Emails 24/7: Agile working or electronic leash? Associations between engaging with work emails outside of normal working hours and health and productivity

Abstract Work-related stress is a key challenge for economies globally, with far-reaching individual, organisational and societal consequences. One contributor to work-related stress is the blurring of boundaries between work and home domains, known as work-home interference (WHI). A legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic is increased flexible and remote working, which could increase WHI and resultantly work-related stress. A tangible marker of WHI is employee engagement with work emails during leisure time, however very little is known about the prevalence, predictors, and impacts of this behaviour. In a sample of 1229 UK-based employees, we report on social norms and work-place culture around engaging with work emails outside of normal working hours. Additionally, we investigated whether work email importance, email overload and email management tactics were associated with email engagement during leisure time, and whether this type of email engagement was associated with health and productivity, in cross-section. Participants who reported that email was highly important and/or felt overloaded by emails were more likely to engage with work emails during leisure time. Additionally, email engagement in leisure time was associated with poorer physical and psychological health, but not productivity. Our findings have implications for organisational policy and culture around employee email engagement behaviours.