Working from home has been great. Saving time from travelling to and from work, more time to sleep in, more time for family etc. But at the same time, I find that I am getting emails/calls from work colleagues even outside of working hours, sometimes with the expectation that I reply immediately even though it is after work hours or on a weekend.
Just out of curiosity, what's your experience so far?
I haven't received E-mails or calls from your work colleagues. lol
I'm glad you haven't too, they really shouldn't ;)
Thanks for the tip, I'll try it and hopefully they'll get the hint
Putting a daily out of office is a bit overkill. Just don't answer. They will soon learn.
Surprisingly this isn't easy to do in Outlook, you have to manually turn the 'out of office' on and off every day
8 years ago when the android app was released, it had an hours of operation feature that you could use. After about a year or two they took it out and it's never gone back in. I get the feeling like MS was cutting a deal with enterprise people to say "research shows that 90% of emails get responded to outside of hours if we notify the recipient on their phone, so take advantge of their time outside of hours to get work done!"
More likely or typical of them to say: that's a feature only available in the E5 license when they do roll it out.
You can get around this by restricting data access to the Outlook app for certain times of day
Use the well being settings
@Tleyx: That's a good work around but why should we need one? Removing a function that was there for no apprrent reason and making us do that just seems sinister
@Jackson: Agree but…
Change the things I can change, and accept the things I can't
There's probably a way to set up phone lists and send certain groups to vm after hours as well but I am not 100%
I agree. Line is now blurred.
I get e-mails outside of work hours, but it's not expected I reply to them immediately.
I find that I am getting emails/calls from work colleagues even outside of working hours
Turn your work phone off unless you are paid to be on call.
Agree.. That's why I keep two phones, when my work phone rings I know it's work related. Would rather pay the price of carrying two phones instead of using my work phone as a personal number (or vice versa)
Not to mention your work phone isn't yours and might be monitored.
This, I always request to have a dedicated work phone/number.
Although most companies offer to just pay for your existing service.
I had a work phone at my previous job, you need to turn it off. Even the ringing or seeing the screen turn on is interrupting your personal time, for me it would also mean I would start worrying about work for at least the next 10-15 minutes.
After a few years of only really having a few hours of at a time it wears you down, unless that is what you are paid for.
I keep mine in the car. I return missed calls on the way to work.
I occasionally receive emails outside of normal work hours however I do not see them until the following morning when I turn on my laptop. I refuse to setup my work email account on my phone. Separation is important. Nobody else is going to fix this problem for you.
Separation is important.
Is it really though? I've found that my life has become much better when I'm no longer obsessed with separation.
I actually really hated the whole culture of cramming the most amount of work possible into the least amount of time possible just so that I could have a few more hours free at the end of the day.
I would work absolute lights out under high stress to get everything done so that I could go home earlier and by the time I'm home, I was just exhausted, was hard to spend quality time with my family, and I hated going to sleep dreading waking up and repeating. My life was separated, but I enjoyed neither.
At some point, I figured that it was better to just not separate anymore. During the day, I felt less pressure during the day knowing that I could just finish up the work later that night in time for our morning meeting. I took more breaks during the day, went outside more, socialised more. When I was bored on Sunday night, I would start replying to emails so that I wouldn't have to get to it first thing Monday morning and it feels great - I can have a coffee and relax on Monday morning as opposed to trying to catch up on all of my emails.
Most importantly, I spent more quality time with my family because I felt a sense of control over how I could spend my time and working at a capacity I felt comfortable with rather than trying to chase after the 9 - 5 grind all the time. I actually enjoy life a lot more.
Sounds like the real issue is you being pushed to complete more than one person is capable of, or you're not very effective at what you do. In my experience it's usually the former.
I work in a high pressure environment with high standards. We're all paid accordingly, so I've no cause to complain, but I do always try and find a way to make the work more enjoyable and deliver better quality work.
I don’t resonate with this at all. I am not at all obsessed with the separation, it just is what it is, it’s a given. I get paid a full time salary but spend half of my day on the couch - I think you have a much higher workload than I do. I hope you are financially rewarded for this appropriately.
Yeah agree. Flexibility is much better than separation.
I WFH now and find the work life balance waaaaay better, even with the occasionally message, email, or even small bit of work outside my normal work hours.
Because it also goes the other way and I can go do personal things during my work hours.
That's what I was trying to say - you said it better than me.
