Research into the impact of checking work emails outside of office hours has found that the practice has a detrimental effect on relationships and mental health.
The study, Killing me softly: electronic communications monitoring and employee and significant-other well-being, looked at full-time workers aged between 31 and 40. Although the workers themselves did not feel that checking emails had an adverse impact, their partners disagreed.
William Becker, a Virginia Tech associate professor of management in the Pamplin College of Business, co-authored the study, which found that expectations around checking emails resulted in anxiety, which impacts that health of employees and their families.
“The competing demands of work and non-work lives present a dilemma for employees,” Becker told Science Daily, “which triggers feelings of anxiety and endangers work and personal lives.”
Becker also drew on research from Lehigh and Colorado State Universities, which revealed that many employees feel under pressure to check messages outside of work. This, in turn, has led to higher levels of stress and anxiety.
Conversely, in France, employees now have the legal right to ‘disconnect’ from work following a legal battle in 2016. Since 1 January 2017, companies in France with more than 50 workers have been obliged to draw up a charter of good conduct, setting out the hours when staff are not supposed to send or answer emails.
Supporters of the French law argued that those who were expected to check and reply to emails out of hours were not being fairly paid for their overtime. They also highlighted the risk of stress, burnout, sleep problems and relationship issues.
