Introduction

The global COVID pandemic has led to widespread re-evaluation of ways of working. Many people’s routines have had to be adjusted dramatically to accommodate remote working, parenting, home schooling, carer responsibilities, living in close quarters with others or in isolation. This has meant that online communication via email, chat apps and videoconferencing have taken on greater importance.

It has also meant that emails are often sent and received outside of people’s customary “on duty” hours. This causes a little bit of a conundrum. On the one hand we embrace flexibility and giving people agency to work at whatever time of the day (or night) suits their individual situation. On the other hand it means that people receive emails and instant messages at times of the day when they aren’t actually working. Consequently they may feel a sense of obligation to respond or inability to switch off which research suggests can be detrimental to one’s mental health.

The points below outline the CLEX approach to managing expectations around email.

Key principle 1: Take control of your email, don’t let it control you
 

• Close your mail client at the end of your workday.
• Disable push notifications on your mobile device (and even on your computer). If you need to check email, you can simply open your mail app and wait a few seconds for your inbox to refresh. But by disabling push notifications, you are in control of when to look.
• Importantly, by closing your mail app when you finish work each day you then get to decide whether it’s the first thing you open the following morning or whether you want to attend to other tasks before reading emails.

Key Principle 2: Consider how your recipient might respond to getting an email from you at the time you choose to send it

• If you fire off several emails late at night, it might be obvious to you that you don’t expect a response until the next working day, but that may not be obvious to the recipient – especially where there is a power imbalance
• “Urgent” requests at 4:30pm on a Friday are unlikely to be welcomed by anyone. As the old adage goes “Your lack of planning is not my emergency”
• If you routinely work outside of regular business hours, consider an email signature along the lines of “I work flexibly. I don’t expect you to respond to this email outside of your regular business hours”. But two caveats. First, if you are very senior, this disclaimer does not work. Second, remember, if someone has seen the e-mail they cannot “unsee it” so see next bullet point.
• If your mail client can delay the sending of messages to recipients at a later time (say the next business day morning), consider using this functionality. There are third party plugins that work for mail clients that don’t have this built in
• Think carefully about who you cc into an email and don’t use “reply all” just because it is the default option – especially if it’s likely to precipitate an ongoing conversation. Consider using a dedicated chat app such as Slack instead of email for group conversations. 

Key Principle 3: Don’t misuse e-mails

Don’t attempt to resolve controversy via e-mail if it can be avoided. A telephone call, or a face-to-face is far more effective in resolving major issues.

Second, do remember that e-mails are a permanent – even if you delete them they still exist on your institutional server and are subject to freedom of information requests. A poorly written e-mail can haunt you, it can appear on the front page of your least favourite newspaper and so on. Assume all e-mails you send are effectively public.

The aim of this document is not to lay down a series of rules, but rather to serve as a prompt to use email mindfully and to emphasise that emails received after hours do not require an immediate response.