Prohibition of email outside office hours, isn’t it necessarily good?

Many people say that work and individual should be separated, and they don’t even check their business emails on holidays. However, a study found that banning business contacts by e-mail outside of working hours could adversely affect the mental health of some employees.

In New York City, the U.S., a draft ordinance banning the exchange of emails outside business hours was submitted in 2018. Liverpool City Council in the UK has put in place a rule that bans business contacts by email every Wednesday because council employees are too gazillions of smartphones. In France, a law banning off-hours email was passed in 2017, which mandated companies with 50 or more employees to make time for their employees to send or reply to work e-mails. However, there were many objections to this law.

In a study conducted by a research team at the University of Sussex, there are at least 72 patterns of actions people take when managing business e-mail, including deletion, spam marking, sending, replying, and reading. In addition, according to the research team, people tend to be conscious of one of four goals when dealing with e-mail: to pay attention to others or to get things done effectively, keep them happy, and do their jobs. The answer to business e-mail, which of the four goals the individual will prioritize, and the personality of the individual have a great influence.

Prohibiting work emails outside of business hours is a rule established by companies as part of welfare benefits so that employees are not subject to excessive stress. But a psychologist at the University of Sussex says that banning work emails outside of business hours is unwelcome for employees who tend to prioritize their work over their own individuals. The intellectual thing that stress can accumulate when business email is banned depending on the personality and priority goals.

The research team said that in order to feel as if the progress of work is being properly managed, it is necessary to be able to reply to work emails in a way that suits the priorities of personality and goals. Say it’s not the right answer. Related information can be found here.