Am I being unfair about an employee needing a catch-up day?

[StartupRepair]

I have a member of my team who seems to make a huge production out of this. He announces that he will spend his first day back reading and catching up on his email..While away he has an out of office on and anything urgent or important comes to me or other team members so there should be nothing serious in his inbox. Just updates. I find it really annoying and don't know if it is just a low level irritation that I have with him. I do find him a bit pompous and he tends to over engineer a lot of work.
I am a fast reader and can skim lots of emails in a short time and identify what is important. But maybe it is unfair to judge him as he has different skills.
He is returning on Monday after 4 weeks leave and I already a bit annoyed that his first day back will be kind of lost.
Open to opinions on whether I am an unfair manager to judge this.

I get about 400 emails a week. That’s 1,600 emails I’d have after 4 weeks. Most won’t be urgent because of my out of office, but at least a quarter will be for me to actually read, understand, action or file.

Working through that is easily a days work - and I’m known for being quick and efficient, but half a day after holidays is always to clear down my inbox and sort my diary for all the clashing invites that have gone in. If I’d taken 4 weeks off, that’s definitely a full days work.

I always have my out of office on a day early and a day late to accommodate for this.

I don't understand the issue, are these emails not work emails? So he is doing work? If the issues are already dealt with but still sitting in his inbox as duplicates so they look like unread then that's a failure of your system. I would think any diligent employee would want to feel they are up to date on everything that went on in their absence before launching into new things. Most people need to assess and plan before getting into the detailed stuff, this is how they can structure the week ahead and get prioritise the right things. Also after 4 weeks off it's ok to feel a bit disorientated the first morning and need a few extra minutes to get the brain going again. I think you are being unreasonable. I'm wondering is there a culture where staff are expected to read emails at home and on weekends because you seem to think this doesn't count as proper work.

It’s not about feeling they have to - it’s doing you a favour getting rid of the shite you no longer need to deal with!

You sound like an awful manager to be honest. Everybody hates micromanagement.
Of course he needs a good chunk of time to get up to speed.
What job does he do where you need to decide his day and how long to work on each task?

Pretty normal surely. Whether the emails are urgent or not he still needs to read them and get up to speed on what’s been happening while he’s been off.

I also think it’s fine for you to intervene and say I know you haven’t caught up on everything yet but could you set aside half of your day to start working on this or just leave the emails and work on this please. You can gradually catch up the rest of the week on emails etc, there’s nothing urgent there.

I think a day is fair to read emails and get up to speed on what has happened in his absence. But it sounds like you don't like him or his work ways anyway so maybe this is a symptom of a bigger problem. I would maybe give him the morning to read emails and then have a catch up meeting in the afternoon when you can outline your expectations for the rest of the week

This is one of the reasons I left a job, holidays were often spoiled with dreading the first day back at work. Colleagues often didn’t action tasks because it was close to me returning (they couldn’t be bothered), meanwhile cases were coming in first thing. I found I was still catching up weeks later. Very unhealthy - some time allocated to everyone returning from leave should be normal x

I had a manager who set their out of office to the day after they returned to work to give them a chance to catch up - obviously they were available if needed but made it very clear they were spending time getting up to speed and were happy for us to do the same. She was a fab manager and I wish I still had her!

Yes - I dread taking time off work/returning because I know what I come back to

I think you are being incredibly unreasonable as you make it sound like it’s just going to be emails about work that’s been done.

What about emails with organisational updates or newsletters he needs to read, Teams messages, intranet articles, all the other random stuff that comes up?

I manage a small team and wouldn’t dream of refusing them some time to catch up. You sound very overbearing and unpleasant to work for.

Yes me too. I am the sort of person who never has any unread emails in my inbox so I would find it quite stressful not being able to work through them after four weeks leave

You need a filter on your emails. Ignore everything you were cc’d on. Only read the top of the chain, only urgent ones. Reviewing all 750 is not efficient in any way. They are not all important! Get AI to help if needed. Ask a colleague or boss to highlight major stuff.

