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?

I'm not sure about toxic, but I think it's shoddy leadership skills. It gives the impression you don't think your team can cope without you there, which isn't the way build a strong functional team in my opinion!

I think being a good leader is very often leading by example. That means if I'm telling people that work-life balance is important, I demonstrate that mine is too. It also means all the crap stuff too, like not trying to weasel out of shittier aspects of the role, facing up to mistakes and challenges etc. But as well as taking proper holidays it also includes not coming to work when you're ill and so on. It's all part of growing the next generation to have the attributes you value as a company.

Outlook has a scheduling feature that will send emails you've written earlier in work hours - people really should use it.

Sorry if you already meant this, but you can do "send later" on your iphone for emails too. I agree that this should always be used

Completely agree.

Also, my jobs over the years have always involved being aware of the bigger picture and fast-changing events. I don't necessarily have to do specific tasks based on that (and certainly not on holiday) but knowing what's going on is crucial to my role. In addition the reason I've had these jobs is because I've always worked in areas I'm interested in anyway.

So a clear boundary between work and leisure doesn't make sense for me. I would check the latest updates from my industry even if I didn't have this job because it's also a hobby. I would keep up-to-date with general current affairs regardless of what job I had because it's an interest. So even though both are relevant to my work, I don't consider doing those things on holiday to be indicative of workaholism.

But wouldn't it be a great confidence and learning opportunity for someone covering for you to make this decision themselves? It may not be what you would have done, it may not be 'perfect', but they figured it out somehow as they should. What's the worst that could happen and if it was so bad is the team even trained properly and the organisation run efficiently?

I don't understand this. There was a time when I thought the place wouldn't run without me. It was also the time I was burning out and suffered from perfectionism. Nobody was as stupid as I thought they were. I was stupid for not recognising my own needs and boundaries and taking myself as way too important. Today, I let people make decisions during my absence and if it works out great and if not, my seniors will just be reminded of what an asset I am, ha!

They team are more than adequately trained and empowered to make the majority of decisions in my absence. Especially on business as usual / long term projects.

But when it’s a decision where something unprecedented comes out of the blue (because in our jobs it’s the nature of the beast at times) and has a considerable risk attached, if they’re more comfortable running their planned course of action past me So that they can proceed with confidence, then there’s zero harm. They still are doing the work, they’re still putting together the action plan, they are still over seeing what needs done - but they’re managing escalation appropriately in case external stakeholders need briefed etc.

can they do their day to day job and handle most small fires? Absolutely.

Do things happen now and again which they need a bit reassurance in handling? Yup. And I’d rather they had the confidence I was aware and had their back.

There’s tonnes of situations where it’s absolutely fine for people to tread their own path, and have the space to make mistakes and learn from them. It’s an important part of development and is pretty engrained within our culture.

But it’s important for teams to know when something is out of scope for that - a mis led process for us in some cases could end up with us in court with the companies we represent being fined an uncapped amount of money. So what’s one reply to an email to say ‘yep - support that approach’ or ‘good - thanks for letting me know - have you thought about x y z?’

Yep exactly that @Vieve1325 - I can tell from your post that we work in different industries but in roles with similar levels of potential risk.

It's also worth factoring in that some of these 'can't switch off totally' roles are heavily bonused, and whether or not you receive that bonus is contingent on decisions that only you can make. And if things go wrong, you get nothing.

So if the question were rephrased as 'if checking in on emails for 10 minutes a day on holiday got you £50,000, would you do it?' I think almost all of the people on this thread talking about toxicity and boundaries would be checking in!

And I'm guessing that sums of money like that, or much more, are often at stake for the people who are unable to fully step away. That's exactly why they are targeted with bonuses like that - because the stakes are higher.

whenever i have/had anyone who was on holiday interact either on teams or via email i would call it out publicly in that forum.

Aren't you on leave? Go be on leave and enjoy your time off.

I also followed up this with a private message stating that:
Replying when on leave doesn't send the right message to others, to embed the activity you need a top down approach; if senior staff do not stay away when on leave, then inevitably less confident lower members of staff feel they should also interact with work when they are on leave - its not the right message. Stop it.

I completely agree that it is not a behaviour that should be exhibited. It does encourage people to follow suit, and feel obligated to be available’.

