Office notebook. Employees manage an average of 144 e-mails per week (331 for managers), revealed Monday, May 15 the Observatory of infobesity and digital collaboration (OICN) in its annual study on the subject carried out for its second edition. to 9,000 people. “No one should handle more than 100 emails a day”advises the OICN, which estimates that “without action, infobesity can lead to an inability to perform the prescribed work”. One of the ambitions of this observatory is to measure the impact of the massive dumping of information on work organisations.
A thesis by Delphine Dupré already alerted in 2020 to the deleterious effects and negative experiences associated with information technology. The communication researcher from Bordeaux-Montaigne University thus reports “phenomena of anxiety, occurring in the morning when opening the inbox, when returning from vacation or even on Sunday evening, related to the apprehension of the workload that has accumulated during periods of disconnection “. Fear of the employee of being overwhelmed, of ” to lose control ” are all sources of stress and exhaustion.
It is also for the manager the risk of “transmit numerous requests by email without knowing the workload of the recipient”. Nearly two-thirds of emails sent ask for action, according to OICN. However, it is the manager who will be held responsible for an overload of activity of his subordinates.
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For its part, the National Research and Safety Institute for the Prevention of Workplace Accidents and Occupational Diseases (INRS) also notes damage suffered by employeesbut without a solution. “Some authors consider that e-mail has become the metronome of executive activity (Bretesche et al., 2012). He has a considerable impact on their professional practiceswhich come to be fairly largely organized around the management and continuous prioritization of information received through this channel, (…) in just-in-time mode. However, according to the OICN study, only 16% of emails received get a response.
The INRS explains that the workers believe they are gaining in flexibility and autonomy to organize an activity that is increasingly fragmented and more often interrupted. “The result is a feeling of work densification and cognitive overload, which is detrimental to the quality of work »analyzes Suzy Canivenc, researcher at the Futures of Industry and Labor Chair at Mines Paris-PSL.
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