Volkswagen Shuts Down After-Hours BlackBerry Emails

[Paul_Heery]

Sometimes I could see this as a blessing.

BBC News - Volkswagen turns off Blackberry email after work hours

Volkswagen has agreed to stop its Blackberry servers sending emails to some of its employees when they are off-shift.

The carmaker confirmed it made the move earlier this year following complaints that staff's work and home lives were becoming blurred.

The restriction covers employees in Germany working under trade union negotiated contracts.

Campaigners warned that the move would not be suitable for all companies.

A spokesman for VW said: "We confirm that this agreement between VW and the company's work council exists", but would not comment further.

Under the arrangement servers stop routing emails 30 minutes after the end of employees' shifts, and then start again 30 minutes before they return to work.

The staff can still use their devices to make calls and the rule does not apply to senior management.

"We wanted to take a preventative approach to tackling the issue," said Gunnar Killian, VW's works council spokesman.

"At Volkswagen flexitime is between 0730-1745, with our new arrangement workers can only receive emails between 0700 and 1815."

Spare time
The move follows criticism of internal emails by Thierry Breton, chief executive of the French information technology services giant, Atos. He said workers at his firm were wasting hours of their lives on internal messages both at home and at work. He has taken the more radical step of banning internal email altogether from 2014.

Last month the maker of Persil washing powder, Henkel, also declared an email "amnesty" for its workers between Christmas and New Year saying messages should only be sent out as an emergency measure.

Industry watchers say the moves reflect growing awareness of a problem.

"It's bad for the individual worker's performance being online and available 24-7. You do need downtime, you do need periods in which you can actually reflect on something without needing instantaneously to give a reaction," said Will Hutton, chair of the Big Innovation Centre at The Work Foundation.

"Secondly it has a poor impact on an individual's well-being. I think that one has to patrol quite carefully the borderline between work and non-work.

"So I can see why some firms are taking this action, the problem is that a universal response is impossible... but certainly we should have the capacity to be opted out of it rather than be opted in."

Consultations
Union officials in the UK have also cautioned other firms against repeating Volkswagen's move without consultation.

"The issue of employees using Blackberrys, computers and other devices out of working time is a growing one that needs to be addressed as it can be a source of stress," Trades Union Congress (TUC) secretary general Brendan Barber told the BBC.

"However other organisations will need different solutions and what works in VW may not work elsewhere.

"By working in partnership with their union, Volkswagen's policy will have the support of all their employees. Where employers simply introduce policies on their own, however well-meaning they may be, they are unlikely to be successful."

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Some good and some bad to this.

I foresee one "unintended consequence" is that at 0700 each morning, employees are going to get bombarded by backlogged e-mails and have to spend the first 2-3 hours of every day just getting caught up, then having to sort through everything that comes in between 0700 and 0900, etc.

This is one reason I hate "office closed" days off. All it REALLY means is "take the usual five 10+ hour days' worth of crap you have to do and now compress it into FOUR days - but you have to act like you're happy about it!"

I'd rather work the five days and throw the extra one in my vacation bank - or just have it paid out, honestly. It's the same amount of work (and time to do it), it just means more late nights or early mornings or weekends, or a combination. The real "time off" never actually happens.

[widgeon13]

Before I retired I was famous for sending Sunday morning (like 7 AM) Blackberry emails. My sales team told me and I stopped the practice. I knew all my folks well and we made a joke of it. I would save them and send at night before they came to the office the next day, gave them something to work on when they were having that first coffee.

Think I got into the habit from military service. I was always in my office by 7 AM at the latest and got a lot of admin stuff done before the worker bees arrived.

[Cloggie]

Completely agree with VW's position but one has to realize that the real error here is lack of discipline by staff and management.

There is a time and a place for after hours communication, usually around critical issues or major failures, during which modern communication really shows value.

