The policy is to prevent hourly employees from working outside of their shift, because your company doesn’t want to pay overtime.

My old company had a wage and hour audit, and we had a lot of hourly employees checking their email after hours, but not declaring the time. We could just tell them not to do it, but then inevitably some salaried employee would have sent them an email and there would have been an expectation (on someone’s part) that the email was answered immediately.

This policy protects the company from this kind of issue.

I’m salaried. I don’t have alerts on my work email on my phone. If it’s urgent, my boss texts me. Sometimes I have to work after hours to catch up. I send emails, but I don’t expect responses until the next business day.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg turn on DND.

It’s 2025, it’s not my job to make sure your email is not arriving during dinner time. E-mail. It’s not a phone call. It’s not even a text. It’s the most non urgent communication imaginable. People work all hours now, for flexibility not necessarily urgency or long hours.

Op. This is why we have tools to delay delivery. Look, it it’s the old guy in finance who still has his admin help set up his meetings, fine. But these are tech guys who have every tool imaginable to streamline their work. They shouldn’t need to send emails at midnight.

Than company should just delay all mail until morning.

We have Team, Text, and Phone calls for actually urgent things. E-mail is never urgent in my industry, and we are in call public safety.

But the right answer is people like Op turn off notifications on work email.

I don’t understand the panic over receiving an email in off hours. It’s inherently asynchronous communication. You’re expected to respond when you’re available.

This, 1000x. OP doesn't understand how email works.

Yes, sending email messages at all hours is common. As long as there is no expectation of an immediate response (and, as someone else noted, anything requiring an immediate response should not come in the form of an email message), people are free to respond when they are available. This is the whole point of asynchronous communication.

If you don't want to be bothered by work email off-hours, then don't check your work email off-hours. Simple. (OP: this is a you problem)

Delaying a message is pointless and counterproductive. If it is convenient for me to send a message at 1:00am, that is fine. If it is convenient for you to reply to it at 6:00am (or 8:00am or 10:00am), that is fine. If I didn't send it until 9:00am, you wouldn't be able to reply at 6:00am if that time were convenient for you.

I am always flabbergasted when this topic comes up here (as it does from time to time). I will never understand why people are so offended by the concept of asynchronous communication, and the idea that different people lead different lives and that different times are convenient for different people.

My public sector office sends emails at all hours. It's considered family friendly because they're allowing people to work later at night so they can spend time with their families.

I think you're completely in the wrong OP. Put on your dnd or just don't answer when you aren't on work hours. I personally like receiving emails when they're sent. Although as a fed we can't telework any more so everyone leaves their laptops at work and doesn't turn work phones on at home. People are afraid that checking email will get them in trouble.

I work with people in other time zones. Their emails are often not during my work day or even while awake. As a fed, I only get them on my laptop (no personal phones). When I worked from home, I did done evening work at times but now my laptop generally stayed at the office . Emails wait did the morning.

Someone tell that to our payroll system. It emails pay stubs to us when it does the processing at midnight.

Anonymous wrote:I am in one of those companies where we are having a "let's see who can send an email at the craziest hour to prove they have blind loyalty to the firm" contests. Really, unless it is about a critical issue, why do it?

Because people can send emails when it’s convenient for them. It’s not convenient for you to respond at all hours so why are you checking email outside of your work hours and tgen getting worked up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg turn on DND.

It’s 2025, it’s not my job to make sure your email is not arriving during dinner time. E-mail. It’s not a phone call. It’s not even a text. It’s the most non urgent communication imaginable. People work all hours now, for flexibility not necessarily urgency or long hours.

Op. This is why we have tools to delay delivery. Look, it it’s the old guy in finance who still has his admin help set up his meetings, fine. But these are tech guys who have every tool imaginable to streamline their work. They shouldn’t need to send emails at midnight.

OP you are responsible for managing your anxiety. Turn on your DND and deal with the emails during business hours. And stop whining about “the rules”. Grow up and manage your own behavior.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the panic over receiving an email in off hours. It’s inherently asynchronous communication. You’re expected to respond when you’re available.

This.

Anonymous wrote:this even though our HR gives regular updates about not doing this.

Ironically the people who do this most often are the men who work in technology, and who therefore should know how to delay delivery of an email so it arrives during regular hours instead of at midnight.

Fwiw these are never urgent emails, and very often any minimal urgency is caused by their delay.

How would you handle?

I don’t always respond right away, but if I see an email from work pop up, I’m going to end up thinking about it.

I work for myself and sometimes do this. Other towns I schedule to send the next business morning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg turn on DND.

It’s 2025, it’s not my job to make sure your email is not arriving during dinner time. E-mail. It’s not a phone call. It’s not even a text. It’s the most non urgent communication imaginable. People work all hours now, for flexibility not necessarily urgency or long hours.

Op. This is why we have tools to delay delivery. Look, it it’s the old guy in finance who still has his admin help set up his meetings, fine. But these are tech guys who have every tool imaginable to streamline their work. They shouldn’t need to send emails at midnight.

Good lord, op. You can’t control other people only your response to them.

OP, you are conflating two things. You ASKED US if it's normal. Yes it's normal to send emails any and all times. I think you see the consensus. It's on the receiver to control their workday.

THEN you said it's against the rules at YOUR company. Well, great. Follow the rules at your company. Stop arguing with us.

Boomers gonna boom, they don't know how to use email delay, let alone make a PDF

I am confused there is only imaginary working hours of off the clock called core hours.

I send emails when on line. You respond when you want. You are OOO I respect that.

Last night at 930 pm I worked out an issue as other person on line. My wife goes to bed early at 9pm I stay up to 11 pm so often do work at that time. I also as soon as get up at 630 a respond before showering. After showering I follow up then around 930am to 430 pm I focus work and rarely ever email. Send out or respond. My computer used to say core hours 10am to 4pm and that was Monk Mode. I either be working, at Dentist, oil change whatever. Did not want to be harassed during core work hours.

If you actually don't know if these are urgent or not, talk to your manager about how to handle them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg turn on DND.

It’s 2025, it’s not my job to make sure your email is not arriving during dinner time. E-mail. It’s not a phone call. It’s not even a text. It’s the most non urgent communication imaginable. People work all hours now, for flexibility not necessarily urgency or long hours.

Op. This is why we have tools to delay delivery. Look, it it’s the old guy in finance who still has his admin help set up his meetings, fine. But these are tech guys who have every tool imaginable to streamline their work. They shouldn’t need to send emails at midnight.

You can only control yourself. Turn on DND and be at peace.