Today's Wall Street Journal (Oct. 23, 2007) has a short note about companies that forbid the use of email on certain days as a way of forcing employees to have work/life balance. Readers responded with both sides of the argument.

Here's a simpler and more flexible strategy. Use your leadership to set the tone.

If you send employees emails on weekends and evenings, there is an unspoken message that an after-hours response is required. Do that enough and pretty soon everyone knows that you've got to check your email day and night. So, unless your message is truly urgent, hold that email until the start of the workday. If you really need to handle your own email during non-work hours because of your schedule commitments, compose your messages but don’t' send them till work hours. (And do ask yourself if you really have to do email in the evenings or if you want to consider a little work/life balance improvement of your own.)

If you and other leaders in your organization hold off on non-work time emails consistently over time, employees will feel less pressured to handle business emails during evenings and weekends. That way, they can make their own choices about work/life balance.

What habits have developed in your organization that concern you? Drop me a note and I'll talk about the most interesting ones in future columns (without identifying you of course).

Linda Ford, PhD

Labels: corporate culture, leadership