Trouble is, most people, particularly managers, do not respect the personal lives and hours of their staff and either by actual communication to staff members or just acting out that being engaged in work after the day is done (or before it starts) ends up encouraging the behaviour.

The real solution is for VW (and every other freaking company in the world pretty well) to educate their management in the basic principle that the company hires people to do work within a specified time range or to a specified end and that is where peoples committment ends. Yes, there is some variability and times when engagement outside of normal hours is needed and expected as a professional, but they need to be rare and clearly focused.

I myself worry considerably about this, particularly in a time where there is a severe talent shortage, high worker mobility and justifiable mistrust of management's or the companys intentions and ethics. I have a personal habit of starting work early (6 am) but get concerned as people start to shift their time to match mine, likely at an expense to their personal lives. For me it is not an issue, kids are out of the house, I have a severe sleep disorder so I rarely sleep more than a few hours a night, but I know for others it can be a hardship.

Leaders keep speaking of their people as "our most valuable resource" and then treat them likd crap and in an unsustainable way. VW used the nuclear option to help deal with this...

Good on them...

D.

[TheMentat]

Makes you wonder why they don't simply replace their Blackberries with regular cell phones?!?! What's the point of a Blackberry if you don't want employees to email after hours?

[intakexhaust]

The whole idea of communication is abused. Management now has puppets 24/7 and the boss now lives with your family. I'm so glad those days are over for me. I used to get 75 to 150 messages a day with questions from 'how do we?' to 'what time was that meeting again?' I learned shortly to delete most of it and some with a standard reply of 'if you can live without your dumb phone, you're qualified to work here.'

[1990C4S]

Originally Posted by Cloggie

There is a time and a place for after hours communication, usually around critical issues or major failures, during which modern communication really shows value.

Trouble is, most people, particularly managers, do not respect the personal lives and hours of their staff and either by actual communication to staff members or just acting out that being engaged in work after the day is done (or before it starts) ends up encouraging the behaviour.

D.

There is a difference between sending email after hours and expecting a reply after hours. I do the former regularly, I very rarely do the latter. If you are not 'on call' then a breakdown isn't your problem. If you are 'on call' then you are getting paid, and you carry a separate emergency only phone.

Your phone has the ability to ignore emails 'after hours', and so does the owner. Why does VW need to be the nanny? Turn your phone off. My guess is these people save the cost of a personal cell-phone but don't want to get their email after hours.

Originally Posted by TheMentat

Makes you wonder why they don't simply replace their Blackberries with regular cell phones?!?! What's the point of a Blackberry if you don't want employees to email after hours?

These are likely employees who aren't sitting at a desk all day. The BB makes them easily accessible during their shift, both by phone and email.

[svandamme]

Well it's pretty stupid to complain about it as a Blackberry user, because as a Blackberry user you can turn off your redirection or data connection whenever you feel like it.
Pansies.

[VINMAN]

If i'm off the clock, my co. phone is off the clock..

[1990C4S]

Originally Posted by svandamme

Well it's pretty stupid to complain about it as a Blackberry user, because as a Blackberry user you can turn off your redirection or data connection whenever you feel like it.
Pansies.

Unless the issue was that management was expecting (or demanding) that people reply...

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

If i'm off the clock, my co. phone is off the clock..

Depending on what classification of employee you are, that makes sense!

I've sometime wondered why there haven't been a flood of lawsuits yet on this issue. Maybe there have been. But this seems like a very sticky issue for any non-salaried, hourly employee and his/her employer. If that employee can document that he's answering a ton of emails "after hours," it seems like he's going to have a pretty decent overtime claim, etc.

This would open a huge can of worms for the employer. Failure to pay wages, failure to pay overtime, penalties, etc.

[Superman]

Another commie plot designed to erode productivity, make workers lazy and imperil national security.

[Mothy]

Company I work for has had a similar position for years. Replication only occurs between 7am and 7pm weekdays and once a day on weekends. They are great promoters of work life balance.

