Slack CEO says don’t blame me if you can’t disconnect

Some blame our exhausting, always-on culture on the technology that powers it. But bosses say it’s more about the work practices surrounding it.

Euan BlackWork and careers reporter

Feb 29, 2024 – 5.00am

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Work can feel inescapable for some office workers. The texts, emails and phone calls keep coming long after they’ve shut their laptop for the day, contributing to rising levels of burnout and encouraging the federal government to introduce a right to disconnect.

Some have blamed this always-on culture on the technology that powers it: smartphones loaded with email apps and instant messaging services like Slack and Microsoft Teams.

But bosses such as Slack chief executive Denise Dresser say our struggles to disconnect are less about technology and more about the work practices surrounding it. And other leaders say the same things about our waning attention spans, too.

Slack chief executive Denise Dresser says leaders can help workers achieve a better work-life balance by modelling certain behaviours.

“It’s really more about how you govern it and how you think about creating a culture at a company,” Dresser tells BOSS via a video call from New York, days before Slack launched its first generative AI tools for customers.

Dresser, who moved into the top job last November, says it’s important for bosses to set boundaries so that employees don’t feel overwhelmed by today’s hyper-connected workplace. But that doesn’t necessarily mean bringing in new company policies; she says leaders can set the tone for the rest of their organisation through their behaviours instead.

“I do notice that when I set the tone and I don’t respond to somebody on the weekend, they feel, I think, a little bit more empowered. They understand that I respect their weekend, [that] I’m also going to spend time with my family,” Dresser tells BOSS.

Even scheduling messages to be sent at a time that is more convenient for the recipient can help, she says. “It’s really about having courtesy for your employees. When people need to work hard, they will do so as appropriate, but we have a really good ethos about being respectful of all our employees.”

Executive coach Victoria Mills, the founder of online business Hello Coach, also tries to help her employees set healthy boundaries.

It’s not technologies’ fault

Mills tells BOSS she sends Slack messages at all times of the day but makes it clear in these messages that staff are not expected to respond outside ordinary working hours. And she also encourages her staff to turn off their notifications once they’ve finished work at 5pm, and recommends workers more broadly question whether they actually need to install certain work apps on their personal phones.

“Devices are on 24/7 – we all know that. However, you can control the notifications and the settings that come through, [so] don’t let the technology control you,” Mills says.

Hello Coach chief executive Victoria Mills encourages staff to turn off their notifications after 5pm.

To help staff achieve a better work-life balance, Hello Coach also enforces a mandatory company-wide lunchbreak at midday when staff are not allowed to hold meetings or send messages for half an hour.

“I encourage lots of microbreaks during the day ... because when you are in front of a screen for hours on end, it absolutely impacts your energy,” Mills says.

But the executive coach also says that it’s ultimately “up to the individual to manage how they interact with all these apps and technologies”.

And Sabri Suby, founder of digital marketing agency King Kong, agrees.

“I don’t think it’s the technology’s responsibility to make sure that you’re focused, and you’re getting deep work done because if it’s not chat [messages] then it’s going to be something else,” Suby says.

Sabri Suby says we can’t blame our waning attention spans on technology. Eamon Gallagher

To minimise distractions and maximise your productivity, Suby recommends putting time in your calendar every day for stretches of uninterrupted, high-value work (“deep work”), and turning off your notifications and ignoring emails during these windows.

For example, Suby says you could briefly check your emails at the start of the day to see if there are any “bonfires” that need urgently putting out. And once they’re dealt with, you can remove all distractions and get into “three to four hours of deep work” before taking another look at your emails and messages after lunch.

Suby acknowledges that this schedule won’t work for everyone, particularly given people’s energy ebbs and flows in different ways throughout the day.

But he suggests the best schedule is one that enables someone to do their hardest tasks when they’re most alert, and that leaders should lead by example rather than telling their staff what to do.

“I try to set the example and not be the warning,” Suby says.

“As a leadership team, we set the standard … so everyone knows you cannot have a ‘got-a-minute meeting’ with me on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays because these are my deep-work days.

“So, I am, by default, through my actions, telling my team that this is an acceptable way to work within our company because it’s something that even the founder does.”