To be annoyed by lack of response to electronic messages to work colleagues?

[bakedpotatoforlunch]

It's two colleagues in particular. To say at the start I get on with both these individuals very well at a professional and social level. There are certainly no personal issues between us at all. We all work in the same relentlessly busy organisation where there is a good deal of electronic communication needed.

And yet, from these two people in particular whenever I text or email them in context of work I have no response or acknowledgement. Which leaves me irritated. A brief one word answer would usually suffice - eg Thanks - depending on the context of course.

But there's usually......nothing. Which sometimes leaves me wondering - esp with emails - have they actually seen the message? (I can tell with text but not email) Do I need to send another one just in case? Also, to know what they are doing with the message is usually helpful to me in moving forward with stuff - I'll know so and so is aware of such and such etc.

I can only think that they imagine such messages just don't NEED a reply. By contrast other colleagues do reply. This includes the boss - a very hard worker who probably has less time to spare than any of us - who always acknowledges, usually within an hour, any message I occasionally need to send to him.

But apart from anything else is it not simply good manners to reply to a message?

So..

YABU - chill out, this is a busy work situation, they've got the message, you've done your bit, just get on with your day.

YANBU - it is quite reasonable to be irritated not to receive an acknowledgement of a message.

How often are you messaging them and about what? I wouldn’t reply to daily “I’ve done this” type messages.

I’d never text a colleague with a work issue, I’d keep it strictly professional via email (or teams if it’s an informal question like calendar)

what I’d do is forward the email again and then say “hi, just wanted to check you received this?” they’ll soon start emailing back to confirm!

I think you are hugely overthinking this. I don’t respond to every email I get, what a waste of the companies money to pay me to do that thousands of times a year!

if you need a reply simply include something like
‘let me know you’ve actioned this so I can take it off my list’
‘let me know you’ve received this’
‘is that all ok?’
etc

but only if you actually need a reply or confirmation, otherwise assume All is fine.

Well it largely depends on what you're asking/telling them. Without knowing that, I have no idea if a response is warranted.

Depends what the messages are, and what kind of reply is needed. If ‘thanks’ is all the reply that is needed then many people in my organisation wouldn’t reply. And tbh the high volume of email/Teams messages we receive just makes that kind of non-reply feel like a nuisance as it adds to the noise. Of course, in Teams you can ‘like’ a message to acknowledge that you have seen it/agree with it, which helps with this problem.

I certainly don't respond to every email or text I get and I wouldn't expect others to do it either.

If I can show I sent the message, that's all that matters. What the recipient does is down to them.

My inbox gets logged up with thanks messages or "will do". If I need a response, I'll ask. It just looks like they are trying to prove they are actually working and not necessary

I try to respond to - or at least acknowledge - all messages but if I'm busy and it doesn't contain a definite action for me or require a response, sometimes I won't. Sometimes I'll just glance at the Teams notification, take a mental note and keep doing what I'm doing. It's not ideal but sometimes it's just the way it is.

If there's anything that genuinely impacts your work later down the line that could be prevented by a response to earlier messages, just politely highlight it and ask for what you need. Everyone is busy and you get on well with them, I doubt it needs to be a big deal.

I completely agree with this.

Email is the biggest (or one of the biggest)time stealers of our time. I must receive in excess of 300 emails per day, many of which I'm copied into "for info". I reply to emails where there is a need to reply, I have an update, I answer a question but if I replied to every single email to be "polite" I'd never get to my actual work.

I have a direct report who would email me, then send a teams message to say she'd emailed me. I had to nip this in the bud, it was a level of neediness I couldn't indulge.

A PP has said to follow up with another email "they'll soon start emailing back to confirm". No, a quick conversation is needed to clear up misunderstanding about who controls who's time and to manage that person's expectations of what they can expect a reply to and when, not so much.

Over the years I've learnt to write emails in a specific way. Emails should be short, and if you can't do that, then state what response you what in the very first sentence. If you need a response, then write something like 'if I don't hear from you by the end of the week, I will assume you agree with my proposal' and then state the proposal. Also don't expect people to say thanks.
And finally, if you need a response, then send a follow up message - 'Have you had a chance to read through my proposal, etc'.

