Would this be acceptable in your workplace?

I work in a very well known, large global firm.

As a PP has said, it’s be a little like signing your own redundancy notice.

Not appropriate at all.

We often have complex email trails with many senior stakeholders/Partners on them. It would simply not be feasible to do this, not for one moment.

A shared spreadsheet would achieve that, and save anyone having to collate the answers.

This exact same issue was raised here a month ago or so.

Was surprising how many people seemed incapable of grasping that different workplaces had different imperatives.

If I work in a commercial environment and my email traffic is likely to include customer enquiries or leads, then no, I'm not going to tell them their email will be deleted. But if I work in an environment where the bulk of my emails are internal emails across teams to e.g. coordinate or drive forward a particular project, then yes, directing emailers to either find someone else to speak to in your absence, or email when you're back is perfectly acceptable.

No, it doesn't mean I receive the same number of emails on Day 1 as I would have done over the course of my two weeks off - because most emails I get are not essential, the sender will either just not send it again because its low priority, or they will have found someone else to help. Those that actually get resent on my return will be a small fraction.

And no, it doesn't mean that I simply delete everything on return. But it does mean I can skim my inbox much more quickly just to scan for anything critical.

The reality is that I am being paid on my first day back, and my employer is not getting their money's worth if I spend my first day reading 3000 emails.

Is email the best tool for collating that sort of information though, would be my question I guess. It seems rather too prone to the old ‘reply to all’ rather than ‘reply’ response, and subsequent risk of data ending up with those that shouldn’t have it..

How would you collate this then?

Our professional services team need to know who is attending graduation ceremonies and if we need a gown ordering. There are 55 academics in our department. They sent an email which included a form for staff to complete.
No sensitive data, no risk of 'reply all' but the team get all the info in one place.

This seems to utterly disregard situations where the email is more important to you and your company than it is to the sender.

"Hi, would you be interested in the 100 million pound contract we are looking to give someone - you are one of a number of companies we are approaching so we would appreciate a reply indicating your interest..."

No, just delete that, if it's important they'll follow up.

Is email the best tool for collating that sort of information though, would be my question I guess. It seems rather too prone to the old ‘reply to all’ rather than ‘reply’ response, and subsequent risk of data ending up with those that shouldn’t have it.

I would just ignore it. I do sometimes schedule emails to arrive shortly after someone is back if it's absolutely vital it reaches them as soon as possible, but I certainly won't be doing this as a habit. During certain times of the year, almost half the office is on leave. If I had to schedule my emails for each and every one of them, I would never get around to doing my own tasks and I would go mad.

Email is designed to be asynchronous, like physical letters. It's good to receive an out-of-office notification, so you know when not to expect an answer from them, but apart from that, their inbox is not my problem.

Not all work places are the same though ...

For example, I've received two 'all department' emails today that will require a response from every member of staff. Those on leave will pick it up when they return.

It not fair to ask our colleagues, who need to collate this information, to make a note of when dozens of academics are back off leave.

My view is if you are sending emails requiring actions to more than 20 people then you are part of the email problem! If the email is one of information, then it’s for the holidaying individuals manager, or whoever was covering the role if anyone was, to bring them up to speed on anything important that happened while they are away :)

Anyway, with Outlook nowadays for those inside your organisation it alerts you if the person you are sending an email to is out of the office before you’ve sent it (assuming they’ve turned on their out-of-office) which gives you time to think whether the email is really necessary.

Does it matter what day it lands in the inbox? The sender knows you won’t respond until X date at the earliest.

Id rather return to 500 emails I know I have to wade through than return to 0 and then 500 drop in as im sat there enjoying my return from AL!!

I’d love it if it could be adopted where I work, as no one pays attention ton to out of office messages and emails you anyway.

This was normal in our office but in my out of hours notification I always offered an alternative contact including their email and phone number.

If I received an out of hours that someone was away then I made a note on my calendar to resend my email a day after they were back.

Just reply saying let me know when you wish emails to restart. It shouldn't up to you to keep a check on when they are away.

This.

Asked my DH and he says this would not be acceptable in his team/company.

The message should be: ‘I am out of the office until X date and will not be screening my emails during this time. If the issue is urgent, please contact Bob or Mike who are overseeing my work/clients/projects in my absence’.

You don’t put the onus on dozens of colleagues to diarise and resend an email which is already sitting in their inbox - the effect will be a) to double the number of emails they have to sort and read and b) just mean their inbox will explode on the day they return…

Only acceptable in the context that the person is very senior and matters may resolve without their input etc.

Nope. This would not be acceptable.
I work at a university and regularly get emails from students or emails which are sent to the whole department.
The expectation is I'll pick them up when I return.

I can just imagine how outraged students would be at having to resend an email!

No. The OOO message should be informative - eg who else to contact if it can’t wait for your return. And different if it’s long term leave. But otherwise that’s unhelpful.

What I do advise people to do is to add an extra day onto their OOO message, keep it clear on their calendar, and use that first day back to catch up.

Why restrict it to when on leave. Delete all first emails without reading them and wait for important emails to be chased up. Set you filter to only permit emails that have the content 'once again' 'as requested previously' 'this is now urgent' etc to get to your in box. This will make us all much more efficient.

All the responses saying this is ok sem to assume and e-mail is only ever from one person to one other

What about automated e-mails from services where the bounce back won't be read?

Or what about when send to everyone in my company and get 20 or more bounce backs? am I supposed to sit there and set up a personalised timed re-sends for each one of them?

Ridiculous, I agree.

Not acceptable to peers, external people or management. Plus people would probably openly comment on how precious and annoying they are being. No one is that busy or important surely!

Yes! This is what I do, and then you can see quite clearly what’s been dealt with - without the onus, rather arrogantly, for someone else to repeat sending the email at their end.

Dreadful, just no. You’ve received the message, now deal with it when you get back like everybody else.

It's just a modern way of working as the phone is almost obsolete these days, there are too many emails. Surely if you are the one wanting the work done, the recipient is on leave, then you should be the one to find a solution as the solution is not the person on leave, they are literally not working and you are!