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!

Absolutely nuts policy.

Micromanagers are the worst.

I don't have time to read all replies, but just by judging on first post- this is petty micromanagement. Having inbox zero before you go home? It's almost impossible.

Sent to fast:
are you guys asking everybody what's their inbox like at the end of the day? Smacking with the stick those who have 20 emails? Bonkers. Useless and stupid.

Ridiculous policy - way over the top. I got bored reading it.

Workplaces with micromanaging policies like these tend to be places where the managers aren't actually managing staff at all. If someone is slacking you deal with that - don't rely on some nitpicking bollocks policy to beat them with.

It's all perfectly reasonable, what's unreasonable is to have it prescribed. It's kind of common sense that if something is more urgent than waiting until end of day for an email you would just ring them instead.

The way I read this policy is that it's intended to free people from the burden of managers who send emails in the evening and expect you to actually read and reply. These managers do exist, and especially for someone new in their role, it can create pressure and contribute to an unhealthy overwork culture.

however as others have pointed out, it could be creating another burden in the form of having to clear lots of emails at the end of the day, so I'm not 100% sure that it achieves its intention. Maybe if it was increased from 24 to 48 working hours?

some of the managers at my work have an email signature along the lines of: "I am sending this email at this time because it works for me. I don't expect you to reply until such a time that works for you". Simple and effective, but sad that it needs to be said!

Well said, a sensible post... but that won't stop the comments.

Why is everyone reading things into the policy that aren't there? And as OP said this is not even the policy, this is just a company expectation so it's hardly micro managing.

I interpret this as, please glance at your inbox before you leave for the day to check there isn't an all-staff announcement. Otherwise you have 24h to respond to emails that need a reply, and correspondingly can't expect faster turnarounds via email from your colleagues either. Fair. And there isn't a need to acknowledge every single email, just ones where a) the sender has asked you explicitly to do something and b) you won't be able to do that thing within 24h, so you tell them when you WILL be able to do it instead of just leaving them hanging indefinitely. Also fair!!

There is no "flurry of emails being sent at 4:59pm" in either of these scenarios! OP you're totally not BU.

some of the managers at my work have an email signature along the lines of: "I am sending this email at this time because it works for me. I don't expect you to reply until such a time that works for you". Simple and effective, but sad that it needs to be said

it's a good first step but doesn't deal with the issue I raised of seeing the email and it invading your headspace. Much better to schedule the email to go at 8am the following morning

You might not wish to be 'imposed' on (even though there is no imposition at all if you simply don't open the email or you switch off notifications

If you see there's an email with a certain title or from a certain person in your inbox, it will get into your head and you'll start worrying about it.

It really is better to schedule things to be sent later (even in the middle of the night when it's unlikely people will be looking at their phone).

I am looking at this from the perspective of getting work emails on my personal phone (eg if you are self-employed) but the same principles can apply if you are employed.

If you see there's an email with a certain title or from a certain person in your inbox, it will get into your head and you'll start worrying about it.

You need to manage that. It isn't anyone else's problem.

In many industries, people are working with those from other countries, customers emailing on their own time, colleagues with non standard working hours. It's not reasonable to expect everyone to know your working hours and fiddle with scheduling. Just learn to set your own boundaries.

The reading emails by the end of the day is wierd. Suppose you get an influx of emails at 4.55pm and you finish at 5pm?

Absolutely fine to send emails outside of normal working hours if that is what someone wants. I log onto my computer at 9.00am each morning and often have lot of emails that have come in overnight. Very often from HMRC or other government agencies. If I have need to go on my laptop out of hours I don't log onto email so I don't know they are there until the next morning. (I rarely use my work laptop for personal stuff though, usually my ipad but I'm allowed if I want to.

If you see there's an email with a certain title or from a certain person in your inbox, it will get into your head and you'll start worrying about it.

How are you going to see that email though- with your pc/laptop/work device turned off? You won’t see it until you log in the next day - at which point you deal with it.

In many industries, people are working with those from other countries, customers emailing on their own time, colleagues with non standard working hours. It's not reasonable to expect everyone to know your working hours and fiddle with scheduling. Just learn to set your own boundaries.

Exactly. I have my emails on my personal phone but I hide the app in a folder which isn't on my Home Screen so I need to actively search for and open the folder to see my emails.
I did that because seeing emails come in did stress me out so I set some boundaries.

Even if you do want to access emails outside of work hours, you can set it to offline so that no new ones come in, if you're going to get stressed out about it.

It’s very rigid, why not just have a 48 hour ideal response policy? Very simple.

If I received several emails at 4.55pm there’s no way I could reply to them before the end of the day (and what if you had a meeting or training between 2pm-5pm and didn’t return to your desk that day?? Or if you were part time and left at 3pm).

