Are colleagues taking longer to reply / not replying to work emails now?

[JoyousOpalLemur]

Are people responding less to work emails now, or is it just me?

I've been in various jobs for more than a quarter of a century and started noticing pre Covid that some people took ages to respond to emails, or didn't respond at all. I initially thought it was just them, either they're poor at emailing or poor at work generally.

But since Covid, this has massively ramped up.

I've wondered if it's maybe me but I'm regularly cc'ed in group emails that start 'John, have you had a chance to deal with this email..'. I've wondered if it's younger people joining the workforce and coming from a WhatsApp culture rather than an email one, in which you either respond immediately or never, but there are several people in their 30s, 40s and 50s also doing this (although probably the majority are in their 20s and early 30s).

All the emails I'm referring to will require some sort of action. For some, it's just a simple not-that-important yes, no or will find that out for you, for a client, but not responding will be seen as rude, others it's essential for the business that something is done.

Is this a thing you've noticed or is it just me?

Not noticed it in my work. Quicker questions now done on teams apart from that I would say majority of people are responsive

No, I always reply in a timely manner. Anything else is rude.

I don’t even look at my emails. If someone wants to contact me they can use Teams or Slack.

I’ve worked in several companies and the idea of emailing someone inside your own company is a bit bonkers, it’s like posting them a letter.

I will purposely delay my responses to some people when they send me stupid emails where they could have looked up the answer themselves in the same time it has taken to write the email.

if you answer too quickly you become a tool for other people to use instead of being able to do your own job.

Some people never replied to email before COVID so nothing much has changed.

My rule of thumb is based on the speed of the response needed - phone, Teams then email in that order. If I don't get a response to any of those I'll make an executive decision and hard cheese if they don't like it (when it's within my remit obviously)

isn't it part of your job description to respond to emails?

Why is sending an email to a colleague the same as posting a letter to them, but Teams is not? In both cases they receive the comms immediately?

(I should add, as well, this isn't just colleagues, I've noticed it increasingly with some, particularly younger, clients as well. They barely do phone and email, but instant messaging on Teams isn't applicable. I've also noticed some colleagues simply don't respond to some difficult questions on Teams).

I work in the public sector and whilst our remit has massively increased, our capacity hasn’t and neither has our salary much. So I triage, and also ignore emails and Teams messages asking for stuff that can be easily found on our intranet. I don’t work more than the hours I’m paid for.

My industry is currently experiencing a financial crisis with lots of redundancies, staff not being replaced, sick leave etc but without a drop in expectations, increased targets etc. This means that the average person is doing the work of 3-4 people and this is resulting in service delays. Despite this being very public and folk using auto-responses on emails and sending out regular service updates, most of our service users still seems surprised by service delays.

I do agree with the PP who noted that emails asking for info which could be easily found elsewhere, are pushed to the bottom of the list during triage - agree that it's dangerous to become that kind of tool.

I’m not experiencing this, however I do think in some cases there is an overload of communication via email and teams messaging, chats etc which can mean that it is impossible to actually get any work done.

Definitely not where I work.

Definitely happening in my public sector job. I think it's really rude and poor communication to not even acknowledge with a thanks, or we even have a thumbs up emoji now which takes a second.

I'm going to start writing 'please confirm you've received this email, thanks' or similar I think.

Internal emails should be avoided at all costs. Is there Slack or some other internal messaging system?

Perhaps younger people arent as stupid as us older people and realise you get paid exactly the same whether you reply quickly or slowly. Good on them, perhaps that will mean less martyring people in the workforce. No one values something that’s always available they value what’s scarce.

Why should internal emails be avoided? I do not understand this.

And it's not just colleagues who are responding less.

I receive 100-150 emails a day and have between 4-7 hours of meetings a day. If each of those emails has an action, requirimg various amounts of time, how to fit it all in? It’s easy to miss some.

There are some people and mailboxes where you know they won’t respond. I imagine they are similar to some of the people here based on some of the responses. They essentially slow everything down and stop work progressing and being closed down or mean that other colleagues in their team are overloaded because everyone bypasses them and goes to someone who will respond. I think there always have been some people like this but agree it’s worse now. I have a small team where someone operates like this leaving their more diligent colleague to pick up the work. This type of person also often ignores meeting requests so you don’t know whether they will turn up or not and doesn’t reject meetings when they are on leave. Basic manners and respect for colleagues. We have to use emails as work is complex and often requires the input of several different teams. I only use teams for chasing people up around a deadline or for quicker more informal contact.

I certainly am - because my workload has increased massively and I can no longer reply to emails straight away. I'm not young, been working since I graduated in 1991, but I am thoroughly pissed off at the amount of work I do - years ago it would have been the job of 2 or 3 people, but yanno, cutbacks.

100% this! The gen z people i work with are amazing, conscientious workers so I don't think it's that. But again and again people have left and not been replaced, while the work volume has remained the same (if not increased as our team absorb work from other teams where THEIR staff have left and not been replaced). I have always prided myself on my customer service but these days have to start almost every email with "apologies for the delay in getting back to you", it's rubbish.

As an ADHD person, email is the one I struggle with and I have a well-worn series of reminders and hacks set up with my team (if I am about to receive an urgent email, they text me as well, and my manager specifically asks me to check my unread email twice a day to make sure nothing is missed). Some things still slip through the net. I do work in a notoriously email-clogged organisation though and a lot of people don’t respond well.

I think this is the problem for most people.

There’s just not enough hours in the day. Also my priorities are different to the people sending me emails so their urgent isn’t my urgent 🤷‍♀️

I think this is a terrible attitude. It’s not martyring yourself to want to do a good job, especially a job you’re being paid to do.

But when do you do any work if you’re in meetings all day? What job do you do?

I read the book 4000 weeks and it really reframed how I saw my work - I used to be an inbox zero. But my job is to do my work, not reply to emails. I look at them twice a day, I trust that if it’s urgent I’ll get chased, and I’m no longer ruled by my inbox. I also care less if people think I’m less productive, as I’m doing more of my actual work…
I also agree that post pandemic, there’s been a shift in how important people see their work. I admire Gen Z for having a much better attitude to it.

I agree and this is why everything is getting crapper to be honest people just don't care anymore about doing a decent job but obviously this then rebounds on everybody.

My view is that if you're supposed to be working then do your job. I appreciate that a lot of Gen Z live at home still and are more interested in their phones but I don't see this as a positive thing for society I'm afraid.

Yes it’s a problem for us but it’s mainly because we also use Teams, WhatsApp, SMS, and several internal apps for communicating so email just adds to the noise. The exchange immediacy of Teams and the other apps makes an email seem like ‘it can wait‘ which often leads to them getting forgotten. Also I’m sure my Outlook inbox has a mind of its own, some emails appear then disappear all the time.