In December 2013 the news agency dpa reported on company rules against e-mail after work. The strict rule at Volkswagen applied only to employees under the collective agreement, not to managers. Siemens had no special rule and left the decision to employees. The work psychologist Tim Hagemann said that the higher one rises in the hierarchy, the more one has to get used to e-mail after the end of the working day.
In these examples, the protection of free time was weakest at the top.