Emails from manager

[sootysweets]

I am a fairly new manager and my team are complaining that I send too many emails. Looking at the past week, I send between 2-4 a day (bear in mind we are working remotely and so I don't see them in the office, and I work 4 days so they have one day without any emails at all from me).

Most of them are one or two sentences/ for info emails. Max one a day is an actual request to action something. If it's a complicated issue I call or wait for a team meeting.

I manage 3 staff and 2 of them get very upset that I send too many emails but I can't see a more efficient way of communicating with the team, I am not going to call round all of them every time a little thing comes up.

Do they just need to accept this or AIBU?

How many emails do you get from your manager?

Or if you are a manager, how many emails do you send your team?

For extra info - before I was managing this team, our previous manager did not send many emails - but she was extremely busy and barely had any time for our project. IMO she was not a good manager and was very hands off, so that's what they are used to.

It causes too much anxiety when a manager sends too many emails.

If its for general info then send a round up email at the end of the day

We have a daily 15 min Teams meeting where we set out the day, then everyone goes off and does their thing, would that be an option?

Two brief emails a day doesn't sound excessive, but are you loading up the work tasks so they don't have a chance to clear them, or repeatedly asking for updates daily? That's not hugely efficient. Have you looked through the emails and seen if they're actually needed?

Finally, how is the staff members performance generally? Are they experienced and know their roles? If so do they need a different kind of management?

Does the information need sharing immediately or could it be shared in a bulk email weekly? Could you find a way to differentiate between those they need to do something with and those they can read when they have time? Could you set a weekly catch up for some of the stuff? Do they need their emails open all times? Could you set a policy that they don’t need to check their mail more than twice a day? It’s not the least amount of emails I have received from a manager but it is quite a lot. Could you use teams and a folder system for the for info only stuff?

It doesn’t really matter what other managers are doing. Your team are finding it adds to their anxiety/impedes their best work, so that’s what you need to respond to.

An email sending info that doesn’t need to be actioned still does add to mental load. Keep that in mind.

Can you send an email each morning with the info in (you can schedule this so you’ve written it the evening before). Or schedule a quick daily zoom meeting instead.

I suppose it depends on tbe job but 2 to 4 is hardly loads in my opinion.
We can get up to 15 but they are not overwhelming ir anxiety inducing but keeping us up to date in developments in our cases, training dates, responding to our emails to them, placement info etc. In other words everything is relevant.
As lo g as you are not sending fir the sake of them I think it's fair enough.

Thanks, yes I think you are right about the anxiety @Shesasuperfreak I think I underestimate the effect of me becoming a manager (I used to be their colleague on the same level)... so I assume I am not intimidating and they know me, but maybe they are feeling pressure from it.

It's hard working remotely when you can't just go over and talk to someone.

We have a 15 min call in the morning to align, and also a couple of team chats for different purposes where any general info/questions are added.

I wouldn’t have thought 2-4 a day is excessive. But then I’m an academic and students have emailed me on Boxing Day in the past.

Maybe you could do a summary email with tasks or requests clearly signalled. And informational emails once a week?

It’s hard to say though because different jobs have different levels of complexity. My job requires a lot of multitasking and dealing with different “stakeholders” and “clients.”

Thanks all. A daily round up email could be a good idea.

(I suggested a daily teams call - they didn't want it)

I dont think it's excessive. But to keep the peace if it's just general info that isn't urgent I'd have a blank email open, copy over the need to know bits and then send that every so often.

Is that the total sum of their email traffic or do they get loads of other emails each day? If they are getting a total of 4 emails a day that really isn't very many at all!

Depends on what else your team are trying to get on with.

my new manager frequently "reminds" me of things I need to be doing. One day this week when he knew I was covering an incredibly busy on-call service at another site (with OOO advising that I would be unlikely to be able to deal with emails promptly) I got four reminder emails from him. I was ready to throw him out of a window. When I get a task I will prioritise it. If urgent I expect to be told when I am given that task. If team priorities have changed I would expect a call to discuss why, so that I can discuss what might be delayed as a result.

IMO unless you're in a very fast paced job AM and PM summary of requests and feedback would be enough?

