Christmas Message: Volkswagen Turn off BlackBerry Emails For Homebound Employees

Christmas dinner – a time for crackers, turkey, sprouts and….checking your phone?

Well not for employees of Volkswagen, for the car giant came up with a novel idea to ensure its German employees get a much needed break during the Yuletide period, by not delivering their emails to their BlackBerry smartphones when they’re not on duty.

Volkswagen confirmed on Friday that some of its workers in Germany will not receive emails on their BlackBerry when they aren’t working, after complaints that the lines between work and a personal life were becoming too blurred.

A spokesman for Volkswagen told the BBC: “We confirm that this agreement between VW and the company’s work council exists”.

Under the arrangement VW have programmed its BlackBerry servers to stop routing emails 30 minutes after the end of employees’ shifts, and then start again 30 minutes before they return to work.

The staff can still use their devices to make calls and the rule does not apply to senior management, but it means that those on the scheme get weeknights free from email intrusion.

It should well have been  a peaceful period in the back of German Passats this Christmas..Let’s just hope Santa didn’t email parents in Wolfsburg for directions this Christmas, or there’d have been a lot of unhappy kids yesterday.