Work emails after holiday

[sanogo]

Just curious as to how many emails you would come back to at work after one week on holiday and what do you do about them?

Twice recently I've spoken to two people at work, they don't know each other and work in different buildings and both of them said separately to me that when they come back to work they just delete all of their emails

At first I thought they were joking but then I realised they weren't

The last time I took a week off I came back to seventy emails. The guy that I was talking to said he came back to a couple of hundred. The woman had been to Australia for 3-4 weeks and said she had over a thousand so deleted every single one

In a way it makes sense because it would take days if not longer to read and action them all. I guess if any were important they would chase you up?

I do this too - I get too anxious if I don't look at my emails for a week, it's not relaxing if I have this feeling of dread about what awaits in my inbox.

I'd have 2-400 emails depending on the time of year. I'd read and action/file them all.

First day back is email day. I put it in my calender and do only emails.

We don’t use email at work and it’s a dream not sure I could go back to emails now!

I get about 400 per week. Rightly or wrongly I have outlook on my mobile and check my work emails whilst away. There are loads I can glance at and swipe to delete immediately. That way on my return to work I just have the essential messages that I need to action. Very occasionally there is something I get drawn into but that's rare, my manager would send anything problematic after my return. Pretty much everyone I know at work does this.
I've never heard that it is a legal requirement to not work on your annual leave as mentioned previously.

Yes, I also have a "me and only me" kind of job. Normally it's a joy; when I'm away, it can be stressful.

I do warn people of upcoming absences, but I don't write to the whole organization and things do come up. Hence checking on holiday so I can plan priorities upon return.

Last time I had about 1500 after a week off. About half would be system generated notifications which wouldn't be relevant after the event so they get deleted. Some don't need any action but would need to be read and filed so I had the info if needed. The rest would still need to be actioned as I don't have specific cover for a lot of tasks. Definitely couldn't just delete them all.

My boss would not Whatsapp me with work! I think this is blurring of the boundaries. E-mailing, a teams message yes, not Whatsapp (it's also not approved for work communication in our company, with good reason).

In my last job, after a week I'd likely come into over a 1000 emails. Our dept. Used to get copied in on any old shit. Plus the daily reports that used to run!
I would pretty much delete them all but I would atleast run my eye over the subject lines first. But then I also worked in a team of 6 so anything should've been picked up by one of them!

I have far more than the OP.

My tactic is to then put them in alphabetical order by subject instead of date order, as I know some are just notifications I can 'file' and some can be deleted. Then check all meeting invites and accept/decline or delete if they were while I was away.

Other tactic as some days I wfh is to make first day back one of them. If something is felt by someone to be 'urgent', they will contact me.

My email is set up to ask people to send anything urgent to my three team leaders and they tend to pick up pretty much everything in my absence so I have a quick read for info

I don't delete though, getting a sense of the whole picture of what has been going on in my department is important so I do have a read (but my PA deletes all the dross for me)

Thanks for all the replies

I do put an OOO on with a colleague's contact email in my absence which helps

Another colleague will cover a small part of my job and vice versa when he is away

I do get cc'd in to some email chains so really I only need the most recent one

I've noticed that some managers at work reply to emails when they are off, I think they do that as to not have to come back to more work but to me it doesn't seem like time off if you're monitoring emails

What level of seniority are you, OP? Are there decisions that can only be taken by you and which might need to be taken urgently in your absence? If yes, does your salary reflect this level of responsibility? If no, there is absolutely no need for you to be checking or answering your emails during your holidays.

I get around a 100 a week and have 7 weeks off 😟. Around a third will be deleted straight off, another third a colleague will have picked up, which leaves around 150. When people realise I’m off the numbers taper so I’m expecting 500-600 overall

Isn’t this why most people put ‘please contact XX in my absence’ then you can delete loads of them. I always scan through and delete loads which are just round Robins/don’t apply to me etc and it makes the task far less daunting.

I once saw an out of office message that said something like: "I am currently on leave from DATE until DATE. I will delete any emails received during this time. If you require actions from me please contact me after RETURN DATE"

I thought this was great. It forced people to go elsewhere instead of just passing the problem on. I've never been bold enough to try it myself though!

It's a legal requirement for your employer to give you a certain amount of leave, which is time away from work.

If you're working through that time, then it's not time away from work.

If you then suffer burnout or work related stress, you could blame the fact that you haven't had a proper break from work, because you dip in during your leave.

Which is why most organisations expect you to not be working on your annual leave. It protects them and you.

It depends what job you're in and whether you mind being thought of as a job's worth. I think it comes across as unprofessional, couldn't give a shit and lacking in self-awareness telling people they've got to remember to find out when you're back and resend the email. Times numerous people who are also on leave.

there are ways to get a message across eg "in my absence please contact Brenda for x matters, Peter for y matters and Helen for z matters". That's being thoughtful and helpful.

Hitting the delete key indiscriminately isn't thoughtful and helpful, when some emails could contain important information from someone who themselves has a busy role and needs to convey important information to multiple people and will be inconvenienced by having their message deleted, and being told they have to resend it. I actually cringe at the thought of people I work with and for, getting a message like that. I'd lose respect from people whose opinions I value.

I'm getting more and more emails, 200-300 a week and am struggling to be able to deal with them, particularly after leave. I also set a 1/2-full day when I get back to delete and write a to-do-list for the ones that need actions. I work part time so that's a big chunk of my working week. I sometimes wonder (not being old enough to remember) how work places functioned before email. A lot of emails just seem needless or over-copying in or an inefficient way of deciding things / finding information. Work places obviously functioned before email. We could surely bring back some of the more efficient practises and reduce emails to being more manageable.

I'd expect to come back to a load but to delete them? That shocking!!
Why is no one else dealing with them, out of office on etc?

Very bizarre

I just came back from 2 weeks leave and had 2000 emails in my inbox. I had OOO with a backup person on in my absence. I spent a day looking through making sure I didn’t miss something really important, but apart from that I rely on my backup updating me if important and that people saw my OOO and will email me again now I am back. Sometimes I miss something and then I go “post must have missed it as I was away”. I try to work very fast and smart and make good use of the delete button on my keyboard 😅

Definitely several hundred and 1000+ isn't unheard of. I'm afraid I now deal with it by doing emails throughout my holidays. On the bright side, I often catch up. On the duff side, it isn't really a holiday

Sounds great. Is it called clean up? How do I do this?