Ban out of hours emails?
Discussion
From the BBC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57314814
Surely it’s not that hard to ignore emails if they come in out of hours, and to decline out of hours meeting requests? However, clearly it’ll vary from company to company with their culture.
What do you do? I do read and respond to emails out of hours, but only because I have a spare moment and go to check on my phone. If it’ll take more than a few seconds to reply, I wait until the next working day when I’m at a proper keyboard.
It’s not necessary expected. I don’t attend or schedule calls out of hours where at all possible, and I take attendees time zones into account.
The company I work for is pushing for “digital balance” to try and ensure we have down time.
Is this the norm, or unusual?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57314814
Surely it’s not that hard to ignore emails if they come in out of hours, and to decline out of hours meeting requests? However, clearly it’ll vary from company to company with their culture.
What do you do? I do read and respond to emails out of hours, but only because I have a spare moment and go to check on my phone. If it’ll take more than a few seconds to reply, I wait until the next working day when I’m at a proper keyboard.
It’s not necessary expected. I don’t attend or schedule calls out of hours where at all possible, and I take attendees time zones into account.
The company I work for is pushing for “digital balance” to try and ensure we have down time.
Is this the norm, or unusual?
I reply to emails if they take a few seconds or are ones I enjoy spending some of my time answering.. otherwise it can wait till the following day, if it's that urgent, everyone has my phone number.
I never email my team out of hours, but if they email me I generally respond to them quite quickly regardless of the topic
I never email my team out of hours, but if they email me I generally respond to them quite quickly regardless of the topic
DanL said:
From the BBC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57314814
Surely it’s not that hard to ignore emails if they come in out of hours, and to decline out of hours meeting requests? However, clearly it’ll vary from company to company with their culture.
What do you do? I do read and respond to emails out of hours, but only because I have a spare moment and go to check on my phone. If it’ll take more than a few seconds to reply, I wait until the next working day when I’m at a proper keyboard.
It’s not necessary expected. I don’t attend or schedule calls out of hours where at all possible, and I take attendees time zones into account.
The company I work for is pushing for “digital balance” to try and ensure we have down time.
Is this the norm, or unusual?
I never mind, read, ignore, respond as convenient. I'd rather this than spend an hour sorting the following day. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57314814
Surely it’s not that hard to ignore emails if they come in out of hours, and to decline out of hours meeting requests? However, clearly it’ll vary from company to company with their culture.
What do you do? I do read and respond to emails out of hours, but only because I have a spare moment and go to check on my phone. If it’ll take more than a few seconds to reply, I wait until the next working day when I’m at a proper keyboard.
It’s not necessary expected. I don’t attend or schedule calls out of hours where at all possible, and I take attendees time zones into account.
The company I work for is pushing for “digital balance” to try and ensure we have down time.
Is this the norm, or unusual?
It’s nonsense......
- Anybody can leave an email until the next day...
- many of us work in multiple time zones such that it’s always “out of hours” somewhere
- the article refers to people working from home......I’dnwager many that WFH have a more flexible approach to working hours
I've been bad at this over the years. When I was given a blackberry many years ago, it felt cool to be connected and see that red light flash.
Fast forward to today, and it's a piss taking culture. I've complained about it on here previously about being too connected to both email and company messaging systems. Even though I knew I could ignore an email request until the next working day, I found that occasionally innocently looking at emails could "trigger" me and spoil an evening if something at work had started to escalate or go sideways.
I also often find that the situation depends on the person emailing you - single, career driven types who have no concept of family often have less empathy to realise that you don't care about a renewal or process item at 9pm at night.
I now make a point of turning off email notifications altogether and my home office I now regard as my workplace so when the day is over, I close the door on it.
Fast forward to today, and it's a piss taking culture. I've complained about it on here previously about being too connected to both email and company messaging systems. Even though I knew I could ignore an email request until the next working day, I found that occasionally innocently looking at emails could "trigger" me and spoil an evening if something at work had started to escalate or go sideways.
