The proliferation of Blackberries and similar Smartphones has contributed significantly to the erosion of the Work/Life barrier, and has caused knowledge Workers to assume – erroneously, perhaps, but with conviction – that they must be on call 24×7. I’ve seen it happen repeatedly among my clients: people send and receive emails at all hours, and make a habit of checking their Blackberry every few minutes. Convincing these people to stop this addictive behavior is hopeless: I’ve run an experiment along these lines a few years back with a group of engineers and despite all exhortations to the contrary their behaviors remained the same.
Now we read about a bold move by a company that has decided to take responsibility for this problem. Car maker Volkswagen has interrupted the flow of distracting messages at the source; they’ve disabled the move of email messages to the Blackberry servers 30 minutes after the end of formal work hours, and until 30 minutes before the next workday begins. This will bring about what I like to call a “Technology assisted behavior change”: one that uses a technological component to make it impossible to violate a required behavior.
It’s encouraging to see that Volkswagen values its employees’ Work/Life balance and is willing to take an affirmative step to protect their personal time. In addition to being the right and moral thing to do, it is a smart move as well – employees that can relax after hours with their families will be much more focused and productive at work. It’s a Win/Win, and I hope other companies will take note. The fact that they involved the employees in defining this move is significant and should help this succeed.
Let me know if your own organization would consider this!
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It’s definitely an interesting and bold move. I wonder though if companies aren’t actually enjoying the fact that employees are connected around the clock. In spite of the distraction to private life companies may be more agile when employees are “always” connected. In addition, for companies that have frequent global interactions it seems inevitable. I don’t like it though 🙂
Well, Yoram, having worked in a global role in a large Fortune 500 for 26 years, I know what you mean – but I definitely think if the companies think they benefit, tehy are making a big mistake. The constant 24×7 stress and loss of Work/Life balance reduce productivity and lead to employee burnout, with dire results for the company.
As to those frequent global interactions – they can be handled intelligently by checking mail once at (say) 7PM and once at 8AM; the world will not come to an end if people stay offline after their dinnertime!