上班族的新疾苦：周日晚上已沦为周一上午

许多老板都习惯在周末的最后几小时开始处理工作，为新的一周做好准备。但为避免员工陷入倦怠，有些公司已禁止管理层在周末和深夜发送邮件。

上班族的新疾苦：周日晚上已沦为周一上午

和许多做老板的人一样，克里斯·穆伦(Chris Mullen)认为下列事情放在周末最后几小时做最为适宜：整理杂乱的电子邮件收件箱，与同事分享对项目的零散想法，以及让员工报告最新状态，为新的一周做好准备。

同事们则另有想法。他说，所有这些邮件会在开工前一晚把他们提前拖入工作状态，引发周一前的恐惧，即许多美国上班族所谓的“周日恐惧症”。

“我问我的员工，'你怎么总是能在深夜回覆我的电子邮件，那时候你明明多半和朋友在外面玩，或者在家休息的。’”这位前大学管理人员说道，而一位员工是这样回答的：“因为是你发的！”

职场专家表示，这种工作状态的延长已经成为引发倦怠的主要原因——自从世界卫生组织(World Health Organization)在5月份最新一期的《国际疾病分类》(International Classification of Diseases)中对其加以详细描述后，职场倦怠现象得到了新的关注。尽管世界卫生组织并未将倦怠归为某种病症，但也将其描述为“无法控制的长期工作压力”导致的一种综合症。

研究人员指出，智能手机和职场通讯类应用程序的激增，导致人们产生了不切实际的期望，认为员工从私人生活切换到工作状态，这个过程应该是轻松且频繁的。

芝加哥地区心理健康中心Yellowbrick 4月进行的一项调查显示，在2,059名23岁至38岁的上班族中，有62%的人表示，对于必须通过电子邮件、通讯工具Slack和其他工作交流渠道24小时随时待命的要求，他们感到有压力。弗吉尼亚理工大学(Virginia Tech)、利哈伊大学(Lehigh University)和科罗拉多州立大学(Colorado State University)研究人员最近的一项研究发现，哪怕光想到周末和下班后要查看工作邮件，也会引发员工焦虑，并产生其他有害健康的影响。

至于其中的原因，不妨看看2018年微软(Microsoft Corp.)所做的一项研究。该公司研究人员对美国公司数万名管理者周日晚间查看电子邮件的习惯进行了调查，结果发现，老板每在线工作一小时，其直系下属就需要在正常工作时间以外多干20分钟。这项研究使用了来自微软电子邮件和会议服务的匿名数据，以及几家大公司人力资源部门的信息。

即便是在周末的最后几个小时里想到工作，也会引起焦虑——这种现象实在太过普遍，直接催生出一个流行标签#周日恐惧。去年秋天，LinkedIn对1,000多名上班族进行了一项调查，其中80%的人表示，周日晚上他们会感到工作压力激增。千禧一代中的比例更高，达到91%。

眼下，一些雇主正在想办法解决工作任务侵蚀员工休闲时间的问题。北卡罗来纳州电信公司Bandwidth Inc.制定了一项休假期间的限制政策，禁止员工在休假时间内处理业务——迫使包括其首席执行长在内的700名员工在休假期间暂停手头项目，或者必要时，为其他同事提供相应资源，替代他们的工作。

医疗保健咨询公司Vynamic开发了一个电子邮件工具，将晚上10点以后发送的消息转移到一个电子队列中，等次日早上6点再发送。这个名为zzzMail的系统会让邮箱从周五晚开始休眠，直至周一早上再开始工作。

Vynamic首席执行长杰夫·迪尔(Jeff Dill)表示，公司的140名员工基本上都能遵守这一规定。“如果你所处的环境是有时间做结构化脱离的，那么你就能更清楚地衡量某件事是否可以等到次日或假期结束后再处理，”他说，“我们发现，99%的情况下是完全可以等待的。”

Vynamic医疗保健行业的顾问明迪·麦格拉斯(Mindy McGrath)表示，自己最初认为电子邮件政策是不可行的。她说，许多同事从咨询公司跳槽过来，这些公司的要求是“手机随时待命，它就像你的附属器官一样”。

麦格拉斯称，她花了好几个月才习惯了下班后不去理睬自己的工作设备。某个周六，她无意中把原本打算存为草稿的一封电子邮件发了出去。

“刚把邮件发出去，我就想，'天啊，我干了什么？我得把它撤回来！’”她说。很快，她的上司发来一条短信，语气温和地提醒她，休息期间不必查看工作邮箱。如今麦格拉斯说，她甚至会在每个周五时把工作邮件从手机上删掉，为自己安排一个不受打扰的双休。

不过，仍有部分人认为，雇主要求员工下班后查看工作邮件，还是有正当理由的。去年，一名纽约市议员提议立法，规定如果私营雇主要求员工在正常工作时间结束后查看和回覆电子信息，则属于违法行为。但该法案遭到了商业团体的反对，随后被搁置。

今年1月，行业组织Tech:NYC的布莱恩·洛扎诺(Bryan Lozano)在就上述提案举行的一次听证会上表示，科技为人们随时随地工作提供了便利，但也模糊了个人生活与工作时间的界限。他说，由于如今商业活动通常由全球各地的工作者全天候进行，因此雇主再给员工设定严格的待命时间，就已经不现实了。

