AIBU to think this is a normal and acceptable email policy?

[SamSamT]

Hi all,

I was conducting induction for some new starters at work this week; and yesterday we went over some minor policies. One of them being our email policy.

Just for context; we are a medium sized business. Standard office environment with your standard business hours. Since the pandemic we only need to be in the office 2 days a week; but are expected to be available/contactable Mon-Fri during business hours.

Our email policy is basically:

• You can send emails whenever you want. You’re encouraged to use schedule send it outside of business hours but not a problem if you don’t.
• The quickest you can expect someone to read an email you send is by the end of the day. On the flip side you are expected to at least read anything in your inbox before you finish for the day.
• If you need to let someone know something before the end of the day, you need to ring or go see them.
• The quickest you can expect someone to reply to an email is 24hrs (not including weekends). On the flip side, you should always try to reply to emails within 24 hours even if it’s a quick “Got your email, I’ll get the info to you by xxx”
• If you need a reply off someone in less than 24hrs you need to ring them or go see them.
• There is no expectation to read emails out of office hours. Emails sent out for office hours will be considered to have been sent at 8am the following business day for the purposes of read and reply times.

We formalised the policy about 4/5 years ago, as we found expectations varied between managers.

Several of the new starters felt it was a bit invasive they could be receiving emails outside of business hours even if they didn’t have to read them until the end of the next business day. A few of the new starters also thought the expectation to have read all your emails before you sign off was a asking a bit much.

Genuinely interested in your thoughts and to see if we’ve somehow veered off from the corporate norm?

Thanks!

I think that’s massively prescriptive and micromanaging. And quite complicated.

People should be able to manage their own emails and inboxes as they see fit.

It depends on the load. If you have 2 emails to read before the end of the day fine. If there are 20 sent by management as a passive aggressive way to get you stay working later... jog on... (yes companies like that do exist).

What devices are they using? If they are being asked to use a personal phone or device, the work account notifications could be intrusive. However they should get into the habit of turning off work devices and any notifications when not working. None of the read/reply timeframes seem unreasonable.

Yes, I've never worked anywhere with such micromanagement of emails. Competent employees don't need to be told how/when to reply to an email, surely?

Assuming the emails go to their business email addy then of course this is perfectly reasonable. They start work, they log in to their work email account and start the day.

Only you know if the expectation to read all emails before they leave is reasonable. I doubt it, they could get 10 emails arrive 10 minutes before leaving I guess?

Your policy is a bit odd in that it says that the earliest you can expect someone to read is by the end of the day... so that means they could read it later. But it also says that everyone should try to reply within 24 hours. Similar when talking about replying.
So I think you need to re-word that to give a deadline for acknowledging emails, and a deadline for replying, which would make much more sense.
But you're not expecting anyone to take any notice of emails sent out of office hours and anyone who can't understand that needs to read again.

That's a bonkers policy 😳

Very micro-managery and prescriptive - surely grown ups don't need to be told how to respond to emails?!

The only bit I think is unreasonable is the expectation that you should read all your emails by the end of the day. Loads of people are often in meetings all afternoon and then go straight home/finish work. Expecting them to read through an inbox after that is unreasonable. Especially as it will regularly result in finding something needing prompt action.

Totally unacceptable to send emails outside of office hours. Very unprofessional. It’s a disciplinary matter in many work places

When people say this is unreasonable - it seems to me that one positive of this policy is that the company is trying to take account of staff wellbeing. They are saying - don't look at emails outside of working hours, you don't need to and we don't expect it. I find that quite refreshing.

Wish we had such a sensible email policy where I work

fed up of people saying, ‘oh I never read my emails, ever, what am I like eh ‘

When I worked in a university students were told they could usually expect a reply to an email within 3 working days.

Yeah, absolute madness. I can’t believe that any company thinks this is necessary. Also indicates a wider issue of micromanagement that I would avoid like the plague.

