At your workplace, is the expectation that you will respond to emails in a timely fashion?

[Anonymous]

1-2 days for me. If important, flag on Teams. Others: 3-7 days. Bothers me. I feel like a few years ago in most places email response was quicker and just a day or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But this isn't an email from a manager or a client. Asking another group for their data is a notorious problem because you may need it but that doesn't mean they prioritize getting it to you, or even want you to have it. I've gotten emails like this in previous jobs where I'm forwarding it to my manager to figure out how we're going to handle this, and no responses are getting sent until that's sorted out.

You can acknowledge getting the request and say your team will get back to them.
Just not responding is poor form.

It depends on the org and how political the request is.

You would really just advise radio silence? I guess that does send a point in a political environment!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But this isn't an email from a manager or a client. Asking another group for their data is a notorious problem because you may need it but that doesn't mean they prioritize getting it to you, or even want you to have it. I've gotten emails like this in previous jobs where I'm forwarding it to my manager to figure out how we're going to handle this, and no responses are getting sent until that's sorted out.

You can acknowledge getting the request and say your team will get back to them.
Just not responding is poor form.

It depends on the org and how political the request is.

You would really just advise radio silence? I guess that does send a point in a political environment!

I've had jobs where I needed to get an answer before saying anything. It's not about me wanting to ignore them.

[Anonymous]

Some kind of response, even if it’s “I’m looking into this” is necessary within 1 business day. Slack/Chat/Teams if more urgent internally, call if externally

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But this isn't an email from a manager or a client. Asking another group for their data is a notorious problem because you may need it but that doesn't mean they prioritize getting it to you, or even want you to have it. I've gotten emails like this in previous jobs where I'm forwarding it to my manager to figure out how we're going to handle this, and no responses are getting sent until that's sorted out.

+1 all my emails are data requests or requests for permission to do something that can cost millions of dollars. We have to talk about that in house before we send anything out. Everything has to comply with the language of the contracts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But this isn't an email from a manager or a client. Asking another group for their data is a notorious problem because you may need it but that doesn't mean they prioritize getting it to you, or even want you to have it. I've gotten emails like this in previous jobs where I'm forwarding it to my manager to figure out how we're going to handle this, and no responses are getting sent until that's sorted out.

You can acknowledge getting the request and say your team will get back to them.
Just not responding is poor form.

It depends on the org and how political the request is.

You would really just advise radio silence? I guess that does send a point in a political environment!

We send 1 word replies to a lot of emails and that’s because we get tons of emails every day. If someone sends a one of email for some new request, they should’ve called or pinged first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like say someone emails you and says ‘I’m trying to determine X and I need access to the data from your group for blah blah’. What would be the general expectation for a response?


Respond with an acknowledgment within a day, although the substance might take longer
Respond with substance right away or withIn a day
Take a week to respond at all
No expectation

This is impossible to answer. It really depends how "customer service" oriented your group is. I've worked in divisions where we supply data to other parts of the company, and we responded very quickly in part because we wanted to justify our existence and have support for our existence from other divisions. I've also worked for the gov't (and an NGO) and data/information requests could be very political so we would typically not respond right away. Acknowledging emails in those environments frequently depended on individual personalities and how much they got along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But this isn't an email from a manager or a client. Asking another group for their data is a notorious problem because you may need it but that doesn't mean they prioritize getting it to you, or even want you to have it. I've gotten emails like this in previous jobs where I'm forwarding it to my manager to figure out how we're going to handle this, and no responses are getting sent until that's sorted out.

You can acknowledge getting the request and say your team will get back to them.
Just not responding is poor form.

It depends on the org and how political the request is.

I agree with this. There are days that I’m in meetings for 7+ hours and I am receive dozens of emails during that time. I skim for items flagged as important, or senders or topics I know are priorities. If it isn’t a priority, I may not even read an email for several days. It’s terrible, but we all have too much work to be more responsive, so this is also part of office culture.

[Anonymous]

These responses are amazing to me. I work in academia. 'Fast' at my workplace is a reply within 24 hours (as in people will thank you for your quick reply). That's about 10% of emails. Normal is maybe 3-10 days. That's about 40% of emails. I'd say half of emails simply go unanswered. I'd love to work in an environment where people answer emails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like say someone emails you and says ‘I’m trying to determine X and I need access to the data from your group for blah blah’. What would be the general expectation for a response?


Respond with an acknowledgment within a day, although the substance might take longer
Respond with substance right away or withIn a day
Take a week to respond at all
No expectation

At the very least I'd expect a prompt acknowledgment of my request if not the answers.

[Anonymous]

Within an hour, if you need longer than that then please give an acknowledgment email within the hour.

No expectation to respond outside of 9-5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Within an hour, if you need longer than that then please give an acknowledgment email within the hour.

No expectation to respond outside of 9-5.

All these people who want a response within an hour - do you ever pick up the phone? If it's urgent, I call people. If it has to be a written request, I still call to make sure they're available and that they saw my email or know to expect it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Within an hour, if you need longer than that then please give an acknowledgment email within the hour.

No expectation to respond outside of 9-5.

All these people who want a response within an hour - do you ever pick up the phone? If it's urgent, I call people. If it has to be a written request, I still call to make sure they're available and that they saw my email or know to expect it.

I don’t call because at my workplace the culture is to never answer the phone. Voicemails are transcribed and sent to email, and the response comes as an email.

[Anonymous]

I always tell people when I can get them the info they want. It could be hours or days, depending on workload.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Within an hour, if you need longer than that then please give an acknowledgment email within the hour.

No expectation to respond outside of 9-5.

All these people who want a response within an hour - do you ever pick up the phone? If it's urgent, I call people. If it has to be a written request, I still call to make sure they're available and that they saw my email or know to expect it.

m
That’s so annoying, though. I hate when anyone cold calls. If you want something urgent, text me. I’m going to ignore your call.