"My office hours are from 9 to 5"

[DrPhil]

As Big Red said in The Five Heartbeats: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZZcKRQku74

Whether hourly or salary, some of us have flexible work hours and some of us have strict work hours. Some people stop working during certain hours and on certain days and some people do not set such limits (by their own choosing or by employer force).

France tells employees to stop checking their work-related emails after hours:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/...#ixzz2ya8UlPia

The question being asked on the news is whether this could happen and be effectively applied (across employment types and employers) in the USA.

What say you, GC?

[IrishLake]

I rarely bring work home with me. When I do, I forget about it. I don't have access to work email at home. I wouldn't check it even if I did. I work 7am-5:30 pm 4 days a week. I LOVE my 3 day weekends!

I don't think the general population of the US could let work go like what France is proposing.

[AOII Angel]

Apparently this French agreement has been misreported and overblown. The agreement is not a law and only effects ~200,000 high level tech executives that already work about 78hours a week. It's funny when buzzfeed fact checks The Guardian. http://www.buzzfeed.com/marietelling...-afte?s=mobile


My work schedule is 8-5. I knock off as soon as I hit the quota assigned for me by my company bc there is no incentive to do more. I have learned this over years. My husband works long hours as a pharmaceutical company clinical scientist. His hours are dependent on the work going on at the time. He gets upwards of 500 emails a day and does a lot of work from home including checking emails. They resent their European colleagues not for jealousy over time off but because they delay things getting done because they are never there. Subsequently, the American team works harder to make up for it. For years, my husband talked about getting a job in industry with the goal of us moving to Europe. Now, he'd rather die. LOL.

[DrPhil]

The article in the OP explains this isn't a law and states which jobs will be impacted:

"In an effort to improve French citizens’ work-life balance, employers’ federations and unions in the European nation have signed a legally-binding labor agreement requiring workers to ignore emails from bosses if they’re received outside of their usual working hours.

The new deal covers many employees in the technology and consultancy sectors, with France-based workers at Facebook and Google among them."

Now that everyone is over the flashy titles of the news reports and know the details, could something like this ever happen and be effective in the U.S.?

[andthen]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

The article in the OP explains this isn't a law and states which jobs will be impacted:

"In an effort to improve French citizens’ work-life balance, employers’ federations and unions in the European nation have signed a legally-binding labor agreement requiring workers to ignore emails from bosses if they’re received outside of their usual working hours.

The new deal covers many employees in the technology and consultancy sectors, with France-based workers at Facebook and Google among them."

Now that everyone is over the flashy titles of the news reports and know the details, could something like this ever happen and be effective in the U.S.?

I would say its possible but not likely. Having spent time living and traveling a lot overseas, the American culture is quite different good, bad, or indifferent. Its always interesting because my friends who are from and live in other countries pick up on this right away when they interact with Americans.

I think perhaps in future generations there maybe an overall shift in attitude of better work/life balance. Of course there will still be people who fall out of the bell curve. I think that many Americans are goal oriented and achievers, and if that means working super long hours, and foregoing vacation then that's part of what one needs to do. But I've also seen more and more people who I know that are trying to draw a line in the sand and leave work at work, myself included (although I'm only successful about 70% of the time).

Maybe there's some chip embedded that tells Americans to strive, strive, strive.

[AGDee]

No, it would never make sense. Not the way it is described here:

requiring workers to ignore emails from bosses if they’re received outside of their usual working hours.


Whose usual working hours? The boss's or the employee's? What if they work different shifts? What if they are a global company? I do a lot of interaction with our people in Australia and we all have to make compromises to have meetings- We meet at 7 am our time (10 pm their time) or at 5 pm our time (8 am their time).

The way they worded that first line, it says they can ignore the emails. It doesn't say they can't read them outside of work hours, it says to ignore them completely. I just don't even see that being possible. That would mean that I could ignore the emails I got from my director at 7:30 this morning because I didn't come in until 8:00 am. And it isn't that I can't read them before 8, but I am required to ignore them- always. That makes no sense at all.

