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Greedy institutions: should we ban email after work?

Sociologist Scott Schieman on the consequences of being always connected to the office

Media worldwide lit up recently with the news that France had banned work-related emails after 6 p.m. Although it turned out there was no such law, the level of interest in the story suggested a nerve had been touched.

Then Gallup showing workers who use email for work and who work remotely outside regular working hours experience more stress than those who do not.

"Even after controlling for all key demographics, workers who leverage mobile technology more often outside of work are much more likely to be stressed on any given day," Gallup said in a release.

So writer Jenny Hall asked sociologist Scott Schieman to reflect on the relationships among work, family, stress and health.

What are your thoughts about the story of France proposing to ban emails after 6 p.m.?

My understanding is that there wasn鈥檛 actually any new piece of legislation. It was more of a labour agreement that was signed by unions and employers in specific sectors. But somehow in some media outlets it became: 鈥淔rance bans emails after 6 p.m.鈥

Even if the facts got twisted, it did seem to touch a nerve鈥攁 lot of people were talking about it.

There鈥檚 a famous sociologist named Louis Coser who called work a 鈥済reedy institution鈥. But he was talking about that back in the 1970s before all these communications technologies were available. Now it鈥檚 a greedy institution that can reach out and get you at any time 鈥 late at night, weekends, and even when you鈥檙e supposed to be on 鈥渧acation鈥. Is there any kind of obligation to be checking emails or checking in when you鈥檙e not technically supposed to be working? And if you do check in, and you get some sense that there鈥檚 an obligatory task that needs to be done, then you鈥檙e working from home鈥攁nd are you being compensated for it? These questions do touch a nerve with people.

It might not even be that a task needs to get done overnight, but that you want to give the impression you鈥檙e engaged at work.

Yes. The sociologist Mary Blair-Loy describes a concept called the 鈥渨ork devotion schema.鈥 It draws upon a notion of the ideal worker. The ideal worker is fully committed and doesn鈥檛 let other roles鈥攍ike family鈥攊nterfere with work. The flip side of this is that in striving to be the ideal worker, people start to internalize being connected as part of their job description, even if it isn鈥檛. The ideal worker norm feels 鈥渘atural鈥.

If you鈥檙e available 24/7, you鈥檙e never really not working. In our research, we鈥檝e been doing interviews with dual income couples with kids under 18. They鈥檒l say, look, there鈥檚 only so much time, only so much energy. If you get into this idea of the ideal worker, you have to ask:  How does that compete against your devotion to family? And forget about anything else. They report friendships falling by the wayside. They don鈥檛 have time for fitness or exercise. When they鈥檙e not working, they鈥檙e dealing with family-related matters, especially if they鈥檙e also caring for aging parents.

Does your work have anything to say about the consequences of being always connected to work?

We鈥檙e conducting  a large longitudinal national study of Canadians, and we鈥檝e asked them about the frequency of sending and receiving work-related communications outside regular work hours. There is a definite relationship between the frequency of work contact and problems with sleep, including number of hours and quality. We also found feelings of psychological distress, physical symptoms of stress, and in some cases, especially for women, feelings of guilt.

If we have documented these negative outcomes, doesn鈥檛 it suggest a need for some kind of intervention, even if it鈥檚 not banning emails after 6 p.m.?

How do you restrain the greedy institution of work? I don鈥檛 know about the legislative side of this, if it would even be possible to institute something that would be feasible for all kinds of jobs. But we do know that if you can keep some kind of flexibility or control over the nature of the contact from work, that is a good thing. If you鈥檙e experiencing a lot of work contact, some of our research suggests that if it occurs in the context of more autonomous work with more scheduling control and flexibility, and if the work is challenging and interesting, then frequent work contact tends to not hurt as much. That鈥檚 something that workers and employers could potentially negotiate a bit more.

Meaning that maybe I don鈥檛 mind so much if I have to be on email at night if I can take my kid to a lesson in the middle of the day?

Exactly. More flexibility, clear expectations and clear communication about what those expectations are could buffer against the harm that might be associated with work contact. The other thing is the work itself: if you have more decision latitude, the contact might be less detrimental. If you have to do things on someone else鈥檚 terms and it鈥檚 more rigid and there鈥檚 less control over the work, then it鈥檚 more problematic.

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