With employees at many companies being given a Blackberry to help keep on top of their email it’s little surprise to see an increase in stress.
With email pinging into your pocket 24 hours a day, there’s often a compulsion to keep on top of it, replying to emails at all times of day and night, never ‘switching off’ from work mode to relax.
France Telecom’s Chief Financial Officer has spoken out against email overload at a time when the company is dealing with a number of employee suicides. Could there be a connection?
Gervais Pellissier told Reuters “When you were an average employee in a big corporation 15 years ago, you had no mobile phone or no PC at home. When you were back home, work was out. Today for people working in business, whatever the level, whether they are CEO or even first- or second-rank level employees, they are always connected.”
Although Pellissier didn’t explicitly link the suicides to email overload, he made clear the company was taking both matters seriously. Surveillance and counselling services have been introduced as recent weeks have seen a man stab himself in the stomach during a staff meeting and a woman throw herself out a window. Since the start of last year there have been 22 suicides and another 13 attempted suicides among France Telecom staff.
It’s unlikely that constant connection to email is the sole cause of the suicides. That said, it could well be a contributing factor, especially if a senior member of the company’s staff is discussing both issues in the same breath.
Frequent ‘new mail’ alerts from your handset are a regular reminder of all that work you still have to do. The added stress of France Telecom’s transformation from a government agency to a private company, which has seen many significant changes to job roles, is likely to be another major factor.
I think you make some good points – I now regularly receive work e-mails outside normal hours. A few years ago it was unusual it’s now commonplace. I think the person who e-mailed me recently with a business reply at 2am on Sunday morning did so with some macho pride. But there is still an off switch, silent mode or whatever gets through the weekend/holiday.
The problem is partly about the fact that some users never turn off there phone, but moreover that e-mail is abused by a lot of senders. Besides it’s hard tot prioritise, and even if it was prioritized, it could be different in another context. Ideal, your e-mailbox should be context-aware.
Some e-mails you would love to get even at a romantic night, f.e. if your meeting the next morning will be delayed. Some others can keep you awake all night…or even worse.
Besides a nice context-aware mailapp, good rules of engagement within a company could help a lot as well.
Good of you to highlight this growing problem. Turn the mobile off people! Whatever it is, it can wait.
真爱生命 远离手机！！
Love of life away from the phone
I’ve spent the past 15 years driving action and research aiming to reduce email overload in large companies; I fully agree with the “Email overload leads to stress” part of the title, which is amply documented. That said, I’m less happy with the “… and suicide?” part, which – being sensational – is spreading fast online.
It is true that Info Overload and the 24×7 connectivity are one of many factors that can cause stress; it is true that stress is one factor that can lead to suicide; but none of what’s written here supports a causative connection of email and suicide with anything like scientific rigor, IMHO. And the fact that a senior company official declines to assert a connection is hardly proof of such a connection…
Nubli has come up with an innovative way to handle your emails and hence make your life less stressful than before. Nubli’s product EMailSMarts automatically prioritizes your inbox into high, medium and low based on the past usage of your inbox. This helps you focus on the most important emails thereby reducing your stress of scanning through your entire inbox of numerous mails. It also does automatic tagging of your emails based on your history of tagging. This helps categorize your emails automatically.
We are not using email for what it was meant for, what it was designed for. It is from this the problem of email chaos stems, as does the problem of constant distraction and productivity sapping email interruptions. Email is actually working against us.
It has become a challenge of prioritization. The growth rate in complexity and the availability of information of our business has outstripped any individual’s ability to process. Hence, the constant scanning, the constant triage and the constant concern that something is out there that needs our attention.
Our startup (based in Paris) has just released Kwaga, a tool which automatically (language recognition) identifies meeting requests & tasks within incoming emails.
Might be useful to simplify email again?
Great Post! One certainly needs right kind of approach to stay on top of email. Email management solutions like Taroby http://www.taroby.com helps you to conquer Email overload. Check out the blog for more tips on Email Overload: http://blog.taroby.org/tag/information-overload/
Hello Nathan, thanks for the comment.
The article doesn’t claim to use scientific methods. It is simply relating the fact that there have been suicides amongst France Telecom staff with the fact that the company’s CFO has commented on always-on email as a source of stress amongst employees.
Are the two things related? Possibly but not necessarily. That’s exactly what the post says. There’s no proof, just cause for thought.