Does not stop the employee from initiating a replication - just stops the automatic ones. So when the company pushes out the daily updates or the computer system generates the reminders it's not disturbing people. They don't want me to be wokenup at 2am by a message telling me a contract is due to expire in 30 days!

Tim

[Cloggie]

Originally Posted by svandamme

Well it's pretty stupid to complain about it as a Blackberry user, because as a Blackberry user you can turn off your redirection or data connection whenever you feel like it.
Pansies.

Not sure what you do for a living Stijn, but in my travels, while technically you are right, the culture and practice in many companies is that responding to your BlackBerry is considered essential to being a "team" player and promotion/growth/good jobs etc.

I blame management for cultures that do not accept and in fact encourage staff to turn off or ignore their phones when they are on their own time. Like it or not, with the vast majority of people, the relationship boss/subordinate is more like master/slave and they are fearful to not respond to after hours communication.

Being in a leadership role....what do I do?

One, I use the options that permit later delivery if I feel the urge to generate an email after hours. I'll schedule it to be sent at 7 am so that people do not feel an urge to respond to what in my case may be a midnight missive.

Second, if there is an emergency, I give out my personal cell number, home number, personal email and tell them to contact all of those if there is a true emergency (mushroom cloud, dead bodies, threat to company existence etc....). People do prioritize appropriately when they know it is your personal address.

Third, I have no problem taking people aside and suggesting that their behaviour for generating email is not responsible....done that many times. Volkswagen just made it company wide policy is all.

D.

[flipper35]

Our hourly employees are not allowed to get email outside of work and don not have VPN access to our campus and face disciplinary action if they do get email off the clock.

Salaried employees all have a company supplied BB and it is their choice if they want to use them after hours. We have an emergency/on call extension set up that goes to the IT staff on call that week. When I am on I have it sent to my personal cell for two reasons. 1st, I don't want to carry two phones with me after hours so I put the BB on the counter when I get home. 2nd, it is through Verizon and we don't get Verizon at our house. I do get emails with Wi-Fi but calls are iffy. I don't generally check work email outside of work since they will call if there is a major issue.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by Cloggie

Not sure what you do for a living Stijn, but in my travels, while technically you are right, the culture and practice in many companies is that responding to your BlackBerry is considered essential to being a "team" player and promotion/growth/good jobs etc.

I blame management for cultures that do not accept and in fact encourage staff to turn off or ignore their phones when they are on their own time. Like it or not, with the vast majority of people, the relationship boss/subordinate is more like master/slave and they are fearful to not respond to after hours communication.

Being in a leadership role....what do I do?

One, I use the options that permit later delivery if I feel the urge to generate an email after hours. I'll schedule it to be sent at 7 am so that people do not feel an urge to respond to what in my case may be a midnight missive.

Second, if there is an emergency, I give out my personal cell number, home number, personal email and tell them to contact all of those if there is a true emergency (mushroom cloud, dead bodies, threat to company existence etc....). People do prioritize appropriately when they know it is your personal address.

Third, I have no problem taking people aside and suggesting that their behaviour for generating email is not responsible....done that many times. Volkswagen just made it company wide policy is all.

D.

I'm actually in the mobile communication business, specialized in Blackberry .
And you know what, i used to answer mails 24/7.. These days, if something non urgent comes in, i flag it for follow up, and i will answer it in due time.

When i'm on holiday, or in weekends, if i'm not on call, i simply ignore the snot out of it.. My BB profile is set to no sound for regular email, no blinking LED.

Having the tool does not mean you have to become the tool, or let the tool take over your life. People have to learn to deal with these new technologies.. And learning to say "no" is part of that.

And all the arguments you presented are null and void in the VW case,because they bloody complained to the union that the thing is always on, when in fact they should have taken the personal responsibility to turn that chit off after hours..
If somebody needs a Union to take care of something you yourself could have dealt with on your own, well, i'de say they are not mgmt material, not even mid level..