This is a quote from Ndubuisi Ekekwe in the Harvard Business Review talking in an article entitled Is Your Smartphone Making You Less Productive?:
Companies need to help employees unplug. (Of course, every business is unique, and must take its own processes into consideration. But for most companies, giving employees predictable time off will not hurt the bottom line.) In my own firm, when we noticed that always-on was not producing better results, we phased it out of our culture. A policy was instituted that encouraged everyone to respect time off, and discouraged people from sending unnecessary emails and making distracting calls after hours. It’s a system that works if all of the team members commit to it. Over time, we’ve seen a more motivated team that comes to work ready for business, and goes home to get rejuvenated. They work smarter, not blindly faster. And morale is higher.
Give it a try in your own company. As a trial, talk to your team and agree to shutdown tonight. I’m confident that you’ll all feel the benefits in the morning.
How do you try to create shutdown times and unplug?
(May I apologise for my ramblings last week, there was way to much information in one post, I promise to be get back to my normal approach of little and often)
Graham Chastney 