The excitement of having a chic new company smartphone can quickly turn sour, when you realize that you will have to pay for it with your constant availability. Company employees are becoming increasingly stressed, because they believe that they need to be available at all times and can never be sure that they won’t still receive work-related requests via email after working hours. This has been investigated and detailed by three academics at renowned US universities in a recent study titled “Exhausted But Unable to Disconnect”.
Good intentions versus the reality
Companies usually don’t want to put their staff under this sort of pressure intentionally. In the main, there are also no directives that insist on workers responding to emails after office hours. Policies and company culture are two very different beasts, however, according to “Business Insider”. When supervisors regularly send emails outside of working hours and expect to receive a prompt response (often because their own bosses are behaving in much the same way), then the message is absolutely clear – if the supervisor writes, it is expected that the employee will be available. The researchers have some handy advice to help company bosses with regard to reducing their employees’ stress levels. For instance, communicating to staff that emails received after working hours do not have to be answered until the following working day. Moreover, time periods could be agreed and set, during which the sending of emails could be considered problematic or counterproductive – for example during suppertime, on weekends or after 10 pm.
Retarus can help – with “E-Mail Quiet Time”
Companies subscribing to Retarus E-Mail Security as a cloud service have all the bases covered. Using the “Quiet Time“ feature they can set time intervals, during which no external emails are delivered to employees, such as leisure time or weekends. Emails received during those periods are stored temporarily at Retarus’ data centers and automatically delivered when the predetermined interval ends. A high-priority email function and an emergency button ensure that business-critical emails go through regardless. 
Find out more about Retarus E-Mail Security by clicking here or from your local Retarus contact person.
