Employees are discontent with their jobs or employers for a number of reasons. Emails that pop up during their weekend time or other non-office hours are among those reasons. Compared with unfair pay or treatment, incompetent colleagues, or the dead-end position and its job content, emailing out of office hours seems to be only a trifling annoyance. However, this seemingly unimportant matter makes so many employees complain or even quit their jobs.

Some companies therefore announce plans to prohibit emailing on weekends or during other non-business hours. Some others have already made such a policy. What is the result? When this cheering policy was announced, my sister was obviously overjoyed. The Fortune 500 company at which she works had long been used to emailing at any time, with no regard for the scheduled time-off, and that had long been a factor for which she often wanted to leave for a new job with a less stressful timetable or “a less unpredictable schedule”. Since her employer officially stopped weekend emailing and emailing outside office hours, my sister has apparently had more delight and I have heard less complaint about her private life being disturbed by work emails.

Yes, some may say that a dissatisfied employee is definitely not only unhappy with those emails but also with certain other matters in the workplace. This is admitted at the beginning of my discussion. However, if the purpose is not to increase stuff’s satisfaction but to reduce their discontentment, the removal of at least one irritant—the intruder of private time—is not a bad idea. In addition, not sending work emails is not only an action, which gives the time back to employees, but also a signal that employers respect workers’ individuality and their privacy. As this message is received, workers’ dissatisfaction will decrease, because being respected is also a need that needs to be met.

In sum, there are reasons to believe that if companies prohibit sending emails to staff on weekend or during other time out of office hours, staff's dissatisfactions with their companies will decrease.