professional 'ghosting' - is this happening everywhere?

[sparklelala]

I side-stepped into a new area of work a few years ago. Creative industry where people in my role are freelance - but we work collaboratively with various companies and are hired by them on a contract by contract basis.

Lots of people who do the same thing as me have noticed that the levels of emails simply never being replied to, even by people you've previously worked with/had a good professional relationship with, are increasing.

My industry (media) is well-known for being pretty competitive and not the 'nicest' - but it seems to be becoming a real problem. I had a meeting last Friday - all seemed to go well and the 'client' requested follow up information. I sent an email after that and it's been utter tumbleweed since then, not even a 'thanks I'll get to this when I can' response.

This is NOT the first time, and I'd be taking this all personally if others I know weren't also complaining about it! It's making me wonder if something has fundamentally shifted in how we communicate with each other, maybe as a result of homeworking/the pandemic etc?

Why? They might have accepted another job in the meantime? They were probably applying for loads at once and took the first one offered. I wouldn't take it personally as an employer...

Again, my question was more about people not responding - which seems to be on the increase, because others are saying the same...I was musing on whether or not this is a general thing, or specific to the industry I work in.

But if we're going to chew over how long is acceptable to reply to an email😂- well personally, if I had asked someone to come to see me in my office for a meeting, and they took the time to travel there and meet me, and then I had asked for information which they sent me in an email, I probably would - crazy crises or mad workloads aside - endeavour to reply either the same day or the next working day. To me, that's good manners and generally how it seemed most people operated in the workplace until fairly recently....

I have seen a lot of posts here that people are annoyed by “thank you” emails or indeed any emails that aren’t 100% essential.

so I’m conscious of it but still say thank you.

however, I recently got someone upset by a long detailed emiail which I could have sent in shorter chunks. It was numbered but she asked for a call to talk it through.

I’m flummoxed as well. I wanted to avoid a call so took ages putting the email together.

I don’t know what the answer is but I don’t think people are doing their jobs well so aren’t likely to get round to saying thanks. I think it takes 5 seconds but if they feel overwhelmed, that’s too much.

🤣 I know!

You sound a bit overbearing OP and maybe that client sensed it. Calm down a bit maybe 🤔

I'm in the media industry too. Not sure what sector you're in, but for around a year mine has been very quiet - there is very little work (I read that 2/3 of the workforce are currently unemployed). The few people who are in work are often overstretched due to budgets being overstretched. So it might just be that the people you're dealing with are swamped?

I suspect it's the wfh brigade who seem to answer nothing unless it directly affects them.
Sorry but that's how it seems.

Whilst I get what you’re saying, it’s happened to me a million times and it’s a bit of flat questioning disappointment .. like eugh. Did I do a clanger!? Did it go into spam?!

But really this is just silly. Back in the olden days did we send letters to thank people for sending letters. Do we then reply to say thanks to their thanks. Where does it stop. It’s like the people who can’t hang up the phone. Bye bye bye bye bye bye bye.

It’s all too much. People expect an email within hours if not same day. Definitely within 24 hours. I’m busy! I’m trying to work on actual stuff.

I think everyone needs to look at this email 24/7 instant communication culture and sort it out. It’s not healthy.

Oh, I get you, OP. I don't think the work world went back to normal after the pandemic. It's as if people are barely functioning.

If they are hybrid, that usually means Friday is a work from home day which really means, Friday is a don't work at all day.

Long emails? Forget it. No one reads anymore. I write using the shortest most concise language.

I hear this from everyone.

Maybe in your field of work Grendell, but not ours.

I applied for a job recently and was utterly ghosted. It was a big, global company too.

I was unfriended on LinkedIn by the HR guy, and what really took my breath away was that my application was deleted in Workday on their company site. Which I'm fairly sure is illegal.

@CremeEggThief Surely it's good manners to thank me for offering them an interview? They can then decline because they've been offered a post elsewhere. It's shortsighted not to respond because their job might not be suitable after all. They also might not pass their probation period so could be job hunting again.

I pray to god that people stop sending and replying to emails. Britain is seriously unproductive and one of the reasons is the prevalence of make-work like sending and replying to emails that achieve nothing.

This has happened to me a bit more recently. I think people are getting more and more messages and then only checking them in windows and if they don't get to your message in a window - tough

@coxesorangepippin why is that illegal? I thought they had to delete your info for compliance.

It’s overworked people. I get about 50 emails a day, plus about 2-3 hours of meetings, and then I have to do my actual job. It’s insane. Since Covid, the pace has ramped up to unbelievers me levels. I don’t know how all of this it s us going to end but surely people have a limit?!

There's a real art to writing a good email to get the response you want. It should be concise and with a clear call to action.

I have colleagues who write overly lengthy emails, which go into far too much detail. Another who writes who writes with really poor grammar, so much so that I struggle to get understand her point or comment or what she's after.

Could this be the issue? I do admit to filtering out the real dross and not responding sometimes, but I get tonnes of emails a day

Eh? People have to communicate somehow. Before email it was circulating paper memos, letters and the phone ringing all the time. I much prefer email!

Productivity has definitely been getting worse over say the last ten years.

Two things I see are:
The move to email over phone as the preferred means of communication plus a real reluctance of younger workers to do work communication by phone. The problem with email is that it is a one way flow of information where you then have to wait for the person to respond. This just slows communication down massively. I understand from the workers position that emails are easier but it is way less efficient.
There is also the problem that the person sending the email feels that they have accomplished a task or problem when in reality they have just sent one side of the conversation and the underlying task or problem is not done until it's been done.

Whereas the telephone or face to face communication is much quicker, it's two way and allows a much more efficient communication.

WFH - combined with communication where face to face communications is more efficient, also being in a work environment allows you to leverage/ learn / help other staff. For example "you don't need to write that presentation from scratch, here's one I did on a similar topic that you can simply adapt".

I think also a lot of the reluctance to do things over the telephone is that people can miss-hear, or perhaps change their minds, then hold the other person responsible. I know that younger people are fearful of being told they didn't do something right and have a mental reliance on email as "proof" of what has been asked and achieved. I can't say I blame them having had a few situations myself where I did a lot of work only to be told I had "misunderstood" something over the phone. It's easy to understand that in heated situations emails give time to think to the sender more than reacting on the telephone. I also think people are often more aware of not messing people about by email and wait to ensure all information they give is correct before they communicate which often saves workload.

I think there’s a move away from thank you or acknowledgement emails. I still send them in many cases as I think it’s important social interaction just as I add a salutation at the start unless a real-time thread (not everyone does).
It’s making me consider using more “read receipts” as it is very unsettling when something important and urgent meets complete silence.

I agree op, I've found that people, if they don't want to do something, think it's acceptable to simply not respond. Even customer facing roles, it's awful and indicative of the times we live in. Ghosting has almost become acceptable.

I had a moan about this yesterday. I sent an email to some colleagues and out of 6 only 2 replied. I needed responses not flat out ignoring.

We have the same problem with meeting invites though people just don't respond and when it involves catering it really pisses me off.

It wastes my time chasing people up and makes more work for me.

It's also down right rude, I don't care how important you think you are rudeness doesn't make people respect you. I say that as the ones above them(the people actually in charge) actually respond and say please and thank you and acknowledge your existence.

Teams is actually better than email for getting responses. I kind of treat it like WhatsApp- short messages, a bit of banter, the odd emoji. If all else fails, there's always the tumbleweeds gif 😆