Any booked time off, or sickness should be treated as though you don’t exist.

If you dropped dead tomorrow, they’d manage.

It is an unfair expectation imho x

I refuse to enable it by not continuing the conversation. Promoting a healthy workplace culture is a two way street.

Recently, I emailed a contact about starting a joint project during half term. They replied, suggesting we meet up after they come back from leave.

I didn't respond until I knew they were back

The managers who do this must be very disorganised with poor time management skills if they need to message people whilst they are on leave.

No, work phone is switched off and left in office drawer, even if the place burns down I don't want to know! If you are not paid to be on call, don't do it.

To be clear, this isn't the case at all in my job/industry.

for those that say when your on holiday your on holiday then why do people expect the prime minister to not be on holiday when they are ?
after all the deptments are there, the various officials are there ect all the same as a business so why do people expect the Pm to be different ?

I don't respond to any work related things when I am on holiday unless there has been an unprecedented issue that is so severe it needs my help.

I work in (re)insurance broking in a senior role and I have seen this new trend that people put up an out-of-office message when they go on holiday that just says "I am out of the office - for anything urgent please text [phone number]".

I trust my colleagues and, with their agreement, just give their email addresses as the contact point in an out-of-office message. I don't provide my mobile number. My colleagues can deal with things and are very capable. Maybe they'll approach something in a different way than I would and they might do it better than me.

My line manager has my phone number so if the issue is so severe that it needs my input I can be contactable.

Completely agree. If people on the team regularly do this (for things that aren't important and can wait), it makes the other team members feel like they should do it too. Rather than this person has an inability to switch off and its a 'them' problem.
When I was younger I'd be more willing to do so, now, not a chance! As far as I am concerned on my days off, consider me dead and find an alternative solution or wait until I am back.
Unless you own the company, your not that important. Also most "urgent" issues aren't life or death (unless you're a medical professional.) It can wait, the sky isn't falling in, everyone just needs to relax a bit more.

It demonstrates very poor management and leadership that they can not delegate, trust their team, have processes and systems in place that don't continually need their input, need to know continually what's going on and be in contact over minor matters.
It's OK saying just let them do it, but it sets a culture in the team and gives out a poor message. Team members can not take on responsibility. I'm always suspicious of managers like this. Why do they have to be involved in everything. Same with people who never take their leave. Why do they not want people taking on their activities or never want to be away from the office.

It depends.

If you/ the whole team are on holiday, then it's inconsiderate of them to bother you, unless it's about something urgent (even then, 'toxic' is a strong word, unless the message itself is toxic)

If it's just them who are on holiday, then it's completely up to them.

This.

I’ve always thought it was a sign of an inability to delegate, mistrust and self importance in an employee.

I find it very sad tbh.
I’ve seen people diagnosed with cancer, come into work because they think they are so indispensable that nobody else can do their workload. Some of the same people have passed away and within a few days, someone else is sitting at their desk and after a week or two, it’s as if the deceased had never existed.

However, I understand it if the person owns the business.

Yes, seen that too. 40 years at the job and 6 months later new staff asking who they were and changing all their work and binning their files, 1 year later they were just a signature at the bottom of some paper in some files due to disappear under the record retention policy. Everybody is dispensable and everybody is dispensed of eventually.

I don’t know why you let it bother you. It’s up to them what they do on their holiday. If it was actually expected of you then that would be a different kettle of fish.

DH checks his emails once a day, every day on holiday. He has hundreds of emails and messages to go through after two weeks. It is easier for him in the long run to keep an eye on the ball/finger in the pie rather than going in blind on his first day back. He certainly doesn’t expect others to work to his own rule though.

It makes them feel important that's why they do it. Also sending emails at midnight and on a Sunday evening.

Do honestly think they are sat there waiting 'a bit early I will wait till later as it makes me more important' seriously?

We have a whats app page and I ignore it when I'm not around work.

Sometimes people are just writing their e-mails at the time when they have more time to do so and aren't rushing to do a million other things.; nothing to do with feeling important. It is admittedly more considerate to keep such e-mails in 'drafts' and wait to send them until a more appropriate time for the rest of the world.

They can just schedule them for a later predetermined time and they will automatically send in the recipient's working hours - Outlook even has a prompt for this these days. (No need to remember to go back to drafts and send them another time)