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!

But many of us don’t have the luxury of being able to turn devices off and stop working while we are at home in the evenings

However as an adult you should be able to have the discipline to just not open new emails coming into your work account out of hours surely?

Then you are laying yourself open to allegations of harassment in court.

im shocked at the number of people on here who seem to have no clue about the fundamental principles of basically decent ( and legal!) behaviour in the work pace

That doesn't mean everyone wants to work in toxic workplaces where 'switching off' after work hours is seen as bad. I don't agree with it being a disciplinary matter, but it does feed and nurture the culture that people should be prepared to do this, when no they shouldn't. I stay on unpaid if needed after a shift if absolutely needed, but if something is so urgent they can't schedule it or send it in office hours then they should consider an on call rota. The reality most are probably pointless, could wait, or they could find the info themselves if so inclined.

I don't think it is normal unless specific to your industry. I have worked for many large companies and email policy tends to be around how you use email i.e. limited personal use, no sending external links etc.
For a medium sized company that seems really over the top to have this kind of policy for every employee. Surely it is up to the managers in various areas to set out the expectations.
I have a very senior role and personally I would not work for a company with this kind of policy because it indicates a type of micro management I that I could not and would not want to deal with.

That's quite relaxed, I'm expected to go through my emails at the beginning of every shift, so I am kept up to date with any changes that could effect my day/work.

However, I will say people complaining about beings sent emails out of hours is ridiculous. Everyone works differently and you don't have to look at them after hours if you don't want to.

Exactly. It’s banned in most reasonable work places

I think you left "where people don't know how to use email properly" off the end of that sentence.

You don't need to ban sending emails after 7pm if you know the recipients are not going to be aware of their existence until they choose to be, at work the next day. Which is what would happen if they were using email properly.

I think as guidelines it's useful but as a prescriptive policy it's a bit OTT.

I'd educate people in

A) putting a decent email subject to bring attention to things needing action by a certain date /time. Eg subject xxxx for action by COP [date] please.

This helps people to see what needs to (potentially) prioritised.

B) For emails with multiple addressees and and CC I put st the very top something like this :

Person a,b,c d : for information only, no action needed
Person e,f,g : please respond by xxx so that I can complete my report by it's deadline.

C) using email only when needed. Informal chat apps like Slack are much better for short, informal conversations (and better than phone sometimes because there is an audit trail).

D) prioritisation snd time management and in reassuring them that they are not expected to work out of hours.

Wow I'd find that hard.. sounds like if it's like that for emails I'd need a list of rules for going to the toilet, answering calls and appropriate ways to use a stapler next to my desk in a manual lol

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me!

Particularly since the pandemic, it suits many people to work flexible hours e.g. an early finish to collect children, then a couple more hours work from home in the evening. This may lead to emails being sent 'out of hours'. I can't see why this should be a problem, provided that there is no expectation that emails be read and responded to before the next working day.

It looks like a policy that was written when emails first came into regular use and hasn't been revised since.

That’s not the point. It is intrusive. It is harassment. It is extremely rude

it’s also a Largly irrelevant discussion to me, because it is not allowed where I work, and I wouldn’t work anywhere where it was allowed

a manager did email me in a Saturday a couple of months ago. I deleted it unread. I was annoyed but that was a one off. Very rare occurrence. If she does it again I will complain

What an awfully controlling work environment. I wouldn’t want to work there.

I'm shocked that you can't see that, for one thing, your approach doesn't allow any flexibility in working hours. Not everyone does 9-5, so the idea that no one can send an email outside those hours is a non-starter. The whole point of email is that it's not an immediate form of communication- it enables you to send something to someone to read at a later point. If people can't get their heads round this, it's not the workplace or the email sender at fault.

It's simply not true that it's illegal to send emails outside the recipient's working hours, so I've no idea where you got that from. A decent workplace might (depending on the industry) not require people to look at email outside working hours, sure. As someone coming from an industry in which things are often urgent and need dealing with whether or not it's within formal working hours, the whole idea of someone being cross about being sent an email is laughably pathetic.

I'm shocked how many people view receiving emails at a time when there is no expectation to read or reply to them as 'harassment' or law breaking.

This is like all the people who complain about being woken by a text message that comes through in the middle of the night when they haven't bothered to activate the 'do not disturb' function on their phone.

If everyone has to read emails by the end of the day, and many of them reasonably don't want to read them twice so reply, you have a surge in responses at the end of the day, and an exponential surge the next day when people are also replying to that surge by the end of the day, and getting away from the office on time is rushed and stressful. You need to rethink this. Tell them to phone if they need an answer same day and to reply within two working days - I think that's the outcome you wanted?

a manager did email me in a Saturday a couple of months ago. I deleted it unread. I was annoyed but that was a one off. Very rare occurrence. If she does it again I will complain

This is one of the most entitled things I've ever read.

The reason for the read by end of day is because there are occasional all staff “for information” emails that will affect the next working day.

I think a 'check at end of day' is reasonable, provided the 'urgent' ones are flagged appropriately. Not read in detail, but skim there isn't anything mega important.

That would massively put me off. It's so prescriptive and complicated.

But you own rules say if it's urgent you need to call 😆

This is the problem with such prescriptive rules. I usually check email before leaving home, just in case there's something that affects where I need to be, I don't necessarily look as I'm heading out of the office.

If these rules applied to email communications with clients/customers only, ie as a standard for customer service, then I think it makes sense. When I worked in private practice for professional services we had something similar (although not as formal or prescriptive). However, if these rules apply to internal communications between colleagues it's weird and if my employer tried to impose something like this I would be insulted.

Did you write the policy in the OP?

No idea what industry or field of work you are in but judging by the responses from many people on here yours is the exception rather than the norm despite what you seem to think

Totally normal to receive emails at different times. It’s up to us to manage our own ‘switching off’. For example I don’t work every day, it’s not for the other member of the team to remember which days I work. It’s for me to have my out of office set up to remind them when I will be replying to them (ie once I’m back at work). Personally as I’m a manager I’m happy and would prefer to get a call in an urgent situation on my day off rather than it escalate but thankfully that’s rare.

Surely these new members of staff have private email accounts, so why does it matter is someone sends them a work email at 9pm as long as they aren’t expected to read it until the next day? I genuinely don’t understand.

This