Ruby on Rails Creator Supports After-Work Email Bans (signalvnoise.com)

An anonymous reader writes: David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails, is applauding talk of an after-work e-mail ban, writing that "the ever-expanding expectations for when someone is available have gotten out of hand... Work emails are ticking in at all sorts of odd hours and plenty of businesses are dysfunctional enough to believe they have a right to have those answered, whatever the hour. That's unhealthy, possibly even exploitative... Same goes for forcing everyone to work in an open office. The research is mounting on all the ills that come from persistent noise and interruptions from that arrangement."

While acknowledging that his firm's project management tool Basecamp has a "perfect storm" of features that can send emails and texts after hours, Hansson points out that at least version 3 (released in 2015) shipped with a scheduling feature that will hold notifications during weekends and other specified off-work periods. "What we need before we can even dream of having something like the French response is a change in attitudes. Less celebration of workaholism, more #WorkCanWait. More recognition that stress from unrealistic and unhealthy expectations and work habits is actually a real hazard to health and sanity."

Comments

Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.

What is reasonable? Well, if it's an emergency of some sort, I call or text them, depending on the immediacy. (Emergency being defined as anywhere from "someone's sick, can you cover a shift?" to "something's on fire".)

Anything below emergency I typically email and expect to be done when convenient - typically the next work day. If the employee checks their email after hours or on weekends, it's up to them if they want to take care of it right then (if it's something they can do from home), but I never expect it.

We have business hours for a reason. As far as I'm concerned, if it's not something I'd do while outside work, why would I expect that from my employees?

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's up to them if they want to take care of it right then

Tomorrow is fine. No pressure. Hopefully Tom down the hall doesn't get to it first - I have to make the decision on that promotion tonight.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is if it becomes an expectation, by allowing employees to do it it sets off a competition between them, which is good for the employer, but bad for the employee who doesn't work extra hours. Someone will say its employees choice, but unless they are getting paid more for it, they could work the extra hours at their own business or another one and actually benefit from working more. So no, unpaid extra labour, even for salaried employee is not acceptable, it is bad for the employee, not the ideal situation for the economy, or worker happiness, and is a race to the bottom.

Emergencies are the exception Ofc.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[pedz]

Emergencies are the exception Ofc.

The place I work, management is by crises only -- everything is an emergency. Dilbert cartoons only scratch the surface at the depth of insanity, inefficiency, and inhumanity.

But, of course, if ANY laws are enacted in the US, they will only step up their move to India, China, and now Vietnam. Thanks Obama.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but it is just wrong to expect employees to be available outside of scheduled work hours! My time off of work is MY time, and an employer has no right to expect me to use any of that time for their benefit! I have been taken to task because I wouldn't cover someone else's shift on my day(s) off. I replied that I make plans with family and friends on my days off, and (mostly) I refuse to change those plans. My time outside of scheduled work hours is MINE! Many employers have for many years expected an employee's job to be their entire life. Sorry, my job is not the only thing in my life, and employers have no right to expect me to work non-scheduled hours, especially if I am not paid! Even if I am paid, I have the right to refuse, and also the right to be informed of schedule changes during regular work hours.

One more thing, far too many employers these days consider employees to be an easily replaceable commodity, one which is owed nothing in the way of consideration or loyalty of any kind!

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[houghi]

As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.

This seems nice, but it isn't. You can ask people to come in when there is an emergency, but you can not expect them to do so.

The only way to expect it is to put it in writing and compensate people extra for it when it happens.

I personally tell my staff I expect them to NOT read any emails from home. I have even mocked some for doing so. (Did you think you make a promotion faster by reading emails at home, or are you unable to do your job in the time I assigned to you at the office?) One said the latter and then we looked into how he could do it. Turned out somebody tried to let him do their work. (think White Castle)

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[BlackHawk-666]

And it's because of bosses like you that I don't give work my home email, nor would I EVER check work emails from home. I don't get paid to do that. I wouldn't allow a boss to call me after work hours unless I was specifically contracted to provide after hours service and to be on call. If I'm on call, you're paying me for that service for every hour I'm on call. I promise not to masturbate at work during work hours, if you promise not to call me with business shit during my rest hours.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

Sorry, but it is just wrong to expect employees to be available outside of scheduled work hours! My time off of work is MY time, and an employer has no right to expect me to use any of that time for their benefit!

