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Managers often claim they know how important it is for staff to detach from work during their time off but are less likely to promote those who do, a new study shows.
The study, published in the Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes journal, calls it the “detachment paradox.”
“Managers are talking about work-life balance, but it’s cheap talk because they’re penalizing workers for it,” Eva Buechel, an assistant professor of marketing at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and one of the study’s co-authors, said in an interview. “Managers say they are going to be a better worker after detaching – both in terms of their well-being but critically in terms of motivation, productivity and performance during working hours – but then they ding them on promotability.”
The study examined this paradox using 16 methodologies, exploring how a cross-section of managers perceived workers who used basic detachment strategies such as not responding to work communications after hours or taking their allotted vacation time.
The authors found that managers perceived those who took actions such as these as less worthy of a promotion, even if they encouraged them.
In one of the analyses, researchers split workers with similar performance scores into two groups and asked one to use an out-of-office reply on weekends.
“One is being explicit that they’re not going to think about work,” co-author Elisa Solinas, an assistant professor of marketing at IE University in Spain, said in an interview. Even managers who told the researchers they believed staff were more productive the week after detaching from work were less likely to consider those who used the out-of-office message reply for a promotion, she said.
The authors emphasize that neither group did any work during their time off – one was just more open about it – and they were considered less promotable as a result.
“It even happens for people who have a good excuse, like caring for a family member,” Prof. Buechel said.
The marketing professors were inspired to study the subject during the pandemic, as workplaces promoted concepts such as work-life balance, mental health and emotional well-being.
“They’re investing all this effort into communicating these behaviours but we wanted to see what happens if people actually follow them,” Prof. Solinas said.
“We expected this pattern to occur but we were surprised by how strong and robust it is and how pervasive it is, even for people who are encouraged to [detach from work by their managers] or people who have a good excuse,” Prof. Buechel said.
The inability to detach from work without being perceived as less dedicated is based on a long-standing association between presence and commitment, according to John Trougakos, a professor of organizational behaviour and HR management at the University of Toronto.
“It’s hard for managers to quantify performance in office jobs, so the thing they default to is the amount of time it looks like somebody is spending on work, which we know by all objective metrics is a poor indicator of effectiveness,” said Prof. Trougakos, whose research focuses on work breaks and mental recovery.
He said that association becomes more damaging in a world where work isn’t limited to a physical location.
“Fifty years ago, when you left the workplace there was almost no way someone could get a hold of you,” Prof. Trougakos said. “Technology has made people reachable at any time and created an environment where we can work from anywhere.”
Being constantly reachable makes it harder to detach from work, even outside of the workplace.
“Psychological detachment from work, in the simplest terms, is mentally getting away from your job,” Prof. Trougakos said. “We fail to detach sometimes because we feel pressured to stay connected after hours, so we’re thinking about our jobs 24/7 and that’s really depleting.”
An inability to detach can have significant long-term repercussions for workers and employers.
“It’s really a fundamental process for breaking the stress and burnout cycle,” Prof. Trougakos said.
A 2023 Journal of Occupational Health Psychology study suggests employers need to both permit and promote healthy detachment to facilitate genuine work-life balance.
“Permitting detachment is about clearly stating the expectations, so employees aren’t left guessing,” said Anastasiia Agolli, an assistant professor of management at the University of St. Thomas and one of the study’s co-authors. “Then they can go further by promoting it, such as monitoring people who are still communications after-hours and say, ‘this is not expected or required.’”
Prof. Agolli also recommends setting specific policies around emergency communications, so staff know, for example, that they’ll only receive a phone call from work for truly urgent matters.
Managers and leaders can also promote a healthier relationship with work by setting examples of healthier behaviours themselves.
Still, experts say the most effective solution is for organizations to adopt objective forms of employee evaluations.
“Companies need to decide what work performance looks like and how they measure it,” Prof. Agolli said. “Without that, we’ll fall back on working long hours or answering e-mails all day and night as a proxy for commitment and performance.”