There's a big difference between working outside of business hours by your own choice and feeling pressured to work outside of business hours because others are imposing themselves on you.
Username does not check out (unless you're OPs boss)
If it's a 24 hour world, and I'm working 24 hours, they better be paying me 24 hours.
You forgot the /s
I feel like it is sarcasm, but then I see the username and remember his previous posts…
It happens, I accept it. But you also get the upside from WFH.
I like it. Gives me flexibility to do stuff during the day (go our for a walk, do some gardening, hang out with the kids) and then catch up on work at night when you can't do those things as easily.
Yes same here. Sometimes during the day I'm not that productive but I can do an hour or two after dinner to make up for it
Until HR finds out and reminds you that your working are 9-5 or whatever.
HR don't know and don't care. If your line manager/team are okay with it then you're okay.
Why would HR care? It's not their role or place to be getting involved in these sorts of matters. If they are, I'd definitely be looking to move elsewhere.
Sounds good if you don't need to collaborate with others. I would much rather work at night but I need to constantly work with other teams which means within defined hours to get a response.
Good for those who prefers flexibility but the most important thing is to set up expectations.
I've experienced the same thing, but I actually prefer how my life is now vs. back when I was in the office.
Back when we worked in the office, I would be up at 7.30am, rushing to get out of the house at 8am to get to the office around 8.45am. I'll be working until around 6pm, then aim to get home by 6.45pm - 7pm. So I'm out around 11 hours.
These days, I'll usually wake up and relax for a bit, have a coffee, do all of my morning routine stuff. I'll usually jump on my computer at around 9.30am, so that's the "start of the day" for me, and similarly, I'll work until around 6pm. I'll have dinner with my family, spend some time with them, and usually by around 8.30pm, I'll jump back on to reply to emails and do some other work until 11pm or whenever, when I clock off. Overall, similar number of hours, but I feel so much better.
The best thing, however, is that cutting out the travel time is fantastic. Travelling used to be the most stressful part of the day. Nothing like losing my shit because some traffic accident or train delay means I'll be late for a meeting. Also nothing as shit as having to stay at work late because things need to be done and everyone's just high stress and pushy because everyone wants to go home.
If WFH has improved something, I think it's that it's reduced stress levels. If it's 6pm and things still need to be done, that's fine, I'm just going to clock off for dinner and jump back in a few hours when I actually want to. The key, IMO, is to just set the right expectations from your colleagues. Plenty of times, I've been asked to do things in my off time, my response is just "hey, I'll be off between 6 - 9pm to spend with my family, but I'll do it later tonight", and nobody has ever pushed back against that. In fact, I've been given really good feedback on my dedication to "come back to it" later on.
Your response could easily be, "hey, I'm off to spend time with my family, I'll get to it tomorrow morning" as well. WFH shouldn't mean that you work additional hours purely because you aren't commuting. But up to you.
Your response could easily be, "hey, I'm off to spend time with my family, I'll get to it tomorrow morning" as well.
I'm not really a morning person, aside from some team meetings and very light work, I hardly do anything before lunch time. I prefer to work in the evenings if it means I can do less during the day.
WFH shouldn't mean that you work additional hours purely because you aren't commuting. But up to you.
To be honest, I'm more of a work 12 hours at 66% capacity than work 8 hours at 100% capacity kind of person.
I think you're missing the point (and those who "count hours" always seem to do so), which is that WFH affords flexibility.
Not everyone wants to cram all of their work into the least amount of time possible, I actually think that's a very unenjoyable way to work. I much prefer to be able to take long breaks throughout the day, go for a walk, spend time with my family…etc. and actually enjoy the time I'm working as opposed to working my ass off and hating it just to be able to get some free hours later.
To me, time during the day is very valuable time, 9pm - 12am is not very valuable time, so if I can work 9pm - 12am to reduce work I have to do during the day, that's good value for me.
I'm all for working 10-3 and then 9-12.
Fair enough.
Whatever works for you. And you are right, working from home does allow greater flexibility and that's something that I love about it as well.
To be honest, I'm more of a work 12 hours at 66% capacity than work 8 hours at 100% capacity kind of person.
Do you have a spouse? Kids? If so, how is that fair to your family? Do you want to be the guy that earnt the money and had dinner with the sometimes?
@syousef: How the hell did you take away the complete opposite point to what I said?