While I don’t think it’s unreasonable to read all emails the same day (unless you have hundreds or loads arrive 5 minutes before you finish) I do agree that having such a prescriptive policy on emails in general is a bit over the top

It is very prescriptive yes, but at the same time to me those seem like common sense timeframes and approaches, the approach I certainly take myself, so enshrining it in policy seems like no bad thing to me - particularly the bit that you're not expected to read/respond to emails outside of office hours - that is very positive to have that as policy. It seems odd to me that the new joiners were bothered they might 'receive' emails out of office hours - you can't control when other people might send an email, but to my mind the stress/invasion of personal life that comes these days is where there's an expectation or a perceived expectation that you actually action those out of hours emails, so the fact you have policy saying you don't need to do that seems absolutely fine.

It’s the most complicated email policy I’ve ever seen. I work for a global company & receive emails at all hours, I manage my work load based on what’s urgent/important because I’m an adult professional.

customer based response SLAs are one thing but if this is internal it screams micromanagement to me

Seems reasonable to me and a sensible set of guidelines.

Disciplinary for sending? Never heard of that before. Discouraged to encourage staff to stick to working hours maybe.

Work emails sent out of hours shouldn't cause any problems to the receiver as long as -
Business email addresses are used.
Staff don't set up notifications for work email on their personal phone (and why would you? You should have work phones and switch them off).
There is no expectation that out of hours emails will be read outside of the working day.

As ‘guidance’ this is mostly sensible (although very prescriptive and slightly controlling as to make me wonder about culture and the problem you are trying to solve). As a ‘policy’ very unreasonable in my view as not possible to adhere to. In my day:

• receive too many emails to reply to them all by the end of the day
• might be in meetings for the last few hours of the day hence not getting to reply even if there were only a few
• email response might need more thought/work than just a few sentences. If I knew it was going to be several days before I could respond I might sending a holding email

When you say ‘policy’ to me that means it’s in a handbook along with use of company laptops, paternity leave, etc. Is there a consequence to this?

I find it odd people think it’s weird to get emails out of office hours! Clearly never worked internationally or with anyone on flexible hours or any other variations. That’s very much the corporate norm in my world.

Obviously written by someone who doesn’t get close to 200 emails a day and has usually 6hrs of meetings per day.

Seriously though, it’s unrealistic as emails trickle in all day and every response of “got it” creates yet another useless email someone has to read by end of day. Surely it’s better to not have a 24hr requirement?

And this eliminates any way to prioritise emails as they are all the same 24hr priority. Yet I’m sure some of the tasks in those emails are urgent and others can wait for days or weeks. It’s overly prescriptive and will make it harder to handle urgent tasks because you have to read everything by end of day and respond to everything within 24hrs.

^This

The expectation that you should end your day by reading your emails - knowing that you won’t have time to respond to anything and that it will just play on your mind that you have to sort out X mess the next day?

Even though you don’t need to reply immediately, and people have been told that they should speak to people (on the phone, in person) if something actually urgent comes up?

Receiving emails outside of business hours- okay. People who do this regularly in my organisation are expected to use a signature statement along the lines of I work flexibly and may send emails outside of business hours, however I do not expect any reply blah blah

Expecting all emails to be read by the end of the same day- no. I manage and prioritise my own workload, if anything requires same day attention I'd expect it to be via a phone call or IM

I think it’s bonkers and could cause to missed emails/work for anyone who does an ‘unread emails mean I need to action it’ system - like myself

The company and the inductees who complained all appear to be nightmares. If you're all having to be so prescriptive you are all doing something wrong

It does sound quite micro-managing.

And while it sounds ok for someone to send an email at 10pm with no expectation that anyone reads it until normal working hours the next day, the reality is that you may hear notifications or see the email and even if you don't read it, it starts to take up headspace. I think using a schedule tool to delay an email until say 8am the following morning can be quite useful.

I would simply have a policy that says don't expect immediate replies, don't send to cc people unless really necessary, and schedule outside 6pm and 8am.