...and here we have the flip side to selfishly unreasonable attitudes of bosses.

I have been taken to task because I wouldn't cover someone else's shift on my day(s) off. I replied that I make plans with family and friends on my days off, and (mostly) I refuse to change those plans.

If you've got plans and can't cover, then that's your prerogative. Perhaps what you've been "taken to task" for is your attitude, though? They way you've stated it here sounds like you're being overly confrontational when a simple, "sorry, I have plans" would have sufficed.

It sounds like it's definitely possible you're that asshole who always expects other people to cover for them, while resenting anyone expecting the same in return. When someone is sick, there's almost never anyone who is happy to come in on their day off, but people do it to help out the other employees. If nobody does, the business is short-staffed for the day, and those who are there are the ones who are the worse for it. Covering shifts is not done so much for the benefit of the business as it is done for the benefit of your co-workers.

My time outside of scheduled work hours is MINE! Many employers have for many years expected an employee's job to be their entire life. Sorry, my job is not the only thing in my life

It sounds like you've had bad experiences with employers. It sounds like you need to find better places to work.
(Unless, of course, your bad attitude is leading you to believe everywhere is oppressing you, in which case what you need to change is yourself.)

Even if I am paid, I have the right to refuse, and also the right to be informed of schedule changes during regular work hours.

Which is not always possible. Unplanned issues and emergencies come up, and reasonably accommodating those situations should be expected.

One more thing, far too many employers these days consider employees to be an easily replaceable commodity, one which is owed nothing in the way of consideration or loyalty of any kind!

On the flip side, far too many employees think their employers are owed no consideration or loyalty of any kind. This lack of trust and resentment comes from both directions, and is a serious problem whichever direction it comes from.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[TheGratefulNet]

You're completely self-centered and care only about yourself, and couldn't give a fuck about anyone else

classic case of pot calling kettle black.

in today's corp world, this perfectly defines how a COMPANY acts. they are spoiled little fucking brats who have too much of a labor pool to pick from and think the world revolves around THEM.

I find it precious that you try to turn it around. in the history of the modern age, life has NEVER been as good for companies as it is right now. they have everything on a golden platter and they lord it over us, pretty much constantly.

I have no idea what your work life is like. maybe you are rich and you are a business owner. I suspect you are or you are of the R persuasion who thinks that all roads lead to 'business should have all the say'.

or maybe you're a republican shill trying to shift the argument in your party's direction.

but its clear as crystal; this is the golden era for corportism and if a company wants something, THEY GET IT. they get laws passed as created by their PACs and the economy is so bad that no one dares talk back to the employer.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Tesen]

Exactly! I left a job where that happen. (Names replaced to protect the guilty):

Boss: Fred, our search engines are showing high CPU load. Can you look?

Fred: I am at the park with my kid at the moment.

Boss: Can you head home?

Fred: Is Pete available (Pete golden boy).

Boss: Pete is grilling with his kids.

Fred: But Pete is home?

Boss: Pete is busy.

Fred: I am 20 minutes away from nearest computer to remote in with and if Pete is home...

Boss: Pete has family from out of town, you are just at the park...

Fred: sigh.

Boss (calls): So what did you find?

Fred: CPU pressure resolved by itself.

Boss: Can you review the logs?

Fred: Logs are copying to analysis box, it is going to take several hours, since they have not been rolled in a while.

Boss: Okay, call me when you have them reviewed.

Fred: Uhhh, that'll be tomorrow morning when I am in the office.

Boss: I expect your report first thing.

Fred: .... f you.

Yes, that happened. I got a lecture the next morning that I did not have the analysis done.

I left a year later; after being called while out camping... no issued work laptop, I had my personal with me, no real data reception. They expected me to drive 5 hours to get back to the office. I ended up putting my work contacts on auto-block when out with the family. I encouraged a support rotation, where people would be scheduled once every six weeks to be on support, but nope, they did not want to do that.

