To think that emailing your colleagues from hols is a toxic behaviour

[Isthatrue]

I have a couple of people in my team (Managers) who are unable to switch off when on leave and constantly email and send message on Teams even when on leave. I am not talking about 1 follow up on an important matter but more of a proper back and forth on stuff that can easily wait and doesn’t need them to be involved. I can’t stand it! I think it’s a) sad to see they are unable to switch off from work and relax and b) creates a toxic culture for which some people think it is expected to be connected even if technically on leave.

Am I the only one to feel p.ss.d off about this?

Goes a bit of both ways for me. I am senior, working in a 24/7 industry, and I get of a lot of flexibility day to day.

So when I’m off on my holidays, I don’t mind checking my emails quickly once a day or so- there’s a bit of risk in what we do and situations can change on a dime, so I’d rather I was able to quickly reassure or guide someone who was covering my workload if something dropped on their lap than have them guessing. It also helps me manage my own worries about building workload / whether everything is going ok.

However - it’s not expected in the slightest. And for me that’s the crux - I do it for my own benefit, not because I’m forced to.

I do always keep an eye on emails and will respond if it's urgent - I once had to chair an urgent conference call due to an entirely unanticipated issue on the beach because frankly the entire deal would have fallen through if I hadn't, and getting someone else up to speed would have taken longer than just dealing with it myself.

Other stuff can generally just wait but yeah, checking emails is expected. I do also sometimes reply to some routine stuff so there's less to catch up on when I get back - I usually wake really early and get bored waiting for everyone else to get up so might fire off a few emails then. There's generally no expectation of that though. I once had a boss who would call me on my work mobile for really basic non-urgent things and moved on from that job as soon as I could!

I'm a lawyer FWIW.

My pc is about to die, line manager wants me to have a laptop but overall manager says no because she doesn't want me taking work home with me. Can't imagine she would want me to even think about work on holiday and that suits me!

I think this is it isn’t it. They think it’ll fall apart without them 😂

A business just shouldn’t be so dependent on one person’s input. All it says to me is -

Doesn’t know how to manage their time effectively, or delegate work appropriately.

Speak up for themselves to get their work load reduced, if they genuinely are over burdened.

Or, doesn’t value their contribution to the organisation, so has to over give to compensate.

They’ve got fuck all else to do or insomnia, in case of my manager, who would be emailing people at 3:00am.

Last thing myself and other people (judging by their eye rolls ) where thinking was wow what an amazing work ethic they’ve got.

YANBU. I'm a solicitor and we are notorious for not ever being able to switch off completely. I check my emails at least 1x day on holiday because I have many, many clients who like to contact me directly so I have to make sure I forward requests to people covering. But I have a few colleagues who take it to the extreme and do tons of unnecessary work on holiday. All men with wives who genuinely think their husbands are not allowed to switch off and that's just the job (I know, I've met them). Which is not true.

It's a combination of using it as an escape from boring family life + fear that they will be discovered as incompetent if someone else takes over their work.

It is toxic and indicative of bad culture.
Pretty sure we have active guidance (I say guidance, it's essentially policy) that says noone should be answering emails when on annual leave and OOO must be set every time. Its even audited I think.
We are a big company with over 5000 employees and everyone knows if someone's out of office, they have to wait!

I can't see why it's a problem to you if you're at work and they are on holiday.

The problem arises if they want you to do this when you are on leave!

I remember working for a very small company before emails and it was so stressful coming back to work and not knowing what disasters had happened whilst I was on holiday.

I like to check my emails every day but will not reply unless absolutely necessary.

If that’s the case then you need a new job.

I think the issue is that often more junior people in the team feel “oh, Joanna is online if though she is on holiday in Spain, perhaps the same is expected from me when I am off”. It just perpetrates an always online culture which is unhealthy in my opinion

I fully agree with you. I don't email anyone outside of work hours (after work, weekends, holidays). I think my department are glad about that. Got to have some boundaries.

My boss is the owner of her business and I'm her deputy. We are also friends. I've started to refuse to engage with her about anything minor about work when she's on holiday with the promise I will always let her know about anything important I can't handle for her.

If she messages me while she's away I keep the.subject fully on her holiday. It is a tricky boundary because we are friends and do talk about stuff outside work out of hours but she finds it hard to switch off.

Yes I've got one of these and it's annoying. I'll copy her into things so that she knows what's going on when she gets back, and she'll wade in and then apologise for being rushed but she's on the beach 🙄

My husband checks emails once a day. He is the MD though and it is understood it isn't expected of anyone else, nor do they do it. I think that's absolutely fine.

I find it really hard to switch off from work on holiday so I ensure once I'm off the plane then nothing gets looked at.

I had an ex boss complain bitterly that he hadn't been able to contact me on holiday . It was 15 to 20 years ago and I told him the Maldives had no mobile reception. As it was he insisted I come in the morning on the day I flew to do extra handover work. Horrible bugger thought he owned his staff.

OP you're right. It creates a level of expectation in staff that they do the same. Same as sending emails outside of work hours. Outlook has a scheduling feature that will send emails you've written earlier in work hours - people really should use it.

