To wonder if work deliberately send upsetting emails on Friday

[Arbesque]

The results of a promotion competition at work were announced on Friday afternoon. So lots of people going home upset for the weekend. I said to a colleague that it was a bit mean and they could have waited until Monday, but she reckons it's deliberate so that people will calm down over the weekend and not kick up a fuss in work.

Apparently it's common practice in lots of workplaces to announce bad news just before the weekend.

Has anyone else heard this?

I’m a senior manager in a charity and I know that we deliberately avoid sending out controversial news on a Friday. However, the head teacher at my kids school told me he does send out this messages that he knows will cause a stir just before a holiday because it gives people time to calm down while he’s not about to take calls.

Bad news is always delivered at the end of the day or the end of the week. It gives people the chance to exit the building quickly and have their reactions in relative privacy. Treating your employees with a bit of kindness is important.

My former employer liked to tell people they were being made redundant on Thursday afternoons. We went through a particularly bad patch (this was non-UK/EU so no consultations etc required) when people were let go every week for a while. If you made it past 6pm on Thursday without getting a call to go to a meeting room, you'd successfully made it through another week. It was really quite awful.

DH's employer sent out 600 redundancy notices on a Friday.

Giving them all the weekend to digest, get their tears out the way, talk to their families.

Rather than be forced to carry on working and no doubt spending much of the day gossiping and speculating

But most people on here have said they don't want to get bad news on a Friday afternoon

We have the opposite. We work in a customer service type role and have a rule that we're not allowed to send bad news on a Friday. Otherwise we'd be leaving people without support over the weekend. It's bled into our workplace but does mean Monday can be a worry when we see an email from the big boss. I quite like the idea of Thursday so people have some time to ask questions and then some time off.

Yes they nearly always do these things on a Friday before close if business. It gives you the weekend to process and avoids immediate conflict.

Yes I think Thursday's a good day. Time to discuss the issues, ask questions, have a cathartic moan or batch with colleagues and then 2 days off to digest and get your head around it.

I think its a very common approach, be upset and lick your wounds on your own time mind set. However in a skills shortage labour market, employers may well consider treating their staff better than that. If they don't want to spark resignations, as its certainly a candidates market (if you are skilled) right now.

Yeah they want to ruin your time so you're not distracted from work.

People need to realise workplaces don't give a fuck about employees. They care about profits and you are just a number. If you died they would advertise your job within days.

Treat them accordingly. Zero loyalty. Be absolutely mercenary if you're offered more money at another workplace. Clock off at 5.

I'd still rather hear it on a Friday than a Monday.

Nothing worse (imo) than going to work on a Monday and getting shit dumped on you after the weekend, and then having to face the rest of the day/week with a brave face.

I am head of comms. We do mid week to ensure there are people around who can support/deal with any questions.

Not for the productivity of the business

Friday is notoriously lowest productivity day

throw in big news the day before and you’re looking at it slumping even further

Yes, and at the end of the day. It's to give people less opportunity for kicking off. Plus get a day's/week's work out of them before upsetting them.

That’s not the position in my work place . Never heard of that

Yes I agree commonplace.

Yes, it’s common practice. The bosses want people to go home, not discuss it in the office, and “forget” about it by the next week.

Our university posted grades the day before a holiday so we couldn't kick off and had time to reflect on feedback. Didn't work, people were just angrier by the time they went back.

Yes but I think it makes sense. People can calm down by the Monday and approaxh the news more rationally. I wouldn't want bad news when I have all day / week to get through, for instance!

What I don't like though is stressful emails on Fridays that I will then worry about all weekend until I can deal with it on the Monday.

Yes that’s common practice . Sorry it was bad news

It definitely doesn’t for all!!

Really bad practice but an easy out for decision makers!

May seen OTT but I just think about people receiving negative news and it being the straw that broke the…!

This isn’t a redundancy notice, it’s the result of an interview process. Definitely better before the weekend rather than after. When bad news is broken the reaction is often to complain about how it is delivered but the main problem is the bad news.

Yup totally normal