Emailing 9 to 5? Not on your dolly!

#safetyculture #safety #wellbeing

Many conferences that I attend, seem to have a reoccurring audience question of, “If we’re to be serious about a work-life home-life balance, shouldn’t we just turn emails off out of hours?” When that question is notoriously asked, I find myself trying to steal the microphone for a right to reply with a simple “No. It’s actually you that’s the problem!” – and here’s why – but first a little trip back down memory lane about how we used to communicate.

Things were simple back in the day: work stayed at work

My experience in construction started in the late 90s. More advanced sites would have a fax machine but the majority relied on the post for information (we had 2 posts a day back then!), or in my case, being asked to drive about as the trainee to pick up the latest drawings (which involved a further skill of folding them!) or to drop off post at a clients’ or designers’ offices.

For those who can remember, back then we used to manage information in a day file, which was essentially a wallet folder with the mail/letter/memos of the day. Coloured files represented different days and you would sign the back of the file to say you’d read it, passing it on to the next person in the office to read. Typically, it would get to Friday and five of them would land on your desk for reading before heading back to the Project Manager! There were no emails, and if you got a fax, say of a technical/setting out drawing or commercial quote, you could guarantee the number you needed wouldn’t have been printed by the fax ribbon!

This way of working and the limited technology meant we rarely took work home with us. Although looking back, it was sometimes common to work late or on a Saturday morning - you would never take your work home – you couldn’t!

Things started to change

During this time, and well into the early 2000s, computers were starting to become standard on construction sites. Multi coloured NCR paper (white-client, yellow-cc, blue-commercial, pink-file) started to decline and we saw the rise of the printed memos coming off the photocopier – I say photocopier, it was more of a heat source in some offices!

Before the age of laptops, it was difficult to take work home, however the concept was slowly evolving. Senior management would transfer files on to floppy disks or write them to CDs – remember those CD holders? Agile working was just being born as methods of continuing to finish work at home, or at a workstation computer either in the head office, at home or a local library!

Then, in the early 2000s, came the rise of the workplace laptop and suddenly we could take these previously large computers home with us. Around the same time came the internet and a wider adoption of emails in the workplace. The fax machines were still holding on though – in fact, I still see the odd business card or website with a fax number on – LET IT GO!!

As we approached the mid-late 2000s, BlackBerrys were issued to construction industry staff. Now there was a second, more convenient device where emails could be checked with a few taps of the (small) thumb.

Turning off email won’t solve the problem.

So back to my conference, and the theme of this Blog. The school of thought and argument of turning off email servers makes sense initially – stop emails being sent outside of working hours. Back in 2010/2011, I have to admit I was also in this camp and trying to sell the technology idea to my senior management team. I remember telling my line manager off for sending emails after 10pm when he was in his hotel room. Perhaps there is another blog in there about setting examples through visible leadership but in 2018 the world has changed and we should be embracing flexibility. However, back to the conference – turning off emails is surely the easiest way to ensure a work-life/home-life balance. If emails can’t be seen then we’ve cured the problem! Well no, not really – our industry has changed, we have 24/7 projects, agile working and the millennials joining our workforce.

As a passionate STEM ambassador, supported by Skanska and my current Skanska Costain Strabag JV, I spend time with school children showcasing the construction and engineering industry as a fantastic opportunity for their development, careers, happiness and pride – it’s actually not hard as we’re doing some great things, especially around technology. However, the millennials and Generation Z see the workplace and how we work differently. This is reflected in our focus on Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) where we actively encourage agile/flexible/dynamic working so our people can be at their best. This is a whole separate topic in itself but the point is we need to embrace agile/flexible/dynamic working – it’s the key to us attracting and retaining the best staff.

Agile Working can give huge levels of satisfaction and a motivated workforce.

I have two young daughters, and I’m thankful to work for a company and a project that support agile working. It means Daddy can drop them off at nursery and school at least once a week, and both they and I love it – I won’t ever get those opportunities back. Similarly, I may try to get home early on some days to pick them up from nursery or watch them swim after school. This means that I may end up working my equivalent 4 – 5.30pm shift at 7 – 8.30pm instead, where I will access and send emails. Other parents in a similar position to myself do the same and email conversations/work delegation takes place effectively at this time, agile/dynamic work should not just be constrained to ‘office hours’ – it should be tailored to the individual for it really to be effective and efficient – and when it aligns with others in your team it can be even more effective.

