To promote rest among its employees, a European car company switches off work e-mails for certain employees between 6 pm and 7 am, according to a Quartz news report.
To prove how serious it is about getting employees to unplug at night, one European car company switches off the work emails of non-management employees automatically between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m.
And while that may not work for all businesses, the practice sends a clear message to its workforce: Get some rest.
There’s some debate about whether we’re actually in a crisis of sleeplessness, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says one in three American adults don’t get enough shuteye.
The management consultants at McKinsey—who noted the pro-sleep email policies of that nameless European car company in a recent report—say lack of sleep can impair leaders and dull their performance. McKinsey warns that staying awake 17 to 19 hours, say, working until midnight after waking up at 6 a.m., can be as detrimental as a blood alcohol level of 0.05%. (A blood alcohol limit of 0.08% is the US nationwide limit for drivers.)
