Your employer calls outside working hours: should you answer or ignore it?

It's five in the afternoon and the work day is coming to an end. You tap out one more email, fold the laptop and put the work phone aside. It's time to arrange dinner and enjoy the evening. As you sit on the couch with a cup of coffee, you hear that familiar sound of the phone letting you know that a message has arrived. Out of curiosity, you still grab your work phone to look at the notification because imagine a colleague urgently needs your help. It often happens that before going to bed, employees answer a message from a colleague or update the mailbox during the weekend that they did not get around to during the week.

But are we doing the right thing by always being reachable for work? Are you a better employee if you are always reachable? Several studies show that communicating outside of work hours can lead to increased stress and can even contribute to burnout.

The problem is not necessarily in sending emails or messages to a colleague outside working hours, but the pressure an employee may experience when a new report comes in. Employer expectations play a big role in this. Many employees feel obliged to be available outside working hours, especially since many organizations clearly state that they are not waiting for someone with a "nine to five" mentality.

But then where does the responsibility lie? With employer perhaps, who should ensure that we have minimal to no communication outside working hours? We see that a number of large companies in several European countries have already made reachability agreements with employees. For example, employees of a large supermarket chain no longer receive e-mails between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m., and the French have even included in the law that employees have the right to be unreachable outside working hours. Or does the responsibility lie with the employee, who should be able to filter for themselves whether an incoming message is urgent or can wait until the next day?

As is the case with many problems, the solution lies somewhere in the middle. Employer and employees must agree together on the expectations of communicating outside working hours. As a supervisor, consult with your employees to what extent you expect them to respond to incoming messages outside of work hours. And as an employee, it helps to schedule a set time outside working hours to go through the mail one more time when you still want to check what messages have arrived.