I'm currently breaking that culture of "available at all times" in my team. Their old manager used to call them at night, email, call when they were on holidays or days off etc. I was horrified when they told me. I've told them that if I cannot cope with them being away for a couple of hours/days/weeks, then there is something seriously wrong. One lady used to take her laptop with her to the hairdresser just in case she was needed. Absolute madness.

12 months in and the team are very appreciative of the change and the fact I encourage them to disconnect and take time off after peak periods. Guess what. The wheels haven't fallen off by not contacting them outside of work hours (including leave).

To be at their best, people need to disconnect from work. That keeps them mentally healthy and able to crank up when necessary. My team is ridiculously busy. But I'm working hard to make sure they don't have to work excessive hours regularly, and when they do have a big push, they get days off very soon after. I model this myself and manage my time very efficiently to meet a huge number of deadlines and deliverables. I don't work evenings or weekends. Occasionally I'll have to crank up for a couple of weeks but it's short lived. I have zero available time in a work day and am insanely busy but, I get my work done in work hours. It's essential if you want to stay healthy.

I think there are two separate things being muddled up here:

I fully agree that boundaries should be observed when people are away and all managers should let their staff know that they should log off when they take a holiday.

But there are a few roles where this just isn’t possible. MDs and CEOs of companies can’t always do this - that’s why they’re paid the salaries they are. People who run their own businesses often can’t. And freelancers sometimes can’t either.

Not all jobs are the same.

My DH had a board level manager who did this to people, so when he went on holidays he left everything ship shape and then put an OOO on with one person to contact.

His VM said this is X I am on annual leave from……. Until ……….

In the case of dire and I dire emergency I can be contacted on xxx896666
this is my wife’s phone number, good luck getting pass her.😂😂

He was retiring in eighteen months , he had no more fucks to give. 😁

Iny workplace it would be frowned upon to be dealing with work stuff when on leave.

I knew there would also be the 'you just need to manage your time' folks commenting. Honestly and truly, at some levels of responsibility, you need to make yourself available in a crisis or check that nothing is developing into one.

Interestingly wellbeing at work isn't just dependent on the time off you get. The primary drivers of workplace satisfaction, and the main things that lower stress, are AGENCY and AUTONOMY

Bob in accounts gets more sense of agency from doing a neat handover, putting a clear boundary around work, popping on the OOO and not doing work on holiday, as there are literally no nasty surprises awaiting him once he's back. He controls his time and guards the boundary so feels autonomy.

Cheryl the MD gets more sense of autonomy from checking her mail, noting that the big deal has gone through, making sure that the statement from the Chancellor hasn't tanked the share price, spotting a rogue complaint and dealing with it on Twitter... because she has less autonomy if she just leaves everything- things could blow up and take away her future agency and ability to control her working life.

Heres my main points :

Encouraging Colleagues to Stay Connected During Holidays:

Responsiveness and Efficiency: Ensures urgent matters are addressed promptly, maintaining business operations.

Customer Satisfaction: Demonstrates commitment to service, enhancing client loyalty.

Flexibility and Adaptability: Fosters a culture of agility in response to changing circumstances.

Leadership by Example: Sets a positive precedent for commitment and accountability.

Maintaining Momentum: Prevents delays in ongoing projects or initiatives.

Personal Preference: Respects individual work styles and preferences.

Mitigating Stress: Reduces anxiety associated with returning to a backlog of tasks.

Maximizing Utilization: Optimizes resource productivity for overall business success.

I think a lot of it is people wanting to feel as though the wheels would fall off if they didn't respond to an e-mail. The truth of the matter is unless you're a freelancer/sole-trader everyone else is replaceable. It might come with a couple of hiccups but even the head of Special Investment bank for Billionaires EMEA region is replaceable. Credit though to how warped our thinking has become that it's just 'par for the course in big job X' and that it would be chaos if you didn't login to Outlook for 5-working days. All of these minor expectations take a toll on us as a whole.

And absolutely to a PP who pointed out that many wives would be shocked to learn the truth of the matter is less that their husbands are just far too business-critical to do anything remotely resembling family life and more that a Q3 results spreadsheet is far more appealing than a screaming toddler / baby combo.

We're taught that an inability to switch off from work outside of office hours/on weekends/on holiday is a red flag for fraud. We are instructed to use the delay delivery function so that emails are only sent during working hours. This stops staff constantly checking to see if senior managers are working so that they can be seen to be working as well.

that seems to be the default these days 'I cant say no so other people have to change what they do to to suit me, they need to change their ways or I will come up with a way to make it about me and will then label them as judging me'

I get my line manager checking or following up on stuff while they're on holiday. Sometimes even over a weekend. It's really annoying and I feel like it undermines what I'm doing. Like I can't be trusted to do the work that I know I need to do because it gets planned out in advance anyway.

@Immemorialelms Exactly that!

I think there’s a bit of (purely accidental) sexism on this thread. Presumably no-one believes that Rishi Sunak or Joe Biden, or indeed any government minister, or Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp, or Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos… I could go on… would go on holiday for a week and not even log into their emails. Of course they wouldn’t. And Boris Johnson was rightly savaged when he went off to the Caribbean for a break when Covid was brewing and forgot all about his work.

So perhaps it’s just about possible that some women on this thread have important enough jobs that they need to do a quick check-in once a day and reply to the odd urgent message without 24-7 ‘focus on your family’ and being told it’s sad and toxic if you can’t 100% switch off!