The entire point is that I'm pro flexibility, i.e. working 66% capacity for 12 hours means that I can take the time to do school dropoff and pickup, that I can take time out to have lunch with my wife since we're both WFH, it's so that we can go for a walk or a drive in the afternoon, or that I can take out 6 - 9pm to have dinner with my family.
If you actually bothered to read, I dislike working lights out 9 - 5 because I can't do shit when I'm home and exhausted. Spreading things out is good.
If you want an analogy, it is easier to walk 10km than it is to run 10km. Understand?
Did you even read what I wrote?
Agreed, I've loved not having to rush every morning. Often we were rushing to do school drop off etc and still not getting in before 9.
Without the homeschooling it would be perfect, which is why it was so disappointing to get the email last week demanding we all be back in the office ☹️
Really struggling wrapping my head around the return to work full time, did it for almost 20 yrs and feel like I've finally found a work life balance that works for me.
And I've actually been working an extra 7-8 hours a week, happily as I know I'm saving 2 hrs plus a day of driving and stressing out/rushing
The other half thinking WFH is working for them is a bigger problem. At least with after hours work emails it is optional.
I feel like I work longer hours than before and the line between work and home life has definitely blurred. Look at Asian countries and they work crazy long hours. I don’t want to end up like that but looks like that’s where we are headed. :(
Set boundaries with your colleagues. By accepting it (answering emails/calls that aren't actually pressing), you are helping set a new status quo.
My experience so far is they can try and I can ignore them ;)
I have no problem answering the odd email or phone call in return for working at home, the pay off is better. If its constant then that's another issues, but again just take it as time worked and go in later the next day
I have been receiving work emails / phone calls outside hours for at least 20 years. You soon learn to manage this and prioritise accordingly.
I simply don't have work emails/slack on my phone. If they really need me outside of hours they can call me.
You're paid for your standard 9-5:30 (or whatever hours), and a 'reasonable' amount of extra time either side of that. Contacting you once you are actually done for the day is no longer reasonable, outside of legitimate emergencies.
Businesses don't own you and employees should not normalise this ridiculous expectation.
I think there is a functionality in outlook where you can send all emails you are copied in directly to a folder (for reading when you are ready).
That way you do not get so many emails to your inbox - that may help.
Or just turn off email notifications outside work hours or like me, altogether. Email/teams on my phone is a tool for my productivity, not theirs.
One thing I really like about my work is that no one calls anyone on their personal number. It's always using teams. So if you're in away status or have it scheduled off after hours you don't get bothered.
Its up to you to control your intersections with work correspondence, i strictly dont answer emails or calls after i have logged off for the day at 5.30pm, an di don’t answer or take calls before 8.30am. Then everyone starts to follow the same protocol, and the response expectations are only during office hours. You have to take initiative to control what happens at your end of the communication stream. Unless your job is life and death situation, then dont answer emails or calls after /before work.
Bit of give and take, really - you should know what's important/urgent in your role so if it's not urgent, let the calls and emails be.
If I know that there's something that may require my attention outside of work hours, I'd carry my work phone with me for calls and emails. Otherwise, the work phone stays at home on silent. If something really urgent comes up, the important people know how to contact me on my personal phone.
The more you do it, the more it will be expected of you, so it is pretty easy to stop:
If someone asks why you didn't answer or didn't reply, you just say that it was before/after work hours or if you don't want to say that, say you were doing something (eg going for a walk) and didn't have your phone.
At our company staff are being encouraged to add this to the end of their email signature, which helps to sets expectations for senders and receivers:
We work flexibly at [company]. If I’m sending this message outside of normal business hours it’s because it suits me. There is no expectation that you will respond outside your working hours.
I do get some after hour emails, but not many and (as with many others here) there is no expectation to answer them. So I’ve gotten used to not even checking my emails after I clock off. And I’ve let my boss know to call me or text if they need anything urgent.
I do answer out of hours calls, but probably because I only get 1-2 per month from my direct supervisor. If there was an expectation to respond to emails or there were many more out of hours calls then I’d probably readjust my schedule accordingly. It’s all about the balance.
As someone who gets anxious/stressed about work often and worries about whether someone doubts that I’m working hard (which is insane because it has never been an issue), separation is very important to me. I need to force my mind to shut down. And I feel like answering emails is a slippery slope where you’re the only one who will lose. One day you’ll take a nap and forget to look at your phone and you’ll suddenly be in trouble for not doing something on Sunday afternoon.