I think 48 hours is reasonable (incidentally I always respond much sooner than that but your policy does not encourage me to want to work for you).

missingmiddle · Today 16:10
And as OP said this is not even the policy, this is just a company expectation so it's hardly micro managing.

She literally said in the OP this was the “email policy”.

—

To the OP:

At my place of work there have been acquisitions, divestments, significant changes of leaderships, stuff in the press etc. All staff emails sent one day that required some sort of action/attendance at a meeting the next day. No one ever missed those and there was no “email policy” micromanaging like this is.

It’s amazing what people can do when not treated like toddlers and tbh some of your responses sound a little defensive because you wrote the policy. Still struggling to understand the purpose; if it’s to discourage OOH working say that. If there is a specific issue with people not responding to emails appropriately it’s best to address with individuals directly. Blanket policy to address a small minority is way OTT and also those people tend not to think it’s them anyway so doesn’t have the desired effect.

it's a good first step but doesn't deal with the issue I raised of seeing the email and it invading your headspace. Much better to schedule the email to go at 8am the following morning

Don't look at your work email out of hours. Simple.

If you can't handle out of hours emails and don't know how to avoid the notifications out of hours, that's your problem.

You need to look into it and solve this problem. It's a tech problem, not an other-people problem. Stop pushing your issues onto other people.

To everybody saying that surely you don't need rules like these: BWAHAHAHAHAH! This is Britain!

In case you haven't noticed it is very normal in this country not to reply to emails unless it is email number three about the same subject and your manager is cc on it. I went to a course in Business Culture where all the Brits said that it was just fine and normal to do it like that and all the foreigners told them they hated it and found it to be very unprofessional. This was after the British participants and the teachers at the course, who were also British, had just been padding themselves on the back for almost half an hour because "British people are so, so, so very polite and everybody thinks so". Cue a room full of very quiet foreigners. Turns out that none of the foreigners in the room found Brits to be polite. At all. And this was before the rise in xenophobia caused by Brexit.

I can tell you there is a reason why OP's company had to implement the email rules and that is probably a huge number of complaints they had received about bad email culture.

This absolutely.

If you can't manage this level of anxiety about an email you're not suited to being in any job.

It's part of modern life that many jobs occasionally require people to be contactable outside office hours. Yes it should be handled sensitively and kept to an absolute minimum and certainly people should not feel they have to respond the same day unless its really urgent. But if you perceive an email sent at 6.02pm (particularly when you're not even logged on) as a microaggression when one at 5.58pm is not, you need to grow up.

Don't read it then? I never understand comments like these. It's very entitled to dictate when other people can send their emails.

I often work very late because I set my own hours, often around things like hospital appointments and physio. I might work 7am-1pm and then 8pm-11pm depending on what needs doing. Why should someone have to faff around scheduling emails or waiting until the next day, creating a bigger mental load, just because you won't turn off your notifications? I'm sure you wouldn't sit in an office until midnight just in case someone appeared and asked you to do something, so why check work email out of hours?

The point is to make it clear that keeping your inbox up to date is considered essential - you lose/miss work if you don't.

I have no idea how anyone could complain at that as an email policy. It is simple, gives a clear indication that working outside main hours is not expected, may even be frowned upon -- get a work /life balance, and makes it clear that "I was waiting for a reply to my email" isn't an acceptable excuse.

It is common sense. The only people complaining will be the perma-phoned, e-communicators who consider an e-communication to be an absolute summons.

Death by email isn't pretty. Any policy that reduces the number being sent should be lauded, valued and bloody well used!

But it IS the official policy, OP says so twice in her first post!
So your 'interpretation' is already an incorrect one from the start.
Plus just the fact that you say you interpret y from it, while acknowledging that other posters have interpreted x, means it isn't clear at all! The whole point of writing detailed policies is to avoid any possible misinterpretations by making it absolutely clear e.g. as a PP suggested "Staff can email you out of office hours but there is absolutely no expectation you need to reply at that time".

I agree with the poster who said it is very likely this whole ott policy came about because of one staff member not replying promptly so instead of actually addressing it with them, OPs company created this policy for everyone, probably stressing out and confusing half their staff who were replying to their emails in a perfectly timely fashion anyway in the process, whilst the original offender either continues to ignore it or has left the organisation years ago!

Well this is bollocks

@Fimofriend

I think you might need to go on some more training and perhaps read some of your own work policies so you stop referring to “foreigners”. Who are you even referring to. Sounds like shit training. 20+ years corporate experience and I’ve never experienced what you’re describing. But then people I work with are international, not “foreign”.