I found out after I left they did not want to do a support rotation, because Pete three months of the year had every weekend commitments away from home... yet, me wanting to head out camping with my family was to much. Yes, the commitments Pete had with religious in nature... mine was just you know, raising my family.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

You're completely self-centered and care only about yourself, and couldn't give a fuck about anyone else

classic case of pot calling kettle black.

Howso? I said, "be reasonable". The post I responded to pushed an unreasonably one-sided view, to the point where they equated being called outside of work for any reason with being allowed to masturbate at work.

in today's corp world, this perfectly defines how a COMPANY acts. they are spoiled little fucking brats who have too much of a labor pool to pick from and think the world revolves around THEM.

Often, yes. It's one of the reasons I started my own company - to avoid working for one like that.

I find it precious that you try to turn it around. in the history of the modern age, life has NEVER been as good for companies as it is right now.

I find it naive that you don't think bad employees exist. And life is not better for companies than ever. It's actually pretty awful for anything that isn't a MegaCorp.

I have no idea what your work life is like. maybe you are rich and you are a business owner. I suspect you are or you are of the R persuasion who thinks that all roads lead to 'business should have all the say'. or maybe you're a republican shill trying to shift the argument in your party's direction.

Pretty much off-base on everything except the "business owner" (I'm left of Democrat, pro-small business with some socialist leanings, and believe big businesses need to be stopped from bending politics to their whims).

Back to the underlying topic at hand: The thing I've come to realize being a business owner is that regardless of whether people are bosses or underlings, their underlying personalities will drive their interactions at work. Shitty bosses and shitty employees are both horrible to work with, have no cares about the welfare of their coworkers, and selfishly believe everything is about them. Good bosses and good employees are those who will spend reasonable efforts to make everyone else's lives easier in the hopes that goodwill will come back to them (or at least a happier work environment overall will make work less of a chore).

Back to the main topic at hand: Reasonableness. For me, being reasonable at work is treating everything as a two-way street. The expectations management have of employees should be equal to the expectations the employees have of management. A flexible attitude from management should have an equally flexible attitude from employees. If management is hard-assed about the rules, then I'd expect most employees to game the system back. Bad employees and bad bosses alike don't follow that attitude, and take everything they can, while giving as little as possible.

Tying this back to the main story, and giving an idea of where my sense of reasonableness lies, I'll leave you with an example of how I deal with the emails after work hours: If I email something to them outside of work hours, I figure they'll get to it when they have time. I don't expect that to be before the next time they work, but if it is, that's fine too. But then, I don't have a problem when my employees surf the internet or play games on their phones while things are slow and they need a little break. If they answered an email or two after hours instead of during the work day they're more likely to have that slow time to unwind a bit during the day. I find that to be a reasonable trade-off, and they do, too.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

Covering shifts is not done so much for the benefit of the business as it is done for the benefit of your co-workers.

Bullshit. Sure, things can be more hectic for an employee if people can't come in, but if the business weren't harmed by not having the specified number of people there, I'm pretty sure you'd find out that having 4 people instead of 5 there is suddenly "correct staffing levels" instead of being "short-staffed".

Untrue. Staffing levels are typically made for expected peak business requirements, and sanity levels of employees.

Let's use fast food restaurants as an example: If they decide they need 15 people for a shift, then odds are they "only really need" 12-13. But then what happens when you have a day with 15-20% higher customer levels? The customer gets worse service than expected, leading to less repeat business, leading to worse long-term sales, which is why they schedule in the extra employees. Additionally, there are various types of prep work that are scheduled in for those employees to do each day that can be put off until later in situations of peak customer turnout. There's also the employee sanity levels to account for: At that 12-13 staff level, the employees are stretched thinner, their stress levels run higher, and they're more likely to make mistakes. If those mistakes cause extra work, this quickly compounds the issue. While this may be acceptable in the short run, it's a nightmare long-term as the employees hate their jobs, the work environment turns toxic, and it starts to effect customer service.

