Clearer policies and culture change can protect employees who set healthy work boundaries by disconnecting, experts say
While leaders acknowledge that employee detachment from work is important for boosting mental health and productivity, a recent study finds that leaders may also penalize employees who disconnect.
The researchers call this the ‘detachment paradox’—where managers recognize that these behaviours are beneficial for employee well-being, but when employees who detach are up for promotions or being considered for new roles, they are penalized and seen as less committed than peers who work around the clock.
This occurs regardless of whether the employees' work is perceived as better than that of their constantly connected peers.
For Eva Buechel, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Southern California and co-author of the study, the most surprising finding is that even leaders who care about mental health and encourage detachment display the same paradox.
“There's a lot of managers who think work-life balance is very important and even encourage it. But even among those individuals, we find the pattern,” she says.
The study involved 7,800 managers across 16 controlled experiments. Managers were presented with scenarios featuring employees who displayed different weekend detachment behaviours and were asked to rate them on productivity, commitment, and promotability, says Buechel.
Her hypothesis is that in high-pressure environments, this paradox is much more prevalent.
“It's... a question that we want to look at in future research, and what industries are more prone to this,” Buechel explains.
A lot of individuals, Buechel found in the study, weren’t always aware they were penalizing employees for this behaviour.
“We always have a comment box at the end where [we ask] ‘Is there anything that you want us to know?’ And not a lot of ... people actually said, ‘It's really important for people to have work-life balance,’.” she says.
Buechel says it seemed to be more of an unconscious practice, driven by the implicit biases of the managers.
“It's... like implicit racism — , even though we don't think of ourselves as somebody who is racist, but we know that ... there are these implicit biases that can still lead to very similar outcomes,” she says.
The study highlights that leaders are unconsciously trained to value visibility and responsiveness as signs of dedication to work.
Everyone loses from this paradox, the study reports, as it creates a cycle of overworking and burnout.
How can managers and employers break this paradox? The study found that it can be addressed through formalized policies that support clear boundaries.
One of the studies involving 200 managers found that a company policy encouraging ‘email-free weekends’ reduced managerial bias.
“We told participants the company implemented a no-email policy over the weekend, and if people didn't email over the weekend, then that did not lead to a penalty,” Buechel explains.
However, this only works when everyone makes it the norm, and part of the workplace culture, she adds.
Culture is always about building basic assumptions about what the world is all about, according to Jamie Gruman, professor and senior research fellow in the Department of Management at the University of Guelph.
“It's all about creating norms and expectations of what we expect of employees,” he says.
Organizations need to take steps to intentionally create a culture where work and recovery are clearly separated, he explains. They should build those “basic assumptions” into their own employees,” Gruman says.
“They celebrate the whole person and not just the working part of them. Then those ideas diffuse into the minds of employees and leaders.”
Buechel notes that if everyone made detachment a social norm, there would be fewer comparisons, which would reduce the likelihood of penalties.
Culture shift is possible, but it takes time, Gruman adds.
Nike headquarters have rooms available for employees to nap. However, you might not see anyone use those nap rooms unless senior leadership does so; Gruman notes from past research.
“The CEO has got to be the first person to take a nap,” he explains. “That’s how you change the culture.”
Senior leaders—such as CEOs—need to talk about not just detachment and boundaries but demonstrate that they practice it themselves. “
“The directors themselves need to show, demonstrate that they're going to ... take weekends, that they are going to share the load in an organization,” Gruman says.
For example, leadership can share the responsibility of being available during emergencies. An organization may always need someone senior on call for crises, but that doesn’t mean everyone must be available at all times
These types of actions and small changes can help put recovery-focused values into practice. “[Senior leaders] actions are being monitored and watched by everybody every day. Those people have to do what you want the culture to reflect,” he adds.
Part of the culture that also needs to change is performance and evaluation metrics, Buechel says.
Organizations need to examine whether they are evaluating individuals based on productivity or perceived commitment, she notes.
“We just have to think about commitment... it shouldn't necessarily be that we're always available, but it should be that we make sure that... when we're paid to be available, that we're able to deliver.”
Gruman adds that some reviews still evaluate employees based on whether they are available.
“Imagine changing that performance review process to having questions that, instead of saying, ‘Is this person always available when we need them?’ to a question that says,
‘Does this person take the time needed to recharge their batteries so they can perform?’, he explains.
Gruman points out that many managers don’t know how to humanize their work experience.
“They're not spending their time thinking about the way the culture of organizations [works]. They're just implementing what they believe is the way companies are supposed to work,” he says.
That’s because many senior managers were trained in finance, economics, and optimization—but not in the nuances of human behaviour.
To address this gap, he says training should focus on reframing what productivity looks like. That means helping managers understand how rest, recovery, and detachment can fuel better performance.
“I would present them with a dozen different studies demonstrating that when people are working, they get tired, and when they get tired, they don't perform as well,” he says. “These managers are data-driven people, so I [would] show them the data.”
Gruman says it’s important to remind managers that they’re ultimately evaluated based on the performance of their teams. Supporting recovery and downtime isn’t just about employee well-being—it directly makes their job easier.
That includes small but meaningful changes, like scheduling late-night emails to send in the morning or setting norms that discourage out-of-hours messaging.
This is where HR plays a crucial role, Gruman notes.
Unlike line managers or C-suite leaders who might not have the time to dive into these topics, HR can do research, create policies, and bring speakers to training programs to support culture change.
“They want to get the directors and executives of the organization excited about the way in which detachment ... can make the organization more effective,” he says.
However, Gruman stresses that this should still be an organization-led initiative.
“If it becomes an HR initiative, it will fail ... HR has to be integrated into the whole operations of the organization. Otherwise, it's regarded as this add-on that nobody respects."
