Limiting Evening Emails

[mwnci]

Hi, I'm sure many of you are all too familiar with the culture of staff emailing in the evening at weekends. We are having a look at how this affects the wellbeing of staff and there are quite a few studies (Here and Here) that confirm that the effect is not positive. We are looking to reduce the number of work emails that are sent and read in the evening.

 

In order for this to work, there needs to be buy in from senior leaders. Assuming that this in place, what practical measures can be put in place to support this?

 

We use Office 365 email, and although I don't want an outright block on emails sent out of hours, I want to provide some technical solutions to staff to help limit their exposure to emails. Any ideas?

[crc-ict]

I would argue that this is not an issue that needs a technical solution.

 

If your staff are using their e-mail through the Office 365 portal, they need to actively logon in order to read e-mails and so surely the solution is if you do not want to receive e-mails in the evening, don't open your e-mail?!

 

I suppose if staff have their e-mail accounts on phones etc they may be getting notifications, but again, if you don't want instant notification of e-mails 24/7, don't put the account on a device that you use 24/7.

 

I decided a while ago that for my own wellbeing, I didn't want work e-mails out of hours, so I simply turned off notifications for that account on my phone.

[RichCowell]

I was asked about this some time ago, and spent quite a bit of time looking into the options (though there may be better options now, it was a few years ago) - in the end SLT listed to the advice that it does not need a technical solution, and that staff just need to be asked/told not to email out of hours.

 

Our Head announced that in briefing once and the reduction in out of hours emails was remarkable... They still happen of course, but only usually more important ones, and everyone knows they are not expected to act/reply out of hours, so there is less of a feeling of obligation to deal with things there and then.

 

Like @crc-ict - I disabled notifications for my school emails on my phone - still syncing, so I can check them quickly if I need to, but I'm not hounded by them all evening/weekend...

[elsiegee40]

This one rears its head on EduGeek at least once a year.

 

The solution is a management one rather than a physical one.

 

Policy has to be written and backed by SLT (not just lip service when someone fails to respond in ‘an emergency’ they couldn’t be expected to cover)

 

People should be encouraged not to have work email on personal devices, use out of office, given the confidence that their career won’t end because they really are only checking their emails in their contractual time (important for those who are part time, term time only and/or work non-standard hours)

 

Don’t forget about GDPR and SAR. There are legal time limits which may be exceeded if some email accounts are not monitored out of a person’s contracted hours.

[mwnci]

A agree that the issue is firstly a management issue. The biggest issue is mobile devices and notifications - if you have your account set up and have notifications turned on... you know the rest.

We can have a policy regarding when to allow emailing, but sometimes flexibility and pragmatism is required. Staff need to know how to effectively use their mobile devices to limit their exposure to work emails when they want and allow them access when they want. And this is where the technical element comes in.

[leegcvcc]

I was told by a part-time teacher not so long ago that getting the email on her work phone, on her day off, regarding an Ofsted visit the next day was a god-send! She knew what she was coming into and had a bit of time to prepare (maybe just mentally)

 

There are times when it's really useful for folk but striking a balance seems to be an issue. Can't have your cake and eat it?

[elsiegee40]

I was told by a part-time teacher not so long ago that getting the email on her work phone, on her day off, regarding an Ofsted visit the next day was a god-send! She knew what she was coming into and had a bit of time to prepare (maybe just mentally)

 

There are times when it's really useful for folk but striking a balance seems to be an issue. Can't have your cake and eat it?

In an Ofsted emergency there's the telephone. People who don't know can be telephoned or texted and ask to check their email because Ofsted are coming. It doesn't require people to be checking email in case the call comes

[leegcvcc]

In an Ofsted emergency there's the telephone. People who don't know can be telephoned or texted and ask to check their email because Ofsted are coming. It doesn't require people to be checking email in case the call comes

That's a fair point! Probably a management decision to how beneficial it is to the school by informing staff in a different way. Good call

[rdk]

I'm a teacher as well as having some IT admin responsibilities and I deal with a lot of work email after hours. If I'm working at home I would rather get the email and deal with it then if possible, rather than wait till 8:30 the next morning when a load arrive and it might not be until late afternoon or evening when I can deal with things. And when I've dealt with someone's problem or answered their question I want to send a "done" email immediately. In short, it would mean more work, not less, to have restrictions on sending (and thus receiving) out of hours email.

[synaesthesia]

Our policy is simple: no email after 7pm. You may choose to break that rule if you so wish, it's up to you, and it's up to others whether they choose to read them but there is NO obligation to do so. It's purely management. Putting restrictions in place from a technology point of view is going to be a hindrance and in some cases possibly dangerous.

 

For us as IT staff it's often useful to do something later in the evening as there's often little chance we get for downtime, restarting a server or making a change and we may as well email out at the same time about it. It's there in the morning then.