曾担任大学管理人员的穆伦表示，与前同事的交流促使他改变了周日发邮件的习惯。尽管他把四个孩子哄睡后偶尔还是会写邮件，但他会等到次日早晨再发送。穆伦目前在劳动力管理软件公司Kronos Inc.下属的一家人力资源咨询公司担任主管。

“有一种力量在发挥作用，”他说，“如果我到了晚上还在给你发电子邮件，而我的职位又比你高的话，那么整个团队也会觉得有必要这么做。”

Sunday Night Is the New Monday Morning, and Workers Are MiserableSome employers are banning weekend and late-night emails to prevent employee burnoutSunday Night Is the New Monday Morning, and Workers Are MiserableSome employers are banning

Like many bosses,Chris Mullenfound the final hours of the weekend ideal for decluttering an unruly inbox, sharing stray thoughts with staff on projects and requesting status updates to prep for the week.

His colleagues felt otherwise. All those emails were pulling them into the workweek the evening before, he said, triggering the pre-Monday dread many working Americans call the “Sunday Scaries.”

“I asked my staff, 'How come you keep answering my emails late at night, when you’re probably out with friends or relaxing at home?’” said the former college administrator. He recalled one employee’s response: “'Because you’re the class='icon none'>say such job creep has become a prime contributor to burnout

—a phenomenon getting renewed attention since the World Health Organization included a more detailed description of it in the most recent edition of the International Classification of Diseases in May. Though the WHO stops short of calling burnout a medical condition, it describes it as a syndrome brought on by “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

The proliferation of smartphones and workplace communication apps has created unrealistic expectations of how easily—and often—workers should be able to switch from personal to professional tasks, researchers say.

In an April survey by Chicago-area mental-health center Yellowbrick, 62% of 2,059 working adults between the ages 23 and 38 said they felt pressure to be available around the clock through email, Slack and other work-communication channels. A recent study by researchers at Virginia Tech, Lehigh University and Colorado State University found that even the expectation of checking work emails on weekends and after-hours triggered anxiety and other harmful health effects among workers.

A 2018 analysis conducted byMicrosoftCorp. researchers of the Sunday-evening email habits of tens of thousands of managers at U.S. companies suggests why: Every hour a boss spent online translated to 20 extra minutes of work for his or her direct reports outside of normal business hours, the study found. The study used anonymized data from Microsoft’s email and meeting services and information from human-resources departments across several large companies.

Even dwelling on work in the waning hours of the weekend can cause anxiety—a phenomenon so commonplace it has spawned the popular hashtag #SundayScaries. In a LinkedIn survey of more than 1,000 working adults last fall, 80% said they experienced a surge in stress related to their jobs on Sunday nights. Among millennials, the share was even higher, at 91%.

Some employers are addressing off-hours work creep. At telecom company Bandwidth Inc. in North Carolina, a vacation-blackout policy bars employees from attending to business during time off—forcing its 700 employees, including its chief executive, to pause projects or equip colleagues with the resources to cover for them, if necessary.

Health-care consulting firm Vynamic created an email tool to divert messages sent after 10 p.m. into an electronic queue, to be delivered the next day at 6 a.m. The system, called zzzMail, goes dark Friday evenings until Monday morning.

CEOJeff Dillsaid Vynamic’s 140 employees almost always stick to the ban. “When you’re in an environment where there’s time for structured disengagement, you’re able to gauge more clearly if something can wait until the next morning or after the holiday,” he said. “And 99% of the time it can absolutely wait, we’ve found,” he said.

Mindy McGrath, a health-care industry adviser at Vynamic, said she initially thought the email policy wouldn’t be feasible. Many colleagues had joined from consulting firms where the communication norm was “having a phone in-hand all the time, like it’s an appendage,” she said.

Ms. McGrath said it took her a few months to get used to ignoring her work devices after hours. One Saturday, she accidentally fired off an email she had intended to save as a draft.

“As soon as I sent it, I thought, 'Holy smokes, what did I do? I have to get it back!,’” she said. Her boss texted soon after with a gentle reminder that she was free to unplug. Now, Ms. McGrath said she even deletes her work email from her cellphone on Fridays to ensure a screen-free weekend.

Still, some argue there is a case to be made for off-hour work emails. After a New York City councilman proposed legislation last year that would make it illegal for private employers to require workers check and respond to electronic communications after normal business hours, the bill was met with opposition from business groups and stalled.

Technology has made it easier for people to work whenever and wherever they want, blurring the divisions between personal and professional time, saidBryan Lozanoof the trade association Tech:NYC at a January hearing on the proposal. It is no longer practical for many employers to set hard limits on when staff should be reachable, since business is being conducted around the clock, often by colleagues across the globe, he said.

Mr. Mullen, the former college administrator who is now a director of the human-resources consulting arm of workforce-management software company Kronos Inc., said the exchange with his former colleague prompted him to change his Sunday email habit. Though he still occasionally drafts them after putting his four children to bed, he waits to send them until the morning.

“There’s a power dynamic at play,” he said. “If I’m still sending you emails at night, as someone in a position of power over you, the team is going to feel the need to do the same.”