I also often find that the situation depends on the person emailing you - single, career driven types who have no concept of family often have less empathy to realise that you don't care about a renewal or process item at 9pm at night.
I now make a point of turning off email notifications altogether and my home office I now regard as my workplace so when the day is over, I close the door on it.
It's not about an individual responding to an email, it's about the expectations it generates, where a more senior person criticises a junior because they didn't respond.
If there's no down time that can also cause stress and anxiety.
Companies can't be trusted to do it themselves, hence the push for legislation
If there's no down time that can also cause stress and anxiety.
Companies can't be trusted to do it themselves, hence the push for legislation
My boss and half my team are on the West coast of America, 9 hours behind me (I'm based in Europe). I regularly work until 7pm or 8pm through choice and on the other hand I'm sitting here in my dressing gown now having just stepped out of the shower about to start work at 1030. My boss knows and doesn't care. About once a month I'll go on a call after 9pm but if there's 20 people over there and just me it seems crazy to do otherwise. On the other hand my boss is scrupulous about regular calls, typically they happen about 7am or 8am his time. It suits me down to the ground as I'm not an early bird and rarely have dinner until 8pm anyway - so first of all perhaps define what "out of hours" means. Ultimately I do it but I don't let it take over my life
My director has a line on his sig that says that he works at odd times and there is no pressure to reply out of hours.
The issue for me more is that an email at night is inevitably a problem which can then sometimes play on my mind affecting sleep etc. till the next day.
Not helped with my place having a bit of a "guilty till proven innocent" attitude at times.
The issue for me more is that an email at night is inevitably a problem which can then sometimes play on my mind affecting sleep etc. till the next day.
Not helped with my place having a bit of a "guilty till proven innocent" attitude at times.
My role requires me to sometimes work odd hours with West Coast US, and Japan / Australia but as we are a global company everyone understands the time zones and standard working hours in those countries.
If I'm setting a meeting everyone tries to be sympathetic and set calls when it works for both parties. If its a late / early meeting I only accept it if its absolutely necessary. We are under no pressure to work out of hours.
If I'm setting a meeting everyone tries to be sympathetic and set calls when it works for both parties. If its a late / early meeting I only accept it if its absolutely necessary. We are under no pressure to work out of hours.
Don’t see the problem myself. My boss always end his emails with something like I may send emails out of hours but I don’t expect you to respond out of hours. Similarly I’ve said to him if I email him on his day off I’m not expecting him to respond, I’m just sending it then because it’s fresh in my mind and I might forget later on.
It works well.
It works well.
The time of day isn't an issue for me; it's the sheer quantity and quality.
I've received 50 since 5pm yesterday.
Some require a considered response. Min 5 minutes each.
Some are part of the god awful cc chains. Some might require my response. A colleague may have part replied. There's no logical order as people reply to wrong email, "add in red below", etc. It's like reading those quiz books where you make a choice and go to page 27, then page 85. Only difference is that stakeholders call expecting me to have deciphered it by 9am.
My actual job is to produce certain docs, so by the time I deal with this, (and cast my eye over what's come in the meantime) I do about 2hrs fee earning work before clearing out the inbox.
I'm too young to know what this job would have been relying on post. Easier and less stressful I imagine.
I've received 50 since 5pm yesterday.
Some require a considered response. Min 5 minutes each.
Some are part of the god awful cc chains. Some might require my response. A colleague may have part replied. There's no logical order as people reply to wrong email, "add in red below", etc. It's like reading those quiz books where you make a choice and go to page 27, then page 85. Only difference is that stakeholders call expecting me to have deciphered it by 9am.
My actual job is to produce certain docs, so by the time I deal with this, (and cast my eye over what's come in the meantime) I do about 2hrs fee earning work before clearing out the inbox.
I'm too young to know what this job would have been relying on post. Easier and less stressful I imagine.
WindyMills said:
Some require a considered response. Min 5 minutes each.
I suffer a fair bit from people not realising that a 1 line, 30 second email on a specific technical issue requires quite a bit of digging around to confirm and reference requirements etc in order to answer properly.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff