicator Tool 2.0 allows employees to anonymously report work-related stress. Employers can therefore use this data...

 Read Full Article
Home Working Highlights Culture of Presenteeism, says CIPD

77 per cent of employers have observed presenteeism in employees who are working from home in the last year, according to research by The Chartered...

 Read Full Article
Using The Workplace To Defeat Rising Mental Health

The continued blur in work/life balance has contributed to unprecedented levels of poor mental health among young people in the UK, writes  Lloyd Coldrick. Gone...

 Read Full Article
We're All Going On A Summer Holiday?

As the school holidays get started and the sun comes out to shine, the TUC have claimed that 2 million workers are not getting their legal holiday entitlement. And...

 Read Full Article
Summertime - Make The Living More Easy

Bosses and facilities managers have been urged to allow flexible working, even on a temporary basis, as temperatures threaten to hit 37oC. The Trades Union Congress -...

 Read Full Article
Survey Stresses State Of Stress In Society

A new Acas report has shown that two thirds of UK workers have felt stressed or anxious about work over the past year. Acas commissioned YouGov to ask employees in...

 Read Full Article
Practical Steps For Workplace Wellbeing

As a contribution to Mental Health Awareness Week, the PCS union has offered some practical to take to promote good mental health and are encouraging the contractors its...

 Read Full Article
Mental Health And The Body Image Effect

The Mental Health Foundation has found that 30% of all adults have felt so stressed by body image and appearance that they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope....

 Read Full Article
Mental Health - Spotting Problems Still Falling Short

Less than half (45%) of staff think managers would spot their mental health problems, despite two in three managers feeling confident promoting wellbeing. These...

 Read Full Article