(I suggested a daily teams call - they didn't want it)
Sorry, who's the manager?
In on board with listening to your staff but they are complaining about a couple if emails, now they are completely about teams.
Stop bring a people pleaser and di what works for your role.

You are the manager if you want daily teams calls then they do them. I have 3 short teams calls a week and it is great to do updates, assign tasks, talk through issues. I would do this . I do not think you are over doing it. I think if your management style is different from what the team is used to you need to be clear in your expectations and why you manage as you do.

Do you have a Teams channel for your team? May be post your updates there, and then they can consume them all in one go?

@Notjusta They do get other emails but not crazy amounts. They might get like 10 a day altogether? Maybe sometimes more, sometimes less.

@TheTurn0fTheScrew That sounds awful and no I would not send reminders. I trust them to get on with it. The emails I send are info or updates.
They do have busy workloads and it's a very varied role with lots to think about, so I do get it in some ways (I used to do the role myself)... but I still think they seem to be hypersensitive to what are quite normal communication emails.

I needed to hear this 😂 Thanks

Are you making it clear in your subject line what sort of email you’ve sent them? Using identifiers before the subject really helps people prioritise emails without having to read the content. FOR INFO, REQUEST, FOR ACTION, URGENT, can make it much easier to decide how soon to address the content.

Unless the INFO stuff needs to be put into action today, you could save them up to either cascade at a team meeting, or put them into a weekly mail.

Also: think about whether email is the right medium for your message. There are so many ways to choose now, and in particular if your team receive a lot of email traffic, choosing something like a teams channel chat might make it easier for them to distinguish between internal and external comms.

However, having said this, I wonder if they’re testing you a bit, having seen you promoted from the ranks. 4 emails a day isn’t a lot at all. Have you all been used to poor or non-existent management, and having someone actually come and do the job is therefore a shock to their systems? Have people got used to not having much oversight of their work? Have a think about what might be behind this, rather than just a dislike of emails, then how you might tackle it. I am no fan of micromanagement, but you need to develop a management style that gets the best out of your team while maintaining respect for your position, and that can be a fine line to tread, especially in your position.

Sorry about my spelling in my last post, but you got the just!!🤣🤣

Just Manage them.
As long as you aren’t asking anything unreasonable then they should do it rather than just decide they would rather not
I appreciate it can be a difficult transition from peer to manager but you’ve made that step so now you need to act like one

@PorkPieAndAPickledOnion Thank you for the thoughtful post. You are absolutely right about them challenging my position. It's quite telling that the one person not complaining has joined since I've been promoted, so has only known me as a manager.

To be honest they are making my job very difficult in other ways (not just this) and I'm finding it very difficult to manage them, they are both strong personalitites and both older than me. The other person is a lot easier and respects me.

I personally prefer being given actions via a teams call or in person (unless it’s something like, can you follow up to this email). Being given actions via email means that they can get lost, especially if you get a lot of email traffic. My old job we would usually get more than four emails a day from managers, comms or the IT systems and it all just turned into white noise because a lot of it didn’t apply to me but had to be circulated to everyone. If these are emails that are circulated to everyone and not overly relevant to your team then I would feed that up to your comms team and ask we cut down on internal email traffic and out all company notices in one place (unless time sensitive) and send out an email once a week asking to staff to check those updates.

However, you are the manager so if you want a more hands on approach than your previous manager then they don’t get to just opt out of teams calls. Are those 10 emails all actionable? 10 emails of checking some figures, writing paragraphs explaining them, attaching the supporting document are different to 10 emails some of which are “thanks for organising that meeting, I look forward to meeting you”.

Is it that you are sending emails "reminding" them of things they already have under control and which they are used to being left to manage themselves?

2/4 a day is clearly not excessive and you'll learn as a manager that people rarely tell you the real reason for their upset. I think it will be something to do with the content of the emails.

New managers often do do too much micromanaging.

@InTheNightWeWillWish They are definitely not all 'requiring action', most of them are for info. A few times a week (max) it would be a request - I try to do most requests/ actions in supervision or meetings. Internal comms isn't too bad - once or twice a week.

I think the daily digest is probably the way to go.