How tech teams can ditch the always-on culture

There’s something about the tech world that quietly encourages being always available. Late-night messages, weekend fixes, and the odd ping from a coworker while you’re halfway through dinner, all of it starts to feel normal. But over time, it wears people down.

Many tech professionals enter the field because they enjoy solving complex problems and contributing to fast developing software. But even the most passionate teams burn out if they’re never given proper space to switch off.

Here are a few things that can help shift the culture before the damage is done.

Agree on working norms, not just working hours

It’s not just about setting working hours and a concrete schedule, it’s about making sure everyone’s on the same page when it comes to how and when the work gets done. If one person is sending late night updates and another is logging on at 6am, the team starts to feel like it’s never off the clock and begin to compare their preferences to what they think is expected or ‘right’.

At Dropbox, leadership implemented a “Virtual First” approach with core collaboration hours and async work policies. Teams were encouraged to schedule messages and avoid late-night communications.

What you can do:

• Use tools like Slack’s scheduled messages.
• Set team norms like no messages after 6pm unless urgent.
• Encourage visible boundary setting by managers.

Protect focus time like it matters (because it does)

Most people working in tech, engineers, designers and product folks need quiet time to get real work done. The constant ping of notifications and the expectation to reply immediately can end up dragging a task out for hours longer than it should take.

It helps to schedule in protected time. Maybe it’s a few hours in the morning where everyone stays offline, or maybe it’s blocking out one day a week without meetings. Either way, a bit of uninterrupted time can make a huge difference to productivity.

GitLab is known for its async-first approach. Meetings are limited, and most collaboration happens via documentation and issue boards.

What you can do:

• Block out ‘deep work’ hours on calendars.
• Encourage contact free time blocks.
• Consider adopting async tools like Notion or Loom to reduce meetings.

Be smart about on call and out of hours work

Some roles require out of hours cover, especially in infrastructure or customer critical services. But that doesn’t mean the same person should always be on the hook.

Clear, fair on call schedules, with proper handover and support, make things much more sustainable. It also helps when teams are allowed to take a break after particularly taxing incidents, instead of jumping straight into the next ticket.

PagerDuty rethought its approach to incident response, encouraging better escalation paths, post-incident rest time, and fairer rotations.

Best practices:

• Create a transparent on-call schedule.
• Offer compensatory time off for out-of-hours work.
• Document common incidents so teams aren’t reinventing the wheel at 3am.

Make it ok to say I need a break

If people don’t feel comfortable admitting they’re overwhelmed, burnout creeps in quietly. Leaders can set the tone by being open when they need time out themselves. It permits others to do the same and sets an example for healthy boundaries.

This kind of culture shift, where rest is respected and expected, actually makes a difference, more than free yoga apps or mental health webinars.

A senior engineer at a Manchester-based digital agency publicly took a full week off and shared the benefit on Slack. After that, more team members felt empowered to do the same. Uptake of holiday doubled within two months.

Build a culture that says:

• “You’re not more valuable because you skip breaks.”
• “Rest is part of productivity.”
• “It’s OK to switch off and come back stronger.”

Focus on progress, not presence

Logging hours isn’t the same as doing good work. If team success is measured by who responds fastest on Slack, something’s gone wrong.

Instead, shift the focus to progress. What problems are we solving? Are we moving the product forward? Is the code base improving? That’s what matters, not being glued to a screen all day.

Atlassian introduced “Team Anywhere,” which prioritises flexibility and outputs over presenteeism. Performance reviews focus on contributions, not visibility.

Shift from:

“Who’s online the most?” to “What meaningful progress did we make this sprint?”

Take Slack (and email) less seriously

In reality, most messages can wait. The habit of replying instantly creates unnecessary urgency, especially when the message wasn’t urgent in the first place.

Encourage people to snooze notifications, set boundaries, and take their time with thoughtful replies. Less noise means better communication in the long run.

Inspired by Cal Newport, one Kraków-based product team introduced “quiet hours” each day with no internal messages. They also created an async channel for non-urgent updates.

What you can do:

• Schedule no-Slack/contact zones (e.g. 12–2pm daily).
• Use urgency tags.
• Encourage asynchronous check-ins for daily standups.

It’s easy to fall into the always-on trap without even realising it. But if a team builds habits around sustainable pace, clear expectations, and trust, things start to shift. People have more energy, make better decisions, and feel more ownership over their time.

The result? Better work, done by people who want to stick around to do it.

At Cavendish Professionals, we work with clients who care about their teams to offer roles with clear expectations. Check out our jobs at cavendishprofessionals.com