Price Waterhouse Coopers Email Policy Reins in Weekend Workers

Achievement unlocked: Inbox Zero! (CC) BenLucier/Flickr

PriceWaterhouseCoopers employees who choose to work on the weekends will encounter a fascinating aspect of the company’s email policy: a gentle reminder not to burden your colleagues with messages. Here’s the message in its entirety, courtesy of AttorneyRetention.org:

It’s the Weekend
Help reduce weekend mail overload for both you and your colleagues by working offline in a replica of your mailbox.

Firm research has shown if you send a note, recipients will feel compelled to respond so, if actions/responses can wait until the next business day, change your work location to your Remote/Disconnected setting. This will hold your outbound mail until you change your work location back to In Office.

The Monday email glut is a common phenomenon in many offices, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers has taken a hands-on approach in respecting employees’ weekends and thereby enforcing work-life balance.

Other Assertive Company Email Policies

PriceWaterhouseCoopers isn’t the only company to adopt an assertive company email policy. Volkswagen Germany takes things a step further and disables BlackBerry servers from retrieving email after the workday ends. And Atos one-ups even VW with its promise to ban internal email within the next two years.

Do you think the corporate backlash against email will spread? Does your organization offer initiatives to cut down on email?