E-Mail-Free Fridays and the Wonders of Talking to Each Other
The power of proximity. That’s an insight that U.S. Cellular employees gained when they adopted e-mail-free Fridays. U.S. Cellular is a telecom company, selling wireless communications including e-mail. A few years ago employees told their chief operating officer that they were overwhelmed with e-mails. The COO said, OK, we’ll ban e-mails on Fridays. He got lots of pushback (watch what you wish for, employees!), but he persisted. He was also flexible: if there’s an urgent need to e-mail, fine. And nobody’s fired if she e-mails on Friday for other reasons. But most have followed the rule.
The result? Soon employees were telling the COO how much they loved coming to work on Fridays. ...
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