Summer vacations for a hybrid team: do they exist? Many people don’t have the best boundaries when working from home or working a flexible schedule, and you might feel it most during the summer. You’re sitting on the beach replying to emails or responding to Slack messages from your phone. You remember the in-office days where you didn’t work if you were away from your desk.
How can you truly disconnect from work, when you can work from everywhere?
The Right to Disconnect
Some countries have taken this problem seriously and passed laws that companies cannot require employees to work outside of office hours. In fact, one French employee won 60,000 euros because the company required his phone to stay on at all times to respond to requests immediately.
France created the first Right to Disconnect laws in 2015 and 2016, and they primarily enforce their policies through lawsuits from employees. Because of these requirements, some companies make sending and receiving emails outside working hours impossible.
Spain required businesses to create a policy negotiated through their employee representation.
These laws aim to eliminate any retribution if an employee does not respond immediately. Employees cannot be treated differently whether or not they respond to messages outside of work hours.
Individual companies across the EU have applied these practices in their offices, even if the legislation did not pass.
More or Less Flexibility?
Some might argue that legislation around disconnecting leads to less flexibility: will you be required to set your work hours in order for the company to know when you’re offline? Will you be able to do your work during off-hours if the email server is turned off? What about global companies with different time zones? How can these rules actually be enforced?
Setting clear, consistent boundaries from the top-down ensures your team disconnects with clear communication in place, regardless of legislature.
Respect Your Team
With every country making different rules (and no hope in sight for the United States), take a leadership position in your company by setting boundaries and respecting others’ vacation time.
If you say you’re not going to be online: don’t check-in.
If you choose to work at 2 am because that works best for you, respect your coworkers by scheduling those emails to send at least after 6am.
If you do need someone’s opinion and they’re OOO, send that email to the available person or wait until your contact returns from vacation.
How to Write an Effective Out-of-Office Message
You only need three things for an effective OOO message:
The dates you’ll be unavailable
The date you return
Who to contact for help while you’re gone
The recipient doesn’t need to know if you’re on your honeymoon or taking a stay-cation. They just need to know when they’ll hear back from you. No need to be too clever or detailed, because that will hide the information they need to know.
Relaxing While You’re on Vacation
Your OOO is set, and you’re heading to the airport. Now how do you actually disconnect and relax while you’re on vacation?
Delete Your Work Apps
If your email is not on your phone, you won’t be looking at it. Notifications bubbles building up don’t help you relax, so just delete the apps all together. Then, you can catch up on the office drama when you get back in two weeks.
Prioritize Self-Care
You’re on vacation, so you already checked off self-care, right? Vacations can be just as busy as everyday life (even busier depending on your childcare), so prioritizing time to refresh yourself is a top priority. Take time for meditation, gratitude practices, journaling, or reading a book, so you come back to the office ready with your best ideas.
One Surprising Strategy
In an article for Harvard Business Review, Arianna Huffington makes a bold suggestion: delete everything you missed while OOO and start fresh.
Are you shocked? Do you check your email on the last night of your vacation so you don’t spend hours sorting unread mail?
Here’s her thinking behind this suggestion (and it’s not as crazy as it sounds): “If the email is important, the sender can always send it again. If it’s not, then it’s not waiting for you when you get back.”
Disconnecting Builds a Happy Hybrid Team
You don’t need surveys to know that employees need vacations to avoid burnout. Having a phone on at all times, leads to stress that they might be missing something important when they should be offline enjoying their families.
How can you set better boundaries in your workplace so your team can completely disconnect and come back refreshed?