Research: Are You Penalizing Your Best Employees for Unplugging?

Harvard Business Review

12-05-2025

The blurring of boundaries between people's jobs and personal lives, exacerbated by the pandemic, can make it feel like the workday never ends. The burnout that results from never quite feeling unplugged has become a major drain on workers and businesses, reducing employee well-being and productivity.
Employers have responded by promoting wellness programs and encouraging work-life balance—initiatives proven to increase productivity, reduce turnover, and boost job satisfaction. But our research reveals a hidden contradiction at the heart of these efforts: While companies say they want employees to unplug, they may be quietly punishing those who actually do.
In new research, published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, we found that even when leaders recognized that detaching from work boosts employee well-being and improves job performance, they still penalized employees who engaged in these behaviors when they were up for a promotion or being considered for a new role. This is because these workers were seen as less committed than those who worked around the clock, even if their job performance during working hours was perceived to be higher than their 'committed' counterparts.
But we also found that there are structural changes organizations can make to help protect workers' boundaries without also penalizing them: creating a culture that both mitigates burnout and rewards strong work.
The Research
Across 16 studies with 7,800 of participants, we explored a simple question: How are employees who try to switch off from work during non-work hours perceived?
In controlled experiments, we presented managers with profiles of employees who were identical in quality (i.e., past annual evaluations) but varied in their use of detachment strategies. For example, one employee left an out-of-office reply during a weekend getaway while the other employee did not.
Managers consistently reported that the employee who disconnected from work over the weekend would be more recharged and more productive upon their return, thus recognizing the benefits of detachment on employee performance. However, they also penalized that same employee in evaluations, consistently rating them as less committed and less promotable than their colleague.
This penalty persisted even when the detaching employee was a manager's direct report, when the detaching employee was objectively better at their job, when neither of the employees actually did any work during their time off, and when the reason for detachment was virtuous (e.g., caring for a sick family member).
Perhaps our most eye-opening finding? The effect was just as strong among managers who say they value work-life balance as it was among those who do not. Even managers who report having explicitly encouraged detachment in their organizations penalized detaching employees in our studies. That is not just inconsistent and unfair, it is a recipe for a burnout culture.
Why It Happens
The issue lies in how we, as leaders, interpret effort and commitment. We are trained, often unconsciously, to value visibility and responsiveness as a proxy for dedication. Employees who respond late at night or skip vacations are seen as 'going the extra mile.' Meanwhile, those who protect their non-work hours are viewed as less passionate, less committed, and therefore less promotable, even when they are equally or more effective on the job. This mindset ignores our own lay theories and years of supportive research showing that people who detach from work come back more energized, more productive, and less likely to burn out.
This detachment paradox reinforces a damaging culture, rewarding those who constantly stay plugged in and, over time, creating a leadership pipeline that undervalues work-life balance. The result is a self-perpetuating cycle of overwork and burnout is increasingly difficult to break. Ultimately, everyone loses: Employees suffer, organizations pay the price in lowered productivity and increased turnover, and the broader economy feels the impact through rising healthcare costs due to work stress.
What Leaders Can Do
Our findings suggest that executives and managers must be intentional about how they communicate around work-life balance and must implement concrete policies so their organization are practicing what they preach. Vague or half-hearted efforts to promote balance may do more harm than good if the evaluation system rewards the performance of constant availability.
We offer leaders the following recommendations to help them break their teams out of the damaging cycle of overwork:
Ask yourself: Who are you rewarding? Are your highest-rated employees those who seem most 'available' or those who are actually doing the best job? If your top performers feel they must sacrifice rest to prove commitment, your evaluation system may be broken.
Redefine commitment. Start separating performance from presence. Being constantly available should not be equated with dedication. Make it clear that outcomes, not responsiveness or hours logged, are the benchmark.
Stick to working hours. Discourage managers from contacting employees outside of work hours unless necessary. Many email programs have built-in alerts that can remind managers and employees when they are sending messages outside of standard hours. When off-hours work is expected, offer overtime pay or compensatory time.
Implement policies that encourage detachment. Clear, formal policies change norms. In one of our studies, which included 200 U.S. managers, we found that simply showing them a company policy that encouraged email-free weekends significantly reduced managers' subconscious bias against those who disconnect. Make sure your company has policies to help reinforce stated values.
Train managers. Penalizing those who unplug—or favoring those who do not—is often done unconsciously. Help your managers spot these biases and counteract them during performance reviews and hiring conversations by reminding them of company values and policies around work-life balance.
Whatever steps you take, ensure buy-in from leaders across the organization. Clear, consistently enforced policies are more effective than broad statements of support.
. . .
Expectations about when and how employees should be available for work have permeated our workplace culture. Our research shows just how hard these assumptions are to shake, even when people recognize the value of greater work-life balance and support well-being in theory. To build a high-performing and sustainable organization, we must eliminate the bias against employees who are willing to set clear boundaries around their work and instead hold them up as models for others. We need to redefine commitment not as self-sacrifice, but as the ability to show up energized, focused, and ready to contribute.
If your company claims to value employee well-being, your promotions and policies must reflect that. In the long run, your best employees are not the ones who burn out trying to prove their worth. They are the ones who know when to switch off so they can consistently show up at their best.