Around two thirds (64 percent) of workers are reachable for work during their summer vacations.
This was revealed in a recent survey conducted by the digital association Bitkom. Measured against the previous year (71 percent), the availability of employees has in fact decreased slightly. “Especially on vacation, one should relax and take a break – that’s why the best possible holiday substitution solutions need to be found,” says Bitkom’s CEO Bernhard Rohleder.
According to the survey, 57 percent of all workers remain available to their bosses, colleagues or clients by phone. A good quarter (27 percent) read work-related emails. Surprisingly, it is younger workers who are more likely to switch off from work completely. Around four out of ten workers (39 percent) between the ages of 14 and 29 are able to disconnect fully during their summer vacations. For 30 to 49 year-olds the figure is 30 percent, while for over 50s it is slightly higher at 34 percent.
As a rule, employees don’t need to reachable outside of working hours and on public holidays (with the exception of top managers). For exceptions Bitkom advises a clear, mutually agreed arrangement in the sense of the employee being on call. Rohleder views situations in which permanent availability is tacitly expected, yet not otherwise compensated for, as particularly problematic.
Retarus E-Mail Security already offers the supplementary “Quiet Time” function as an add-on to the Essential Protection package. This enables time intervals to be set, during which employees are not delivered any external emails – for instance, after hours or on weekends. Time intervals can also be specified, in which no emails are delivered to email clients at all, allowing the email server to be maintained without any difficulty.
Quiet Time offers the following options:
- Configuration of email-free periods (external emails)
- Individualized settings for various different user profiles
- Secure temporary storage of the emails in Retarus’ data centers
- Automatic delivery of the emails following the end of the defined time interval
- A pass-through function for high-priority emails
- Emergency button for immediate delivery of emails during email-free periods
And in this spirit: Have a great summer vacation!
