Work Emails on Holiday: Why You Need Professional Boundaries

Here’s a breakdown of how my holidays tend to unravel when thoughts of work emails intrude:

- Last Day at Work: Sign off with notifications silenced and out-of-office messages set. Freedom! I’m on top of the world.

- Day 1: Curiosity about the emails piling up begins. Are any of them urgent? The niggling starts.

- Day 2: My dread for the post-holiday inbox grows. Panic slowly sets in: Will Monday be a disaster? Maybe a quick glance will put me at ease?

- Day 3: I give in, check emails. Nothing's on fire. Great. But now, work thoughts invade my beach trip. Regret bubbles up.

- Rest of Holiday: Since the seal is broken, daily email checks become my new holiday routine.

- Return to Work: Nothing has changed. The realisation hits: I could have completely disconnected and everything would have been just fine. Mental note - next time, I’ll sign off for definite...

Of course, next time always ends up being a repeat of the above. And I’m not alone with this – many of us struggle to resist the urge to access work emails while we’re meant to be enjoying a much-needed break.

In 2018, YouGov found that 60% of email-based workers check their inboxes while on holidays. That’s despite the fact that 80% of those workers reported that they would actually prefer to completely disconnect from work during time off.^[1]

The same study indicated that the pressure didn’t come from managers but was actually self-inflicted by the majority of respondents. This raises questions about our own internal expectations and standards.

Why do we find ourselves leaning towards an always-on culture, even when we don’t want to?

Measuring White-Collar Productivity: Why We Never Seem To Do ‘Enough’ Work

The answer to this may lie in how we struggle to measure our productivity. Measuring productivity across knowledge workers is complex.

In certain industries, productivity can be measured through straightforward metrics, like tracking the number of items packaged or weekly sales figures. For knowledge workers, it’s often a different ballgame.

For them, traditional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) often fall short. Reviews of current industry practices suggest that self-assessment is the most prevalent method for measuring productivity among white-collar professionals.^[2] However, this method might not always reflect the actual work output.

Many of us are obliged to undertake regular performance evaluations at work. This is when we assess and report back on how productive we have been in the time that has passed since our last review.

When we’re self-assessing our own output, it’s easy to see why we struggle to decide on where the threshold is to say that we have done ‘enough’. How do we know when we have reached the productivity level required to justify a disconnect from work emails during our time off?

False Urgency from Work Emails Feeds into the ‘Always-On’ Work Culture

One common misconception about productivity is that it directly translates to always being available for work, even if that’s during a lunch break or late in the evening.

That belief isn’t helped by the fact that instant messaging through Teams and Slack have become engrained in our daily work communications post-Covid. Even with a return to the office, these platforms aren’t going anywhere – shout out to that one guy who still communicates exclusively in GIFs, despite sitting at the desk next to you.

Nothing has made me more anxious about how others might perceive my productivity than the introduction of read receipts in professional communications.

Unsurprisingly, this always-on culture has led to work emails seeping into our personal time. Almost every workplace has that one higher-up known for sending late-night ‘urgent’ messages. And if you don’t happen to see that email chain until 10AM the next morning? By then it has been escalated, forwarded, and your missed contribution noted with every CC.

Dr Laura Giurge of London Business School introduces the concept of ’email urgency bias’ in her research on the mismatching perspectives of those who send out-of-hours work emails and their recipients.^[3] Email recipients tend to overestimate the sender’s actual expectations on how quickly a reply should be sent.

Our self-inflicted pressure to respond to after-hours emails often stems from our own misconception about how quickly the sender expects us to respond.

And this makes sense – while I worry about leaving certain out-of-hours emails unanswered, I would never expect a colleague to reply quickly when I’ve been guilty of sending an email outside of working hours.

How Having a Busy Schedule Became a New Status Symbol

These misconceptions around response times and the self-induced pressure to remain switched on stem from a significant shift in how we view time expenditure as a status symbol.

In the past, having an abundance of leisure time was a sign of affluence. However, with the evolution of technology and social norms, we now value constant busyness as a measure of worth. A packed work schedule is seen as a reflection of our individual significance and indispensability to society.

Researchers describe this shift in conspicuous consumption as measuring the wealth status through the intrinsic value of individuals, rather than on access to leisure or luxury goods.^[4] The busyness of an individual and their lack of downtime indicates that they must be of substantial knowledge capital and of high importance.

CEOs and influencers often showcase the lack of leisure time they have in an average work week. You can see that a shift towards being ‘in-demand’ has emerged as a modern measure of status.

With this constant need to prove our productivity and relevance, it’s no wonder we feel pressured to remain connected when we finally get time away from work.

The Hidden Costs: How an Always-On Work Mindset Affects Your Wellbeing and Productivity

Burnout can creep up on you

Consistently engaging with work can gradually wear you down, leading to burnout. It’s not an overnight occurrence but, rather, something that hits hard when it’s already grown to a peak.

Burnout occurs when we consistently drain our emotional, cognitive, and physical energy without taking adequate time to recuperate. Having your work emails on 24/7 is one way to guarantee that you’re never getting a chance to disconnect from work for very long.

