Are you guilty of ‘just checking’ your emails after work and then acting upon them? If so then you could be doing yourself a disservice.
New evidence suggests that checking emails after work especially during an office crisis is not good for your wellbeing.
Your personality may be an aid in terms of the degree of pressure you feel to always have your works email account open, employers are now being urged to have policies in place so as to avoid employees allowing work to spill into their home life.
Future Work Centre questioned 2,000 people in a variety of industries and jobs for their report ‘You’ve got mail!’
Dr Richard MacKinnon, insight director at the Future Work Centre, said: “The habits we develop, the emotional reactions we have to messages and the unwritten organisational etiquette around email, combine into a toxic source of stress which could be negatively impacting our productivity and wellbeing.”
Weekends
“If a manager sends an email at night to a subordinate or colleague then the message is that we expect you to be available 24/7. The alternative is to close the server down at the weekend and in the evening and there are companies that are doing that,” CIPD president professor Cary Cooper said.
62% of those surveyed indicated that they left their emails on all day. The evidence indicated that those most likely to leave emails on all day were younger people this equates to around 80% of 15 – 24 year olds, of the older age groups around 50% of those aged 55 and over would leave their email account on all day.
Pressure
IT, marketing, PR media and internet sectors are where the pressure is at its height. Within this group 30% said they received over 50 emails per day and 65% said their email account was always open.
An association of high levels of perceived email pressure was associated with checking emails before work or at night the study found. Managers were more likely to experience high levels of perceived email pressure compared to non-managers.
Comment
At some time in our working life we complain about our work life balance and yet we are the biggest contributors to our own pressure. Try to leave work at work concentrate on your family and friends work will always be there tomorrow. There is nothing so urgent in the course of a normal day that cannot be carried over until tomorrow and besides what can you do in the middle of the night when all other offices are closed?