There have been a few times, when I was super exhausted or had things going on irl, where it was more flexible. And I will admit that it was a lot more enjoyable, but I definitely didn’t work as hard those days or accomplished as much and I would have a small panic attack about getting calls in the middle of personal stuff. It’s something where I can see working for people with different personalities, or even if I was in a role for a few years and felt very comfortable with the tasks and the organisation/people but definitely not as a new employee.
What if your workload is overwhelming, and previous workers have not let deadlines slide. And you don't want to look bad and start becoming the person in the business who isn't pulling weight
I have a work phone and personal phone. Outside my work hours phone stays on office desk. I occasionally give it a cursory glance and will respond if it’s urgent (my interpretation not the senders)
Was facing the same realisation recently. Emails kept popping up at night and my first instinct is to check it. My mind goes into autopilot automatically and start adding things to my mental to-do list. It's definitely not a healthy habit, at least not for a non-workaholic anyway.
I've basically told myself that work never really stops, and made the choice to turn off all work-related notifications at night. There's an app called "Quiet for Gmail" that lets you set up sync for specific days/times only, has been working great. Out of sight, out of mind.
But you're getting paid while sleeping in, watching tv, looking after your kids/ pets, cooking breakfast lunch and dinner, at the same time saving travel time and expenses.
Surely the odd emails and reasonable extended hours is not too much to ask 'no?
Anything that isn't in your contract is optional and completely at the employee's disgression. Try and go outside your Insurance Companies T/C's and see if they will co-operate. The contract is everything.
The reason why you are getting emails and calls at after work hours is because people are doing non-work stuff during the day. So work has to catch up at some point. But that doesnt mean you have to do the same.
I occasionally send and receive work emails or teams messages outside of work hours now due to WFH, but never calls. However there is no pressure at all to reply to the emails/teams messages until the next work day begins so not an issue at all, but sometimes I do reply if its easier to do it then and there while I'm thinking about it (especially in lockdown when we cant do much anyway).
Definitely worth the trade off and huge benefits of WFH.
Treat it as you would when you were not working from home
Gotta learn to make a bot that detects certain words, and then copies and pastes a reply…
Tough luck for them. Turn your work phone & email off when you finish. Obviously, if there's something critical, that's different, need to expect some level of flexibility from both parties, but that should be explained during the day or whenever they know.
98% of the time, when I log off, that's it. Very rarely will I get a call, if I do, it's serious.
I get emails out of hours but no reply is expected and I don't expect replys from people outside their working hours either (multinational company). I set my phone up so regardless of if at home or the office I don't see email notifications or work calls between 7pm and 7am, I answer emails between 8am and 5pm. Any emails received after 5pm get drafted and marked for reply next day.
You need to set boundaries, I have no problem being sent info/request at all hours and its pretty clear most to most people that emails will not receive an instant reply/action.
Since WFH, the line has really been blurred so it really up to you to draw a line of separation.
Just wondering for those who got a work phone, after you clocked off, do you answer calls from your colleagues only? Or you also answer calls from your clients? There's another line to draw here.
The line is a little blurred but this isn't really a bad thing.
It also gives flexibility to do personal things in work time, so there is a balance.
I find especially with 'down time' it's much more productive to be at home. In the office when I need a mental recharge there isn't much to actually do, go make a coffee and stretch the legs and sit around for 15 mins, but it's wasted time really. At home I can do something productive like go hang the washing, now that's one less job I need to do after work.
I feel I can't do personal things in work time as I collaborate with others constantly and need each other's responses quickly to keep things moving.
If I work at night, it would be overtime and not as a flexibility on when to work.
I get the worst of both worlds, been working in the office full time right through covid and masks (our working from home policy is literally "you can take annual leave if you want to work from home") and my boss will blow me up with random bullshit calls and emails from anywhere from 6 am to 10 pm, any day of the week. The frustrating part is it's almost always nothing urgent and will just be actioned the next day anyway, but he calls because it makes him feel like he's doing his part.
Literally every time I take an unneeded call out of hours I say "do you expect me to do anything about this right now"?
If it was something urgent that actually required my feedback or intervention right away I'd be less bothered.
Your employer should allow you to work from home if it's practical to do so, or do you work in a field that you must be on-site?
