German carmaker Volkswagen has made an interesting practical step towards restricting its employees from working in their spare time. This applies to employees except senior managers working in Germany on the basis of collective agreements who are offered corporate BlackBerry phones.
Blackberries are equipped with special software that blocks sending e-mails from 30 minutes after the end of a shift to until 30 minutes before the start of the next shift. The measure is the result of growing criticism of internal e-mails that employees worked on almost continuously throughout a day. No limitation applies to telephoning.
Similar steps has recently been taken by other big companies including e.g. French IT giant Atos. Atos even announced its plan to totally eliminate internal e-mails within two years. Manufacturer of detergents Henkel declared "e-mail amnesty" at least between Christmas and the New Year.
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