SENDING e-mails to colleagues in the same building harms productivity and should be banned, a leading British psychologist has said.
Firms should also encourage staff not to check their work e-mail account during their time off, Professor Sir Cary Cooper said.
An avalanche of often unnecessary staff e-mails contributed to work overload and our culture of long hours and damaged a company’s output, he said.
“We have embraced technology almost too much,” the Lancaster University professor told the British Psychological Society’s conference in Liverpool yesterday.
“E-mails are damaging us, we don’t control them – they control us. People say they have got through their e-mails by the end of the day, but that’s not work. People should be banned from sending e-mails to each other in the same building. They should be discouraged from checking e-mails after work, when they should be spending time with their family and returning to work refreshed.
“‘Checking e-mails on holiday – that’s sick.”
Cooper, who advises the government on health and well-being in the workplace, said Britain’s methods were not effective – although it had the longest hours from Monday to Friday in the developed world, it was bottom of the G7 nations league for productivity.
Just a third of workers there are healthy and productive, figures show.
Cooper said he was about to launch a study of the effect of e-mails on the workplace and their impact on family life, because it had recently emerged as a major issue.
And he blamed iPads and smartphones for extending the working week.
“When you go out to a restaurant there are people picking up e-mails on their knees, and some of it is work,” he said.
“Technology, rather than being an enabler, is creating more stress.”
Data from his research and European studies show that job insecurity affects up to half of employees, with many working more than 45 hours a week, while a third spend less than one hour a night with family. – Daily Mail