They should, and they don't.
Granted, we're in WA, so have had the least issues with this, but every time there was a lockdown there was immediate mental gymnastics to keep everyone in the office.
Some of us do need to physically come in, but generally only 1-2 days a week tops. It would have been easy to do this, stagger shifts, have most work from home, have some flexibility etc. but they actively chose not to.
When I received a promotion recently I tried to negotiate more flexibility in my hours rather than pay and they would have none of it.
interesting what industry is this in?
@chriskq: Engineering/manufacturing/drafting. So there's some people "on the tools" that obviously need to be there 90% of the time to be productive, but about half the staff could easily have worked from home.
I would hate to work at your place.
It's unfortunate because asides from his attitude and that approach it's a good place to work otherwise. In any case, I don't see it changing, so vote with your feet I guess…
Time to find a new job, boss
Just answer them, it won't kill you. Be a team player. I bet you spend a sizeable amount of your work hours not really working anyway, honestly. We all do.
I get a bit of that, but its mainly others choosing to work at those times and they wouldn't be expecting an immediate response.
I often work well after 5pm (having started later in the morning as I like to go for a run before work) because I seem to concentrate better then, you don't get interrupted and there are no meetings scheduled. I might send requests for stuff during this time, but would not be expecting a response until normal working hours.
Biggest difference in full time WFH for me is how much less tired I am than when I was going in regularly.
Most people in the comments seem to similar experiences, I'm really no different either. Sure, the lines have been blurred a little bit, but I love the flexibility that it affords me. I'm able to spend time during the day, much like other commenters here, to make myself a coffee, go for a walk, do the laundry, have an extended lunch break, or sometimes have a short nap! That does mean that I tend to finish work later than I normally would going into the office (hard stop around 5pm in the office, at home I tend to finish around 6pm or later), but I'm happy with the tradeoff.
My team has been pretty good also with not setting the expectation that we will be working and available outside of office hours, we've been given the autonomy to set our own hours and working schedule within reason. Some people log on at 7am and finish early, others start at 10am, some people work for 4 hours, 4 hour break, then work another 4 hours. As long as we're still getting our jobs done, we're allowed that flexibility. Similarly, if I'm sending an email at 6 or 7pm I don't expect a response until whenever they're online the next day - and likewise, if an email comes to me outside of hours, I'm not expected to get to it until the following day.
I understand that not all companies have the best flexible working arrangements, I consider myself quite lucky to be in a team that has executed it so well.
best bet, deal with it 24x7, then take a few more liberties during the day - if the boss wonders where you are "i was just using some flex time from all of the after hours calls and emails"
I always remind myself that i work to live and not the opposite. YOLO 😷🤣👆🏿
I don't reply to emails outside of work hours unless it's extremely urgent or critical, ie (fire, locked keys, damaged items, etc).
I'm lucky enough to have balance.
There are times I work outside my hours, but, swings and roundabouts really.
Just remember there are people who work more hours than you in this world just so they can take your job
So a race to the bottom for quality of life? Why don't you add that there are people who will do your job for less pay so we can have a race to the bottom for standard of living too?
He works a 9 to 5, what quality of life is there? lol
I would hope the point of working 9 to 5 is to provide that quality of life.
@syousef: doing book keeping is a quality of life trait? no thanks.
9 to 5:
probably get paid in a currency that is inflating
probably no creative control of your work
probably set salary, with no bonus or any kind of dream
it sounds like quality of life lol
@paradise: That's quite vague, and limits you from taking most jobs. Most creatives (i.e. other than the few who achieve fame) don't have much job stability. Most business owners will tell you 9 to 5 is not enough and are even bigger slaves to the idea that it might take off.
@syousef: There is no specifics apart from that rule, don't trade time for money. In other words build passive. Make/do things that will work for you. You can replace money but not time.
Stability = Low risk = Low reward = More time
That's the sacrifice. You'll probably achieve "quality of life" when your "50+ years old"?
Business owners are slaves to their own idea, not somebody elses. Big difference. It's tough and not for everybody I'll admit.
I haven't received E-mails or calls from your work colleagues. lol
Why not set up an auto-response on your E-mail saying:
"Your E-mail has been received and will be answered during the Hours of 9-5PM, M-F"
Put your Phone on Voicemail with a similar message.
Call them back when it suits you unless it is urgent or part of your job.