Despite being encouraged by their bosses to disconnect from work after hours, many employees do not always do so, and they feel shame if they do, three researchers wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

Past surveys have confirmed this trend. In a 2019 Adobe survey of approximately 1,000 employees, 76 percent said they check their work email after hours. Fifty-four percent of 20,000 employers surveyed by Glassdoor in July 2022 said that they could not fully disconnect or unplug during time off, and 61 percent felt guilty about taking time off from work, career site Zippia found at around the same time.

The three researchers—Salvatore Affinito of New York University, Casher Belinda of the University of Notre Dame, and Timothy Kundro of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—along with another researcher, Michael Christian of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, set out to find out why disconnecting is problematic for employees. Their findings were published last year in The Journal of Applied Psychology.

The researchers recruited 194 full-time employees across a range of occupations and industries, and asked them to complete three surveys a day for two weeks: They were to reveal in the evening how much they detached from work; the next morning how much shame they felt for detaching from work; and as they were leaving work that day their behavior over the course of the workday. 

“We believe that in today’s “always on” work cultures, employees feel they have no choice—even if their manager’s rhetoric and organizational policies seem to encourage unplugging,” they wrote. “The result is that employees end up feeling ashamed for taking breaks from work.”

The more employees detached in the evening, the more shame they felt at work the next morning, the researchers found. The experience of detaching, which is supposed to rejuvenate them, made them feel  bad about themselves instead. This effect, they found, was exacerbated when employees faced greater pressure at work, leading the researchers to surmise that people working in high-pressure environments have the most to lose by disconnecting from work.

This shame holds negative consequences not only for the employees, but for their organizations. In the study, the researchers found that employees who felt ashamed about taking time for themselves were more likely to cut corners at work, sometimes in ethically questionable ways. Fear of falling behind and potentially damaging their reputations made employees feel as if they had to get “up to speed” by any means necessary, they wrote.  The researchers found, for example, that employees who felt ashamed about disconnecting were more likely to misrepresent or “inflate” their performance to others, making it seem as if they were busier and more productive than theywere.

The researchers found that managers often contribute to the problem by praising employees who work long hours or sacrifice their work-life balance to meet deadlines, undermining employees’ belief that detaching from work is an acceptable and welcome practice.

“Of course, working outside of typical hours is sometimes necessary,” the researchers wrote, but “managers can explicitly clarify that an after-hours request is atypical. ... Explicitly addressing the importance of detachment—and acting in a way that is consistent with this message—is key.”

Blanket policies are not the answer, they wrote. Instead of unlimited paid-time-off policies, firms should consider more-targeted policies, such as requiring employees to take a certain number of days off or setting mandatory vacation days that clearly signal that detachment is part of the job.

“Research has consistently shown that high-pressure work environments can yield minimal productivity benefits, hinder creativity, significantly increase stress and detract from employee well-being,” they wrote, and their research showed that “high-pressure environments also transform otherwise beneficial activities such as detachment—a critical means of recovery—into negative and harmful experiences.”

Employees also have the power to change things, they wrote. For example, “they should think twice before sending late emails or responding to Slack messages to avoid inadvertently perpetuating an “always on” culture,” they wrote.

“By supporting employees’ detachment from work after hours, organizations can promote engaged and committed employees,” they wrote in conclusion. “When employees are able to unplug without feeling ashamed, both workers and organizations win.”