President Obama's proposal increasing the number of people eligible for overtime might impact company email policies.
Obama's proposal would more than double the salary threshold for overtime eligability. That would effect about five million workers, and those workers could start claiming overtime for checking their emails off hours. That's a lot of hypotheticals, but the idea of email curfews has been around for some time. These policies dissuade workers from staying plugged in after they clock out by shutting down company email servers.
Ron Friedman is a Social Psychologist in Rochester, and Author of the book The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace. He says businesses are better off when their employees disconnect.
"Being inundated leads us to lose our mental energy, it leads our mood to sour and it leads to weaker decisions and so overall there is a massive cost to being constantly connected."
Friedman says shutting down servers might be extreme, but clearer boundaries between work and leisure also lead to higher levels of productivity at work.
