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!

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.

I actually think this is a good policy, although it is long winded. But i do think some people have to have it drummed into them that email isn't instantaneous communication and that if something is urgent, a call is the way to handle it (followed up by email if you want a paper trail).
Conversely: i have worked with people who open each mail as it arrives and expect everyone else to do so. Unreasonable, especially if they want an answer.

It is also perfectly reasonable to reply with "yep, got it, will come back by xxx" and it is reasonable to expect a reply within 24 hours.

While it seems micromanagey - it really is only a sensible policy that some people obviously need to have explained.

The newstarters are batshit. Turn off sound notifications and ignore. If they are youngsters starting a career they need to learn this.

Very micro managing! There is no way I could read all my emails in a day. Also, you run the risk of people skimming them and forgetting to reply just to tick a box.

I don't understand the issue

You can read then Mark as unead or highlight for the next day and how does reading the email lead to missing something?

It's a sensible assumption that the OP doesn't work somewhere that people get 1000s of emails a day or spend every hour in meetings

I think it's reasonable for new employees esp with covid/wfh etc to have some solid guidelines that are sensibly applied

Young people dont automatically know this stuff

Too demanding IMO. What if you get 5/10 emails ten min before the end of the day? It's common courtesy to Read and respond to emails when appropriate, so you shouldn't have to set out a timeline instructing staff to do so.
I also think it should be 'no emails outside of office hours' so that people don't fall into the trap of checking their emails in the evenings or weekend. If someone wants to write emails past working hours, they can save them in their drafts folder and send first thing the next working day.

I have never understood this angst about people sending emails outside of office hours. As long as you're not expected to read or reply to it until you're at work, what's the problem?

I think it’s important to have some guidance for emails which helps to keep everyone on track and makes employees aware of what is acceptable and what isn’t. But I think it very much depends on their role, their daily responsibilities and who has sent the email as to when a response can be expected. I agree with other PPs that it’s a bit confusing, and possibly too demanding. I suppose it depends what their roles are though.
In my role, 90% of emails are answered within 20 minutes and the job linked to the email is actioned with an hour. That is the nature of the job and otherwise we wouldn’t have a business. But this wouldn’t work or make sense to the vast majority of other business models.

Hmm. Well you see I’m of the generation that started work before email existed and transitioned into the current state of most correspondence going electronically instead of by written letter.

The volume of written letters/paper files landing in your inbox back then was magnitudes lower than the volume of emails/electronic tasks that come in now. It’s much easier to write an email than it is to type and post a letter. The pace of work back then was almost leisurely.

Plus all this electronic paperless commerce was predicted to make work easier and so many jobs have been cut over the years. Secretaries and clerks are a vanishing job for example. So that has added more admin tasks to professional jobs that wasn’t there before.

Its not that “no one wants to work” it’s that the work landing in your electronic inbox is so much more than it used to be when it was all paper. It’s nothing to do with attitude.

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.

Well they are daft. People should be able to send emails when they want.

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.

I agree with PP, read all emails within 1 working day would be better.

It always amuses me when people jump on threads like this to say they deal with emails 24/7, that they are professionals, that it's expected in their role... like that's a good thing. Or maybe they think it shows how important they are.

On the other hand, think of the threads where the op is bothered by out of hours email contact from their boss. On those threads nearly everyone sides with op and says that the boss needs sorting out. Go to HR... that sort of thing.

I agree that the policy Op posted is overly complicated. However, with a bit of tweaking, making it clear that there is no expectation that people will deal with work email outside of business hours is a good thing.

When my parents were working in the 50s/60s, letters had to be dealt with and replied to on the day they were received. Completely standard.

How many letters did they receive a day? I bet it's nowhere near the number of emails an individual will receive in one day.

Working practices change..... we really can't compare todays working practices with those of the 50s and 60s!

I've had jobs where i got hundreds of emails a day. I just send all cc into a cc folder and read them at my leasure. The rest were triaged in a reading pane and handled accordingly.

I only read my mails a couple of times a day, the rest of the time I'm working. So when i get in, maybe at about 11, again right after lunch and once in the afternoon. But I'm a grown-up and have been working a loooong time.

I guess the thing about "welcome to schedule emails to be sent out of hours" is to use server capacity effeciently?? (I'm not a tech person, i remember when Fax became A Thing and it was exciting and new and much too fast for the old-timers)

It is prescriptive but it also just seems to formalise what most organisations would expect.
Obviously there will be emails that don't need a response (round robin/updates) but for ones that do, I think an acknowledgement within 24 hrs is a minimum.

