When is it okay to send email? Interesting new research shows attempts to address work/life balance by imposing emails curfews may be missing the mark.
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Out-of-hours email bans could be doing workers more harm than good […] with the measures reportedly inducing stress rather than easing it.“
Institute of Leadership & Management
I’m not surprised. A one-size-fits-all approach never fits everyone. In a world where people increasingly seek mastery and autonomy, a world of compassionate and flexible leadership, such moves only diminish the individual’s autonomy.
Just this weekend I found myself writing an email, because it was top of mind. I then sat for ten minutes wrangling over whether I should send it immediately or remember to do it Monday morning.
When is it okay to send email
So how can we do this better, while acknowledging a person’s right to disconnect after work?
Design your alliance
The answer for me is clear, and it’s a skill straight out of the coach’s playbook – talk about it within your team and agree together how you will work. In short, design your alliance around how you work with email. Acknowledge the different preferences and agree expectations.
Most important is that the alliance is shown to be honored – or trust is lost. The alliance can of course be re-designed, after further conversation and reflecting on experience.
Be a good coach
Designing your alliance, or contracting, is a crucial coaching skill. And here’s a great place to practice it. Why? Because coaching is a key behavior of successful leaders.
Google’s Project Oxygen ranked ‘be a good coach’ at the top of their 10 behaviors of Google’s best managers.
So next time you’re thinking of sending that late night email, pause and remember what your team agreed. If you haven’t had that conversation yet, consider what may induce least stress for the receiver.
And what about my weekend email? I’ll be honest – I only recently discovered GMail’s schedule send feature. That resolved my anxiety and I queued my email there and then, happy knowing I wouldn’t forget to send it on Monday.
Join the conversation
What are your policies on sending emails?
My request – will you talk with your team, today, and ask what their expectations and needs are around email hygiene? (you can say yes, no, or counter-offer).
I use to let all of my reports know that if they receive an email after-hours that they are not obligated to respond until the next business day they are in the office. However, I found that some people still feel “obligated” to respond. Now with the Gmail schedule feature, I go ahead and write the email but schedule it for delivery the next business day.
In general, I try to make sure that everyone in my reporting structure knows that when they are off-hours or on vacation they should try not to work and use that time for recharging. With that said I still maintain flexibility for those people who split their days due to personal schedules and need to work outside the normal hours. I just make sure to introduce them to the Gmail schedule feature.
That’s a good observation Keith – that despite words reinforcing no expectation, the action of sending after-hours message speaks louder, and can be seen as contrary to the words.
Despite best efforts, the actions of authority still generate expectations within some. The schedule-send (for non urgent comms) removes that potential anxiety, and generates better optics.