I was the CEO of three companies and I did my very best to send no emails between 7pm and 7am on weekdays and never on weekends. Yes, there were plenty of times when I broke that rule because of something critical but for myself I rarely worked in the evenings or on weekends because it was family time. I did respond to emails but I avoided initiating them.

Both this thread and the other one are truly nuts. The problem isn't email (which is, by its nature, asynchronous). The problem is that some employees seem to think that email demands an immediate response. Sometimes it does, but, if someone needs me to response at an odd time, I would expect a phone call as well. If people are sending email at odd times, are not calling, and are demanding immediate responses, then expectations are likely misplaced somewhere.

I send email messages when it is convenient for me to do so. That is one of the great advantages of the medium. There is no reason why anyone should have a problem with this. The idea of artificially delaying the sending of a message is even crazier, since it does not afford the recipient a chance to read the message if he should choose to check his mail at an odd time.

The whole thing is just insane. If employees have issues with work and time-management expectations, then they need to address those with their employers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outlook's delay feature only works on the desktop version. I work mostly in the online Outlook.

I would say 7am to 6pm. I often work until midnight, but I just load up my drafts in my email box. The next morning when I come in at 8am I send all my drafts. I have nothing to prove to anyone about how hard I'm working.

Several of my employees are in our Anchorage office (4 hour difference) and I often answer their phone calls and emails after 7pm (when my kids go to sleep).

This is absurd. The people in Alaska are four hours behind us. So if you are working at 9:00 pm, you don't send an email that would reach them at 5:0o, when they could reasonably deal with it? But you wait and sent it at 8:00 am the next day, which is 4:00 am for them? Silly.

I agree with the other posters who are befuddles as to why this bothers people at all.

PP here. No I send emails and interact with Alaska at night. I don't delay their emails. I can see when they're online however. We chat and call a lot at night with each other.

I'm not bothered at all by it. But I routinely work 9-12 hour days, while being paid for 8. It's management who gets upset at me the most because of overtime rules (I have never gotten overtime). I enjoy my work a lot. I will say that a lot of my night work is done in front of the TV and it's usually repetitive work that I hate to clog my day up with.

Email should not demand an immediate response unless you are on a deadline. As a person who creates the work, I do not check my email every 10 minutes and stop what I'm doing to respond. I would never get anything done. You can email me whenever you want and unless we are in a big push to get something out, I'll get back to you at my convenience, which is usually within 3 hours between 9am-6pm.

I think in regular times, 7am-7pm is acceptable. However, most people have to adjust their hours if they have children. Therefore, many people need to login again late at night to finish their work. I would only think emails between 1am and 5am are a little weird because I wonder why someone is awake during those hours.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outlook's delay feature only works on the desktop version. I work mostly in the online Outlook.

I would say 7am to 6pm. I often work until midnight, but I just load up my drafts in my email box. The next morning when I come in at 8am I send all my drafts. I have nothing to prove to anyone about how hard I'm working.

Several of my employees are in our Anchorage office (4 hour difference) and I often answer their phone calls and emails after 7pm (when my kids go to sleep).

This is absurd. The people in Alaska are four hours behind us. So if you are working at 9:00 pm, you don't send an email that would reach them at 5:0o, when they could reasonably deal with it? But you wait and sent it at 8:00 am the next day, which is 4:00 am for them? Silly.

I agree with the other posters who are befuddles as to why this bothers people at all.

That’s not what he said at all about his Alaska team. Why take the time to write a response to something he didn’t even say?

Anonymous wrote:Outlook's delay feature only works on the desktop version. I work mostly in the online Outlook.

I would say 7am to 6pm. I often work until midnight, but I just load up my drafts in my email box. The next morning when I come in at 8am I send all my drafts. I have nothing to prove to anyone about how hard I'm working.

Several of my employees are in our Anchorage office (4 hour difference) and I often answer their phone calls and emails after 7pm (when my kids go to sleep).

This is absurd. The people in Alaska are four hours behind us. So if you are working at 9:00 pm, you don't send an email that would reach them at 5:0o, when they could reasonably deal with it? But you wait and sent it at 8:00 am the next day, which is 4:00 am for them? Silly.

I agree with the other posters who are befuddles as to why this bothers people at all.

I send emails whenever I need to. If it is 6 am Sunday morning I do not expect a response until Monday morning.

Anonymous wrote:Outlook has a delay sending tool... it comes in handy when I’m working late at night

That said, set a culture where folks know they don’t have reapond (we have a lot of parents who fled outside fore hours).

I think we do have that culture where reasonable people understand that just because you get an email doesn’t mean you need to respond off hours...reasonable people understand. Unfortunately, we have some whiners among us who think it’s inappropriate to send any email off hours. Sigh.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why this gets people upset. I truly don’t. Professional courtesy gives 24 hours to respond to and email that isn’t marked urgent. If it is urgent, address it as soon as you possibly can given your personal circumstances. It is on the recipient to protect their personal time.

I don’t care what time something hits my in box. My working hours go from 830 am to 9/930 pm with breaks for kids activities in between.

Agree. Emails are non-urgent in our company. We use Slack for more time-sensitive material. If I send a slack message on the weekend, I usually explicitly state that it can wait until Monday.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why this gets people upset. I truly don’t. Professional courtesy gives 24 hours to respond to and email that isn’t marked urgent. If it is urgent, address it as soon as you possibly can given your personal circumstances. It is on the recipient to protect their personal time.

I don’t care what time something hits my in box. My working hours go from 830 am to 9/930 pm with breaks for kids activities in between.

This. I have employees in my office who send emails at 5 am. I respond when I log on at 9. I have breaks through the day to deal with young kids so I often get back on and work 9 pm to midnight. I send emails during that time and people respond the next day. It’s not at all an issue.

I don’t understand why this gets people upset. I truly don’t. Professional courtesy gives 24 hours to respond to and email that isn’t marked urgent. If it is urgent, address it as soon as you possibly can given your personal circumstances. It is on the recipient to protect their personal time.

I don’t care what time something hits my in box. My working hours go from 830 am to 9/930 pm with breaks for kids activities in between.

Outlook's delay feature only works on the desktop version. I work mostly in the online Outlook.

I would say 7am to 6pm. I often work until midnight, but I just load up my drafts in my email box. The next morning when I come in at 8am I send all my drafts. I have nothing to prove to anyone about how hard I'm working.

Several of my employees are in our Anchorage office (4 hour difference) and I often answer their phone calls and emails after 7pm (when my kids go to sleep).

Outlook has a delay sending tool... it comes in handy when I’m working late at night

That said, set a culture where folks know they don’t have reapond (we have a lot of parents who fled outside fore hours).

S/o from the other thread.

If coworkers and subordinates get upset when you email too early or too late, then what is appropriate?

Next: how should you handle different time zones?