A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the move by one very large technology integrator, Atos, to essentially ban internal email in an order to push reset on the way its employees collaborate and communicate. Now, the BBC is reporting that Volkswagen has approved an IT policy that prevents BlackBerry email servers from sending emails to some of its employees when they aren’t officially on the clock
So, here’s the clincher: This just applies to certain employees that work for trade unions.
According to the BBC article, the IT policy that Volkswagen has applied shuts off emails going to a person’s BlackBerry 30 minutes before that person is going off shift. Then, email routing is turned on again about a hal-hour before the employee starts work hours.
The employees are allowed to make calls if they want, and the policy (as you might expect) doesn’t apply to senior managers.
Mind you, European companies take the concept of people’s personal lives a lot more seriously, historically speaking, than companies in the United States. Long-standing vacation policies are a perfect example of that. But this is a trend that managers should watch carefully, as more of their workers take their jobs mobile.
At some point, there is going to be a backlash with respect to just how long employees will agree to worry about their job, when they are supposed to be enjoying some family time. This will be especially true for any companies that still support extensive unionized workforces. In particularly, I am thinking about telecommunications field service representations, automotive production teams, and healthcare professionals (especially nurses).