I think you've answered this yourself really. You say a brief one word answer like "thanks" would suffice but if this is all you need then it's not really necessary for them to reply to your message.

And like another PP said, as long as you can evidence you sent the message thats all you have to worry about really.

I have a full team of around 900, 20 in the direct staff of which I’m one. I’d cry if they all responded to every email. I make it super clear in the email header if I want/need a reply plus deadline or if is informational. We all get a ton of emails, none of us have the time to respond to every single one, especially if it’s informational. I also never message anyone just to say “done”, the assumption is if it’s asked for it’s actioned and if a follow up is needed they’ll know.

You can put a read receipt on an email OP

Thanks for all responses so far. Really helpful. Yes, possibly I am over thinking things here, and that it's good for me to consider.

It's just that we are a not a huge organisation with thousands of emails flowing all the time but a much smaller one which is dependent upon good communication within it. There have been issues in the past when it is clear that one part of the management simply hasn't been listening to another which has caused frustration.

I do like to think especially if a junior colleague has emailed me I would acknowledge it to let them know that I have taken a moment to say yes, I hear that, thanks. Appreciated, or whatever. It just helps things along a bit I think.

I absolutely feel your pain, op.

I regularly email colleagues and do not get a response. I don't want a thank you - just reception of the email.

I sent an email with the final document for a $6million quote - no response.

Have they received it? Did they get this email???

A mystery

Just put a read receipt on then you'll know it's been seen. I always thumbs up an email that I think is important even if it doesn't need a proper reply.

I usually use the thumbs up feature on outlook to acknowledge emails that do not need a reply.

Some people just don't seem to engage with anything other than a phone call or face to face discussion. Nothing to do with age or time in a job it seems.

Perhaps they are two of them.

I'm surprised how many think YABU.

I have a similar issue with a colleague. We are supposed to work together and it just does not flow. So when I email about something I cannot actually rely on it being taken care of, so I get annoyed if I get no acknowledgement or follow up. It would be a whole world different if I knew they'd take care of something and I would not need acknowledgement that way, but with this colleague I just cannot rely on him.

I have other colleagues where it's no issue at all because I know they'll got it all in hand and if they don't it's just a rare occasion that it fell through the cracks.

So with your colleague I wonder if there is an underlying issue that you have not managed to build trust. In my experience these people are slackers or just too junior to understand the working world and read the room how a team operates.

YANB

I worked somewhere that has a policy of acknowledging each email with just a couple of letters in the subject line when replying.

So if it was an email which didn’t need any more action you hit reply and then put R (received/read) in front of the Subject line.

If it was something that needed action you either completed the action and then replied with D (done)

Or P (in Progress)

Worked really well because you could see at an instant by looking in your inbox without having to open the email what stage actionable work was at, and that other emails had been read or at least received and acknowledged.

Jesus if DH replied to every email at work he'd never get anything done.

He encountered this at work. He's wfh so relies on email instead of f2f. He started signing off all emails that required a response with "please can you confirm you read."

Works every time. Colleagues happy with arrangement

I can't stand people who not only send "thanks" in response to an email but also insist on sending to all.
Most emails don't require a response.
I send daily summaries to admin to action. At some point they were informing me the following morning that they actioned my points which simply clogged up my mail box. I had to ask them to stop and reassure them that I trust they have seen and actioned all my messages as a default.

I have a rare example here. It's impossible to rely on a colleague to do or remember anything that was discussed on the phone. So I resorted to email to cover my own ass and I still get little to no engagement. I actually had to ask them to engage with me and now it works sometimes only.

I get really quite irritated when my inbox fills up with unnecessary acknowledgements and thanks. We used to have an admin person who did this all the time, whilst also moaning about her workload, and no matter how often we used to tell her to cut back on unnecessary messages she just didn't get it. She's now left, and I must say I'm very happy with her successor's much more pared-back style.