Quantity affects quality

Constant availability doesn’t equate to effective productivity. Think about the attention put into an email drafted during work hours versus the rushed response you type out to an ‘urgent’ late-night message. There is likely to be a huge difference in the quality of responses there.

Your focused attention ensures better output, so it’s usually best to reserve work responses for moments when you are truly present and in the right environment.

Busyness is an illusion

Being busy is not the same as being productive. Constantly checking work emails outside of the office might serve to merely give a false sense of accomplishment without actually creating any value.

In reality, these constant interruptions will only allow work-related stresses to continually seep into your designated time to recharge.

Failure to disconnect from work will stifle creativity

Taking a complete break away from work can make you much more productive when you return. You’re more likely to have new ideas if you give your brain a chance to completely detach from a project. This is good for overall productivity as you’re less likely to be found staring at a screen, waiting for some creative spark to appear.

Boundaries are professional

Clear boundaries between work and personal life will reduce the risk of burnout. Boundaries are also important from a professional standpoint. They draw a very clear distinction between when you are available and when you are absolutely not.

For those in a position of leadership, work-life boundaries are even more important. Modelling this behaviour sets the expectation that work does not seep into personal time.

Your actions affect your colleagues

Making a habit of sending emails outside of normal work hours can have a negative impact upon your colleagues.

If one member of the team frequently responds during off-hours or holidays, it might prompt others to feel compelled to do the same. Your colleagues may become worried about appearing less dedicated or have concerns around missing opportunities.

Five Ways to Set Boundaries and Disconnect from Your Work Emails

So, what are some things that we can do to try to set the right environment in which we can willingly disconnect from our inboxes before we take some leave from work?

1. Delegate Effectively or Brief a Colleague

This is probably the most effective one. If you are in the middle of a project or have deadlines approaching, have a clear plan for delegating any urgent tasks. Give yourself plenty of time to do a handover so that instructions can be made clear and questions answered. You want to be able to sign off knowing that everyone is confident in what they need to do.

If you can’t delegate, then you could brief a colleague on the status of your work and ask if they would be willing to handle any potential queries in your absence. You can offer to return the favour for them when they’re on leave.

Knowing that someone else is up-to-speed and happy to address issues that might come up will go a long way in silencing the inner voice urging you to take a quick look at your inbox ‘just in case’.

2. Set a Clear Out-of-Office Message

Clearly indicate that you are off and unavailable for work by setting up an automated out-of-office reply in your emails. Less is more with an out-of-office message:

Thank you for your email. 

I’m currently on leave, returning on 3 June. If you have an urgent query about X, please contact [colleague’s email]. 

Best wishes.

Avoid over-promising on when you’ll be responding to emails on your return. The above is all the recipient needs to know.

On many internal email systems, colleagues will see this out-of-office message pop up before they even hit send. More often than not, they will either delay their message or clarify that it’s not time-sensitive.

3. Make Respectful Communication in Work Emails a Mutual Agreement

Make a point of not contacting colleagues outside of working hours or when you see their out-of-office messages are set. It sends a clear message that you are going to treat others in a way that you would like to be treated in return and enforces mutual respect.

When you are onboarding new members to your team, make sure that they are aware of the collective agreement to avoid sending unnecessary emails out-of-hours.

4. Add a Clarification to Your Email Signature

It’s becoming more popular now to add a note in your email signature that mentions that you have sent the email at a time that is convenient for you, and that you don’t expect a reply outside of the recipient’s normal working hours. In Ireland, this is a best-practice guideline in order to fulfil the employee’s ‘right to disconnect’.^[5]

Not only will this reduce pressure on the recipient to send an immediate response, but it also sends a gentle reminder for out-of-hours emailers to adjust their response expectations.

**5. Schedule Time if you Really Must Check**

If you absolutely need to stay in the loop or know that you’ll become more stressed if you don’t have a quick glance at your inbox, designate a brief window of time each day to do a quick scan of your work emails. My advice is to set this time at the end of the usual work day.

This way, if you see something that you’re tempted to reply to, you’ll know that most of the office have already logged off. By the next day, most ‘urgent’ emails have lost their immediacy and you should hopefully feel less inclined to action anything by that point.

Making Small Changes to How You Manage Work Emails Will Create a Big Difference

I’m not alone in feeling pressured to check my work emails, even when I’m thousands of miles away from the office and navigating a holiday itinerary. This urge isn’t about having a crazy workload or an imposing boss (that’s another story altogether). It stems from self-inflicted pressures, based on changing perceptions on productivity and worth.

The always-on mindset negatively impacts our wellbeing, creativity and the quality of our output. It also isn’t great for those we’re on holiday with – who have absolutely no desire to hear about the email you’ve just received from Jen in Marketing.

Implementing strategies to facilitate a complete disconnect from work will lead to healthier work-life boundaries and more rejuvenating holidays. That’s not just a personal win – it also benefits your colleagues and those around you.

When you’re planning your next holiday, take time to draft a strategy that will enable you to completely disconnect. It might take a few attempts before you can really achieve a true break from work emails.

Gradually increasing your distance from work with each holiday will make the practice easier over time. You’ll soon come to appreciate the benefits of a true break from the office.