Interestingly, only a few weeks ago my project director and I were being challenged in our thinking for 2019 by Costains Chief Financial Officer with a view to output based measuring which again changes the way we think and behave and ultimately questions if I've done what is required do I need to do that 7-830 shift i mentioned above?! Again, that's for another blog but certainly a concept we will be looking to explore as we continue to evolve and improve.

The Crossrail projects I previously oversaw and the HS2 Mainworks project which I am currently working on are 24/7 projects. Our Skanska Costain Strabag project will have six continually running Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs), requiring multiple shifts and shift patterns. We cannot afford for the technology to be turned off – in fact a lot of it requires email notification and responses for it to work and be managed efficiently.

You’re the problem and the solution!

So to attract the best talent through EDI and agile working, and with projects now being round the clock, what is the answer to my conference FAQ? Quite simply it’s YOU – it’s your own behaviour – it's not turning off email servers after 5pm!

When you’re on holiday, if it’s the weekend, or you’ve just simply got home after work, don’t feel the need to check, read and reply to emails – enjoy the moment, be present in your life and enjoy it. As Dolly Parton said…."working 9 to 5".

Costain’s behavioural management course looks at behavioural science – focusing on antecedents and consequences that could drive and change behaviour as opposed to the traditional hearts/minds approach of Injury Free Environment (IFE)/Incident Injury Free (IIF) that Skanska adopt. It teaches us a very useful technique of pinpointing behaviour and not using labels so commonly associated with behaviour such as “lazy”. It also teaches us that antecedents are only 20% effective yet consequences are much more effective at 80% - yet we spend all our time on antecedents don’t we? Risk Assessments, Method Statements, procedures, policies and in this case, turning off email servers?

The pinpointed behaviour here that we need to change is “checking your email inbox when you are not working”. What is the answer? Well that’s for another blog detailing the ABC analysis and perhaps some more controversial ideas such as removing the bonus of being able to use workphones for personal use and forcing employees to have 2 mobile phones. Anyhow, what’s more important is for you to reflect and consider what your antecedents and consequences are that are driving your behaviour to check your email inbox when not at work. For those familiar with this approach, why don't you take time to measure how many times you do that and if you can do anything to reduce that - your first goal or your teams goal for 2019!

Back in the early 2000s, Tier 1 Principle Contractors started looking at behavioural safety programmes to address our relationship to health and safety. Although, if we’re really honest, it looked at and addressed our relationships and attitudes to safety - not health or wellbeing. However, my H&S team here at Skanska Costain Strabag JV are looking to create an industry leading hearts and minds course to try and challenge this way of thinking, including looking at whether the reasons for working out of hours are healthy or not and what your relationship is to health and wellbeing. For example, do you check your emails or answer work phone calls when you’re on holiday because you want to, or because you feel you have to? If your company is making you feel as though you have to, then that is another conversation or perhaps a link to LinkedIn jobs!

Most companies now realise the benefit of their staff having a healthy work-life home-life balance with a happier workforce being more productive. Not only do Skanska/Costain/SCS Railways support this but also big companies such as Google, Amazon and Virgin have previously led the way including high profile initiatives/cultures in France and Sweden that have been well documented over the years.

Whilst technology has opened up the possibility of agile working which we couldn’t do as well in the 90s, I’m also conscious for the benefit of a fair argument; that it could also hold the answer for individuals by allowing them to set their own times of work or an event, such as turning off after a certain amount of hours, like my kids’ tablet! Microsoft - please take note - you could simply improve the rules feature rather than having to "work offline"! However, ultimately the answer does stop with you and all of us – we have the potential to stop it with a little bit of self-discipline and putting ourselves first.

So the next time someone says we should turn off corporate emails outside of 9-5, please consider the above and challenge their behaviour as to why THEY are accessing their inbox outside of those hours, and what THEY could be doing differently to restore the balance.

Thanks for reading my first blog! I look forward to any comments, or I’m happy to engage with you on a private discussion about any of the contents above. Feel free to follow/add me on linked in as I have identified a list of further H&S related blogs to write and of course please let me know if you’d like me to write on any specific topic.

Dan Platten

Health, Safety & Security Director – Skanska Costain Strabag Joint Venture – HS2 Main Works.