It's interesting that new starts are already complaining about it. They're being completely unrealistic to only expect emails to arrive during working hours. Even delays on servers can make that impossible. It's for them to manage their notifications outwith office hours.

Where? All professional service businesses I know work outside 9-5 and send emails,you just don’t expect them to be replied to immediately.

LOL. That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t be able to do my job if I was subject to such a restrictive email policy.

Yes we all need to be sensitive to people’s lives and their need for down time.

But many businesses simply couldn’t function if there was a ban on emails outside business hours.

Seems perfectly reasonable, especially the bit about anything urgent being dealt with by picking up the phone/getting up and actually talking to people. Email is often not suitable as an immediate form of communication.

So much time is wasted making sure that emails actually mean what they say and say what the writer means and then still being misinterpreted by the recipient. Plus all the endless copying in to all and sundry, leading to people receiving dozens/hundreds of unnecessary emails a day.

But I don't understand how people see receiving emails outside office hours as 'invasive' when you're not expected to actually check your work email outside office hours. If they don't go looking for emails when they're not expected to, then they won't know that they are there will they?

A disciplinary matter to send emails outside of standard working hours? Bloody hell, the business would collapse if we adhered to that policy!

• Needlessly complicated
• Unrealistic to expect people to answer before the end of the day or even within 24 hrs
• I would encourage staff not to send emails outside of business hours
• Acknowledgement of receiving an email can be done via "read notification" surely and only if needed.
• Sending fluff emails of "read your email, will respond later" just clutters up inboxes even more. Are people expected to reply to those as well?

This policy creates pointless additional work in what is likely to be an understaffed department, as all departments these days are understaffed.

I have been an IT contractor and consultant for a while now, so been in many different companies. This is simply not true!!!

you can send an email when ever you want, if your arsey about not get a reply to your email you sent at 4am by 9am then depending on how much of an arse your are that could result in disciplinary…

Agree with PP reading all your emails by the end of the working day is a bit much, I have 5 hours of meetings today, 2 mailboxes with approx 80 emails in each, teams and zoom instant messaging too. It would take me probs an extra 1-2 hours at the end of my day (doing more productive work than emails) to respond to all those

The comment about your parents is ridiculous - some days I receive 150 emails -
Would they have had to read and reply to that many letters?!

Letters vs emails is very different

I also think it's micro managing - sorry OP.

The only element I might keep is to be clear that there is no expectation that anyone read or reply to an email out of hours and that people are free to read and respond (if appropriate) to such emails during their working hours.

Eh? I don't understand this.

I mean, it's not good practice for managers to send emails to their staff outside office hours as it implies that they expect the staff to work over their hours and it's not setting a good example for work-life balance.

But for everyone else, what difference does it make what time you send it? Just because you've sent it, doesn't mean someone needs to read it.

In any case, what are people doing looking at their work emails out of hours if they have an issue with out of hours emails?

I used to have a client who felt the need to open emails as soon as they appeared, interrupting whatever she was doing. I got her to open emails 3 times per day, first thing in the morning, when she would either action it, if it was important, reply with a holding email, or file it. Most emails could be dealt with that way. The same thing around 12, and again around 4 which gave her time before leaving for the day to action etc.
She became far more productive as she wasn't interrupting her work, less stressed as she wasn't trying to respond to every email when it arrives.

So I think an email policy/guidelines is definitely needed, as people seem to think everything arriving electronically need immediate response.

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. This is ridiculous, it should be 'send emails in working hours, use schedule send if you are working outside business hours' - you are creating unreasonable pressure on junior employees if seniors send emails to them outside of working hours.

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. I consider this unreasonable but I have a very high volume job and if I read all my emails on some days I would have to miss external deadlines to do it. It is awful micromanagement that i would perceive as bullying.

I would not like to work for your company!

It IS very prescriptive. I've never worked anywhere that felt the need to make such complicated policy around this.

Having said that, most of it is sensible and probably useful as guidelines. The only bit I don't get is the need to read the emails (that you aren't responding to) before leaving. That seems pointless and annoying if you have late meetings scheduled in.

As for banning emails out of work hours (or this being a disciplinary 😂). Ridiculous. They need to learn to set their own boundaries, not expect others to do that for them.

Never seen an email policy like this in 34 years of working.!What type of role needs to work under such tight control?

Is it a replacement for line managers doing their jobs to train, support and guide their team members?

Share with us your "going to the toilet during work hours policy" to see if we can help you with that too🤣