With this built-in staffing buffer, a short-staffed business's employees can deal with it for a few days before their stress levels get high enough to really affect their work. So yes, covering for a coworker is more for the coworkers' benefits than it is for the business's, as the problems short-staffing causes are felt by the employees immediately, but not by the business unless it lasts for a long enough time.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Solandri]

Yeah, this can be a real problem. At my previous job I was reviewing employee promotions with the company president, and she mentioned that she liked that a certain employee was willing to come in during off-hours to handle an emergency which cropped up. I had to gently remind her that as laudable as that was, it was during off-hours so shouldn't be a factor. The correlation between an employee's willingness to help out the company and his actions isn't as strong during off-hours as it is during work hours. Other employees may have been just as willing to come in as he did, but couldn't because they'd already made plans for that evening, and maybe the only reason it was this employee who came in was because he happened to be free and bored that evening. During work hours everyone is supposed to be there, so you have the same basis for comparison. During off-work hours, you may be comparing the willingness to come into work of someone attending their kid's play at school, to someone flipping through channels on his TV unable to find anything interesting to watch.

(And if you're curious, we gave an immediate cash bonus to anyone coming in to work during an emergency off-hours at roughly 2x their hourly rate - basically treated it as double overtime.)

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[ultranova]

Sorry, but it is just wrong to expect employees to be available outside of scheduled work hours! My time off of work is MY time, and an employer has no right to expect me to use any of that time for their benefit!

...and here we have the flip side to selfishly unreasonable attitudes of bosses.

No, we don't. The flip side would be some jackass who leaves an hour early whenever he likes, or demands you pay more than you agreed. Someone simply sticking to the deal as written is neither selfish nor unreasonable, especially when they were the weaker party during its writing.

On the flip side, far too many employees think their employers are owed no consideration or loyalty of any kind. This lack of trust and resentment comes from both directions, and is a serious problem whichever direction it comes from.

In short, your human resources have learned to treat you as an income resource, so now it's suddenly a problem.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[BlackHawk-666]

Since I said I never expect the email to be checked or responded to until the next work day, I'm not sure what your issue here is?

If there is no expectation of the email being attended to, then why are you posting it to the employee during outside of work hours. It's reasonable if you're working late or early and are taking care of your unattended business and posting it to the work email address. It's a whole other kettle of fish when you post it to my personal email at home. I don't check work emails from home, I never have and never will. Email by definition is work that can wait until it's attended to.

Work having the ability to just contact me at any time causes stress and devalues my free time. I've experienced it first hand from when I ran a business and customers thought it was fine to ring my home number at 9pm and ask for help. Thankfully, I found that billing them slowly stopped this from happening.

If I'm constantly on the clock, expected to take note of work emails and phone calls - or even if as you claim you just "hope" that I will - that places undue pressure on me. It's hard to relax, sink a few beers, whatever, if you're always wondering if that damn phone will ring and you need to try and sound sober and possibly drive somewhere...which you won't be able to do after only 2-3 beers.

Want to spend a romantic night out with your significant other? Sorry dear, I have to cancel plans, work has an emergency. No, it's not a real emergency, but the micro-managing panic stricken rule loving turd who manages me thinks it's important enough to cancel my plans for the evening.

You "wouldn't allow" a boss to call you if an emergency came up?

This is not an emergency. It never has been and it never will be. Call one of the other workers who are on-call for that shift. Maybe don't staff things so poorly that being a single person down is "an emergency". Besides, I don't do shift work - I am salaried, and like everyone else in my office it doesn't matter at all if we miss a few days here and there. Meetings can be rescheduled. Work will wait, deadlines should never be so tight that missing a single day is catastrophic.

You seem to be a passive-aggressive person who wants it both ways. You want to be casual and say "it's cool, just do it tomorrow" but then are still putting mental pressure on your workers to get it done in their own free time.

I have worked in IT for 30 years so I've seen my fair share of death marches, weekend work to practice deployments, after hours support for mission critical systems, etc. I watched one team spend six months on a death march that never seemed likely to end. They worked 6 days a week, 12+ hours each day and at the end still shipped a truly execrable product. Possibly because they were all so dog tired the whole time and couldn't think straight.

