Companies To Employees: Don't Check Email After Hours

Naturally, when you have employees bringing their own devices to work, this means they also take work home with them. The BYOD trend can make it easy to cross the line from personal time to work. Even work-issued mobile devices can make employees think about work more than they should.

To combat burnout, some companies are advising their employees to take a break from email.

Employees at the Advisory Board have been told that they should avoid checking email when they are out of the office, according to a Washington Post article.

I am breaking that rule by writing this story on a Sunday after I checked an email from my editor on a Saturday. But according to the article, Advisory Board is not alone. It's become a trend; some companies are trying to put up some boundaries between personal time and work. As many as 25% of companies have instituted similar rules about accessing email after hours, the article said. Companies might be getting more work out of their employees thanks to smartphones and tablets because it is so easy to check email on the go. But if it's making employees feel tired and over-worked, too much access to email can be counterproductive.

Even with beautiful views like this one--taken with my phone--I found it tempting to check my email. Fortunately, the signal was too faint:

Nobody wants to show up on Monday burned out from working over the weekend. Have you found a good balance between checking email after work and relaxing during your time off? Or are you afraid too much email will pile up if you ignore it for too long? Leave a comment below.