Why employees should avoid work emails

She stopped replying to work emails after 6 PM—and here's what happened. They used to pride themselves on being available 24/7. Emails at 10 PM? No problem. Weekend calls? Bring it on. But over time, they noticed: - Increased fatigue - Decreased productivity - Strained personal relationships One day, they decided enough was enough. They set clear boundaries: - No emails after 6 PM - Weekends are off-limits - Vacations are for recharging The initial anxiety was real. Would they miss something urgent? Would their team feel unsupported? But here's what actually happened: - Improved Productivity: They were more focused during work hours. - Better Decision-Making: A rested mind led to better choices. - Enhanced Team Empowerment: Their team became more autonomous. - Personal Life Flourished: Stronger relationships and hobbies rediscovered. Setting boundaries didn't hinder their career. It enhanced it. Burnout is not a badge of honor. Lead by example. Encourage your team to find balance. How do you maintain work-life harmony? Share your strategies!

The pressure to follow established cultural norms within an organisation can be strong, even if those norms are dumb and drain productive time or invade our non-work time. (And as Australia seeks to implement a right to disconnect law, it's important to remember that we all have a choice not to follow dumb cultural norms!) And one of the dumbest norms of all is to take a break from work to refresh one’s mental health and spend time with people that you love, only to dread the last two days knowing that you’ll have a thousand emails in your inbox waiting for you. I used to be the same and then I made a decision that changed everything for me. You can do the same. The last thing I wanted to do when I returned to work was to spend hours and hours reading out of date information or negating the purpose of my holiday and allowing overwhelm to immediately return. So I stopped and used the technology to my advantage. I set up a rule to send every message received during my holiday to trash. I freed up time in my first week back for people to bring me up to date - verbally - and by Tuesday I was usually all caught up. As opposed to trawling through my email day and night looking for the important messages. I ensured that people knew of my approach, so that it wasn’t a surprise that I didn’t have their email. I did this by using the text below in my out of office message. This is a cultural norm that everyone can immediately challenge. Name check someone in the comments below who would benefit from this! Copy and paste 👇 ------------- ‘Thanks so much for your email, however I’m currently on leave until xxxx. If you require assistance, please contact xxxx who is covering for me whilst I’m away. Please note that your email will be deleted. This is not because I don’t view its contents as important, but rather that I can do nothing with it, nor do I wish to return from holiday to a thousand emails, thus affecting my productive time for my first month back. Thanks for understanding (also, you should copy this approach!) [Your Name]’ -------------

Your team can't switch off, and you might be enabling it. Emails after hours, Slack messages on weekends, "quick calls" during holidays. We've (collectively) normalised being constantly available and called it dedication. Nearly 3 in 5 employees reported negative effects of work-related stress, including lack of interest, emotional exhaustion, and physical fatigue. Yet, always-on culture actually reduces productivity. Tired brains make worse decisions, stressed people take longer to solve problems, and burned-out employees produce lower-quality work. That urgent email at 9 pm isn't moving the business forward, it's moving your employee closer to burnout. Real high-performance cultures protect downtime as fiercely as they protect work time. When was the last time you truly disconnected?

Work shouldn’t take away your evenings, your family time, or your peace. For a long time, I thought late-night emails were a badge of honor, proof of hustle. But the truth is, real leadership doesn’t glorify burnout. Real leadership creates boundaries that protect both people and performance. This email reminded me of something simple but powerful: • Culture sets the tone more than strategy ever will • When you hit send doesn’t matter nearly as much as how you set expectations • Healthy teams know the difference between being available and being accountable The best part? A single line at the bottom of the message: “I’ve sent this email at a time that works for me. Please respond at a time that works for you.” It seems small, but it’s a massive signal. Respect for people isn’t just talked about it’s built into how you operate. We don’t need more leaders who grind 24/7. We need more leaders who remind us that rest is a competitive advantage. Imagine if every leader made this shift. Teams would be stronger. Success would be more sustainable. Great leaders don’t just manage results. They protect the people who create them. #Leadership #WorkCulture #EmployeeWellbeing #FutureOfWork #PeopleFirst

“Charlie sends too many after-hours emails, and it gives me anxiety.” That was the feedback I received a few years ago during one of our engagement surveys. I’ll admit...it stung at first. I’ve always been passionate about my work and inspired to work when the creative energy arises; which often means sending emails outside of work hours. But, what I thought was harmless to others turned out to unintentionally impact my team’s ability to find work-life balance. That feedback was a wake-up call for me.  So, we made a change. We introduced a policy to eliminate emails after 6pm. This policy lives under our greater “Workplace Flexibility Policy” and these days, it’s becoming known as a “Right to Disconnect” policy. Either way, the guidelines are the same… Employees not expected to check or respond to messages outside of regular work hours…and, if work is done after-hours, team members are encouraged to “Schedule Send” emails to arrive during work hours. Simple but powerful. Our policy has been in place for us for a few years now, and it’s helped set the tone for healthy boundaries and work-life balance. I’m excited to see that there are larger conversations around the “Right to Disconnect,” with some nations and even U.S. states considering legislation to ensure employees can fully unplug. Whether driven by laws or company culture, the message is clear: Boundaries matter. I share this because that one piece of tough feedback ended up being a gift to me and my team. It helped me grow as a leader, helped our company culture shape and formed the DNA of who we are today. Now tell me…have you ever worked somewhere with a “Right to Disconnect” policy? Who agrees that it's time to normalize flexibility like this? 🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️ #worklifebalance #disconnect #flexibility

Here’s how my last boss drove me away. She kept sending me emails after business hours. Worse yet, she sent them over the weekend as well. I worked 50 hours a week in the office, but to her, it wasn’t enough. She was a workaholic and worked well into the night when she got home. Every time I checked my email or received notifications from her, it made me cringe. She made me cringe. I was anxious at night, and Sundays were the worst. I eventually left. Here’s the thing: even qualifying those emails with “update for tomorrow” or “I don’t expect you to look at this tonight,” the damage is done. It’s a compulsion to check work emails (along with IG, Snap, X, or whatever else). Employees may not act on that email, but they’ll see and think about it. It’s there, renting space in their mind, like an unchecked box, and often it feels like the sword of Damocles hanging over their head, all night or all weekend long. What’s the way out? Set a delivery delay for the following business morning. Let your employees watch Yellowstone and play with their dogs without thinking about work.