I protect both my team and my employer by not allowing such conditions to arise for my team members. I set realistic deadlines, tracked the project diligently and made sure they had their free time as uninterrupted as possible. We hit every deadline and shipped high quality products each time. Tired IT workers are crappy IT workers.

It's also about having agency in your own life. Work shouldn't be able to dictate all the terms of your life, both work and leisure. Do I need to leave my phone on during this play I'm watching in case work decides it needs me? Should I sit down and eat dinner first or am I meant to check the last emails from work first. Should I have already done that on the train / bus home like I see so many others do? Do I need to do that to compete, and if so, is that a competition I want to enter and have even a remote chance of winning?

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[BlackHawk-666]

More or less. Nothing we do is going to be dire enough that the whole place falls apart if someone can't be reached. (Unless the whole place literally falls apart, but somehow I think that'd be more of a call to 911.) Worst case scenario we close down during normal business hours - not the end of the world. And yes, I trust whoever's in charge to make that decision.

So even your "emergencies" aren't dire enough that not getting through to someone will cause a big issue. They're not even likely or dire enough for you to perform any form of contingency planning. It's on the scale of "I sure hope someone can deal with this now, if not, it's fine, it can wait till tomorrow." It really doesn't sound like anything you expect might go wrong is worth putting any of your own resources towards managing. If it's not worth it for you, why should you expect it to be worth it for your workers.

You know, I really don't mind if an employer calls me up a few times a year and asks something reasonable that is dealt with in a minute. For a good employer I will even walk over to my machine, remote in and try and sort it out if it's a really quick fix like rebooting a server. That's someone who I have already built up trust and rapport with - not just anyone, but an employer I have a good working relationship with.

If there is an expectation that perhaps 4+ times a year I will need to go into work, dropping whatever I am doing and deal with emergencies (it doesn't happen generally, I'm a developer) then I want it in the contract that I get TOIL or similar compensation for those hours. If not the written contract then a verbal agreement reached during the interview phase with the employer. I am always upfront about what expectations they can make on me, and what expectations I might have for them.

When 9/11 hit I was in Venice on holiday with my wife. I called the office immediately and discussed whether they needed me to fly back straight away to deal with any issues and fallout from it. Lucky it was fine for the next two days, so I didn't have to cut my holiday short, but I would have if it was needed because that was the very definition of an emergency (I worked in finance).

Don't place vague or poorly defined expectations on your employees and hope they will rise to the occasion. If you need people "on-call" then contract that with them, create a rota, make sure they know exactly which hours / days they are on-call for and compensate them for constant possible interruption to their lives.

You sound like you think you don't need that, and maybe you don't - I don't know what your business is. At least you sound will to compensate people for when they do answer the calls.

I still think that allowing people or even vaguely imply it's a a good thing to deal with emails outside of business hours is a poor idea. There is always going to be some fool who thinks that slapping in another couple of hours per day is the way to promotion and this causes stress and pressure on the rest of the staff. People will start to check emails at times when they should be focused on family, friends and relaxation. It makes no sense to cause this stress in your employees personal life. Healthy relaxed people work much better, especially when there is a true balance between work and home and definite cut-off periods.

Re:email? Easy for me

[The Rizz]

You know what happens when I get an email? Nothing. Not till I open my email and look.

Email is asynchronous communications. Email that expects 24 hour response is stupid on the senders part. You want fast response, use the right channel, or at least give me a heads up in the right channel.

This is exactly my view of it - if you email me, I'll get to it when I get to it. Don't expect me to be sitting next to my computer waiting for you.

However, I expect this is more directed towards those who have email on their phones and alerts set to chime every time they get an email. (Which, with the volume of junk mail I receive every day, makes me question the sanity of anyone who would do this.)

No need to ban it

[wonkey_monkey]

Jeez, just let people decide if they want to check their work emails. Is no-one an adult any more?

It doesn't even sound like the French thing is really much of a "ban" anyway. It's more a recommendation that companies draw up rules on when people should/shouldn't be expected to check/answer work emails.

Make it an outright ban and how is someone who works a different shift supposed to leave me a message?

Just make it so companies can't expect people to deal with work emails (or punish them for failing to do so) outside of work hours unless formally agreed.