Overtime culture slowly creeping in - How do I handle this?

Question

Our company was one of the very few companies that did not enforce overtime. As such, all my team members promptly worked 40-48 hours a week and everything was good.

We hired a few new developers and one of them has positioned himself to be a team lead. He has started working overtime, sending emails in the middle of the night which has come somewhat as a shock for the laid back team. Obviously, the higher ups seem to love him for being the "bad guy" enforcing overtime.

Before this goes out of control, what steps do I take to stop this from continuing. I would rather not bring this up with the bosses for the fear of being seen as a whining team member. I am not sure if I should reply to his email outside work hours and encourage him to enforce this culture on our team.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

Is he asking you to reply/work outside of normal hours?
If he is simply trying to show that he "works harder/longer" than everyone else, then why not let him, hopefully he will get the promotion he wants - hopefully further away from the team.

---

The key to understanding the way people behave is to try to understand what they want.
I'm assuming that he sends emails late at night CCing his superiors for the same reason you mention - that he wants to be promoted. If that doesn't happen then, depending on how goal driven he is, he may leave. I.e. the problem may solve itself.
In my (perhaps limited) experience (working in New Zealand and the UK) my superiors were glad to know that I would put in overtime if it was needed, but were more interested that the job got done (as opposed to the raw number of hours worked)

Answer 2

If no one has tried talking to him yet, that'd be the first place to start. Maybe he hasn't considered the downside to working more than 40-48 hours. It might not even occur to him that this would bother anyone. I realize this might sound naïve, but keep in mind that many of us in the tech world are a little unaware of social cues.