[DrPhil]

I agree, AGDee. The "requiring" workers is limiting and extreme. We shall see whether this is successful in France. Many things are excellent in theory but don't work in practice.

[DubaiSis]

If I heard it right this morning, if you work more than 13 hours in a day, you don't have to answer your phone. That would seem like a VERY reasonable compromise. I can't imagine any French person working 13 hours in a single day, however.

[Kevin]

I'm on call 7 days a week. I give my cell phone to most of my clients and get after hours calls all the time... calls which are carefully billed for.

[tld221]

Originally Posted by Kevin

I'm on call 7 days a week. I give my cell phone to most of my clients and get after hours calls all the time... calls which are carefully billed for.

And for the good 98% of us who can't bill clients in hourly increments, or receive OT...

Every industry is 24/7. Just because YOU'RE off the clock doesnt mean business stops. Ideally someone else picks up where you leave off. For sure, business wasnt like this years ago, but now, everything is urgent and important.

At some point, I realized that there was always going to be work to do the next day. Papers to push, children in need, etc. I recently transferred locations within my company and vowed to remove work email from my phone and not take work home. Many of my students have my personal cell phone number but I wouldn't be as effective at my job if I was less accessible to them.

I'm a LOT less stressed overall though.

[SWTXBelle]

For my middle school students, parents and administrators - I check my e-mail frequently throughout the day and usually do a final check around 9 p.m. If I know I will not be able to respond to e-mails for a day or two (while on vacation or the like), I put up an "I am away" message.

For my on-line college courses - I check e-mail at least twice a day (morning and night), but usually far more often. Some professors give out their cell phone numbers, but I don't. I would rather have our exchange documented, and I also want students to be able to refer back to my answer to any questions they have.

[pinksequins]

In Europe and the UK nearly every employee is a member of a union in stark contrast to the US. Employees also have employment contracts as a rule. By contrast, many if not most states in the US recognize "at will" employment. AT will is a two-edged sword -- it facilitates both mobility and downsizing. I do not see the French "rule" being adopted in the US either by law or as a general practice outside of hourly work or union agreements.

[PhoenixAzul]

I work at a startup. I'm not a founder or a partner. I am salaried, no overtime pay or earned PTO. So I work my set schedule and nothing more. No work emails outside of work hours. No work on weekends. And I will take every single day of my 25 days off a year. I do good work when I'm there, I flex when I am needed to work on a client that's international, but I have too much other stuff going on in life to be working all the time. When I was in non-profits, that was the expectation. Work til you die, and you have time off but you aren't allowed to take it. And we're going to give you a pay cut. And you have to contribute more to your health insurance.

Unless I feel that I'm being adequately compensated for the extra stress and time away from my family, life, and my health...not happening. I don't live for work. I work to pay for things so I can live. And that's about it. My relationship with my spouse, my family, and my emotional and physical well being are way more important.

Maybe too many years of living in Europe? But when I explained to my friends my time off (in my new job, 25 days a year, which is amazing in the US)- they were appalled at how low it was. Perspective, I suppose? My 25 days is super generous to me, where the expectation is two weeks, but paltry to my friends who expect 45 days as a minimum.

[MysticCat]

I have told support staff not to check or read work emails except during their working hours so that they do not go into overtime. I have also told lawyers not to email support staff in off hours so that it's not an issue, but there're always the folks who email whenever a thought occurs to them. I've been guilty of that myself.

[Sciencewoman]

I think that e-mail has made it increasingly difficult to get away. My students expect professors to e-mail them back in the evenings and on weekends. This was my spring break, but I still gave feedback on a couple thesis chapters and got a lot of other e-mail based work done. I spent my winter break writing a big federal grant, which I just found out I received. That puts me at over 1 million in federal grants received, and I made full prof this year, the first year I was eligible. I plan to work hard while I'm working, and have a nice retirement!

I know profs who do not answer e-mails after hours...that's their choice, but I also know students really appreciate a response. Students keep late hours and work on assignments on the weekends. They can have questions that need answering.

One of the international students I went to grad school with told us that Americans get done in 1 year what somone in his country would get done in 5 years.