To not check my work emails on my days off?

[OverpaidT]

I don't work a normal 9-5 job. I work shifts and only work three days a week due to my shifts. However, my company is made up of shift workers and 9-5 workers. If I send an email I don't expect a reply for a few days minimum as I might be sending it at 2am on a Saturday night. I don't check my emails when I'm home on non-working days. I received an email which has had me questioning this and I now wonder if people who do have equipment to WFH check their emails when they are on their days off?

Do you really have to check your emails to see if your workplace is open?

When my work closed due to Beast from the East a couple of years ago, there was a mass email sent to say we were closed. However, it wasn't sent until 8:30 so I was already at my desk (nobody else had made it in but I lived fairly close by). It took me two hours to get a train home as they were being cancelled left, right and centre - I'd have loved a phone call that day!

I check my emails in the evening after DS is in bed, usually twice over the weekend (Sat morning and Sun evening) and often early before DS wakes up on work days if I can't sleep. I compress my hours so take one day off per week but I still dial into important meetings and check emails intermittently. My out of office is always on though so people know I may not respond on that day, and they're directed to an alternative contact in case it's urgent. I don't check my emails when I'm on annual leave or on bank holidays. And if we're away for a weekend for example then I won't check either. I'm quite senior and my deadlines have short turnarounds. I don't expect my staff to work evenings/weekends. Also relevant that I enjoy my job, have been working towards extra promotion, and my salary satisfactorily compensates me for my time. I also love the flexibility it gives me re childcare etc.

I think it depends on the job role and expectations. In most instances things can wait and there should not be an expectation to work on your days off, because checking emails and getting sucked into thinking about work is working. Also if you start to make yourself available 24/7 it becomes an expectation that is difficult to shake off. This is particularly important when more of us are WFH when perhaps we did not pre Covid, employers now have the ability to encroach in our home lives in a way that they did not before. Boundaries are important.

I check at home, sometimes on days off, and respond to short questions or very urgent situations that I know I can help with. Teams is on my phone though so it’s easy, and I can delete if I want 100% switch off time.

But, work are very flexible with me. I work at home at lot. Even when in office though, if I need to finish earlier on a particular day then I just make up the time when it suits me or swap my work day around.

So that is why I am happy to put a give a bit more in return. Sometimes I attend teams meetings on days off. But I would not do that if I didn’t get such flexibility back, and I always deduct the time elsewhere.

I'm astonished at the vast majority here who refuse to check emails and think it's so unreasonable to do so.

I'm astonished that people are expected to work for free. Checking work emails is work.

Those of you who think it's okay, how do you square it with yourself that you expect staff to work unpaid. Genuinely curious

This is a really useless thread, because jobs vary so hugely. What is absolutely reasonable for someone in one job would be incredibly unfair in another. So any poster telling another poster what they should do in this regard, is wasting their time.

If you work in a 9-5 UK only job with work that's predictable, of course you shouldn't need to be checking your emails during your time off.
If you work in a fast-paced, contract-related job with clients in different parts of the world, that has frantic stressy times and more calm times, and you're paid accordingly, then yes, of course you need to check emails and respond to crises as they happen.

@rainkeepsfallingdown

It depends on how much you're paid, and how much overtime your 9 to 5 colleagues do. (If you're in a senior role, absolutely. If it's a low-paid, junior role, not at all.)

I expect a little bit of checking emails on non-working days from our part-timers, but proportionate to the amount of checking emails that our full-timers do late at night and at the weekends.

As you're paid for fewer days, you have to make sure you don't end up accidentally working as many days as your full-time colleagues. There's a bit of a balance between being helpful and letting yourself be trampled on.

If they're not at work, whether that be in an office of WFH, what right do you have to expect them to check work emails? If you expect them to do this, then you should have written this into their contract! I have several friends who have busy professional careers, none of them check emails out of office hours. They all use out-of-office notifications.

I check my emails every day and outside of nominal working hours whether I am working or not. For me, it prevents small problems growing and means I can keep control of my in box.
However, if I want a few days peace on holiday or am doing something specific on my day off, I put an out of office on my emails saying I am not working for X today so may not be able to respond to your email until x date and time. If your query is urgent, please contact Y on 01...
But if I