I think that changes things. It seems he will be going to meetings on that day, so not spending his whole time reading emails.

I think you are being unreasonable to micro manage him. Tell him what you want him to do and by when, then it’s up to him how he does it. That’s being a good manager, not dictate his working time. Some people need to feel caught up and read things in detail, others are happy to skim things and do things in tandem. Neither is better than the other, it’s just a different way of addressing things.

It might make you feel better but it’s not efficient!

I'm genuinely intrigued about those saying they delete emails or just skim read. Who are all these emails from? I presume we aren't talking about just junk folder stuff. They must be from clients or internal colleagues. Why aren't they being dealt with properly then. People dont randomly send emails for a laugh, they obviously have a purpose. Some of the replies here are really giving me insight into why dealing with so many businesses is a joke with staff ignoring their customers or replying with something stupid that shows they misread the query. And then there's OPs attitude that this doesn't count as real work.

I don't think it's a day lost. I always aim for a quiet day on my first day back after a holiday, and that's partly to get myself back into work mode. Being told what has happened in relation to matters he is dealing with is not really the same as understanding the background to decisions etc, so he may need to read those email chains. The chances are that he is doing some work in amongst the catching up; for instance, if the catch-up process shows that the next step is now due, I suspect he goes on to take that next step. Given that he is also attending a departmental meeting, it seems like a perfectly sensible way to spend his first day back.

Very unfair on him. He could have hundreds of emails to sift through.

I was also going to suggest he uses AI to look for urgent / important emails where he has an action or info he needs to know. One of the things that it is brilliant at. I suspect, if he’s the officious type, he won’t like that suggestion though!

I agree. It's probably massively on his mind that his inbox is full and he needs to clear that and then start again with a clean slate .
I would feel exactly the same tbh.

For an example I deal with repairs for properties where the tenants are vulnerable both mentally and physically. I know stuff has been missed before, I know families don’t trust it will get sorted unless they deal with me, I know repairs get missed in homes where it is necessary or gets passed on to external agencies and these things go on so absolutely I want to make sure my vulnerable tenants are safe and comfortable. So I absolutely will spend time reading all emails to ensure nothing has been missed and and our vulnerable tenants are ok despite my current manager telling me it is sorted

I think that's quite stupid. If, say, I was inquiring about placing a big order with a company and received that email, I certainly wouldn't be carefully making a note and emailing them again after the set date - I would just go and find another company prepared to demonstrate that they care about and can deal with my order. There are certain legal processes where you have complied with requirements by serving a document; you could be seriously wrong-footed if you don't know what has been sent.

Unless this person is a complete one-man band, I don't see why he doesn't just have an out of office message referring people to someone else, and have that person checking his email inbox. Even if he is a one man band, how can it hurt actually to spend a bit of time on his return from holiday going through his inbox?

I am the CEO of a Company - so just as 'important' as you. I can easily filter and prioritise my inbox, then action outcomes in the days or weeks after my leave has concluded. Do you expect to take leave then have a period post leave of exclusively catching up on actions, that have arisen from email.

My world is not quite that black and white. I just don't get the luxury of taking more leave after leave to catch up.

Max of one morning should be enough I’d say. After 4 weeks most of the important stuff would presumably have been dealt with anyway, he sounds like a skiver.

I try to keep my first day back from holiday as a catch up day. I don't literally read emails the whole day. Depends on the job onviously but for me it means that I don't book big meetings that I have to run etc. Just a day where u can read my emails, react to them as necessary. Catch up on the project situstion, make a to do list. Continue with lower effort work tasks etc.

This thread is quite a rollercoaster. To clarify, I am really not a micromanager. I give my team autonomy in how and when they do their work. I am not going to tell him how to spend his day. Other than 2 meetings his day is his own. He will be WFH as will I. I noticed my reaction to his declaration that he will take the day and am interested to see what others think. Everyone agrees that he will need some time to catch up..As he is someone who often makes a meal of simple tasks I suspect he may get sidetracked and read everything without sifting but I am not going to be standing over him.