Holiday V work email

Carl31

If a company cant cope when one employee goes on a planned holiday for a few days, it should probably take a look at itself and make some changes

If an employee thinks a company cant cope when they go on a planned holiday for a few days, they should probably take a look at themself and make some changes

There is no job that important, unless youre the PM

Gloomendoom

Pixie5740 wrote: »

If something comes up and is a matter of life or death that only you can deal with someone would phone rather than email.

My employer would struggle to phone me on holiday. They only have my home phone number and, in any case, generally speaking, my mobile phone is turned off when I am abroad.

Gloomendoom

Carl31 wrote: »

If a company cant cope when one employee goes on a planned holiday for a few days, it should probably take a look at itself and make some changes

If an employee thinks a company cant cope when they go on a planned holiday for a few days, they should probably take a look at themself and make some changes

There is no job that important, unless youre the PM

I disagree. I teach at a university and one of my personal tutees took their own life a few years ago. I was on the other side of the world at the time and would have had no idea had I not checked my work email. Immediately following the death, the family needed support and answers from somebody who knew their child well. Nobody else could have offered that support.

mgdavid

Pixie5740 wrote: »

.......
I doubt you and your husband are anywhere near as integral to the companies you work for as you seem to think you are, it just makes you feel important to think that people can't cope with out you.
........

How incredibly patronising.
You appear to have little idea of the variations in management style across the spectrum of business. To give but one example, in the last company I worked as a project manager there was absolutely no process to appoint a delegate to cover for absences, whether courses, holiday or whatever. We used virtual teams, the members would have several projects running at once so were not dedicated and would never agree to cover for a manager as it affected their other projects too much. We had to sort things out for ourselves. If we were lucky we would buddy with another PM on a mates basis, this was completely unofficial and was nigh-on impossible if you were new to the group, or if your buddy left for pastures new. IT remote access was extremely good and the job got done by remote control whenever and wherever one had the opportunity.

It's all about balance of course, the upsides were an almost total lack of hands-on management or supervision, a high degree of flexibility on a day-to-day basis, working from home virtually fulltime, and a decent reward package. It's a system that seems to work best for people who don't have a hang-up about keeping work and home time separate and are able to switch between the two seamlessly. It also entails an amount of personal responsibility which in turn provides high levels of job satisfaction thus making the whole having to work for a living thing quite bearable. I can honestly say I never hated work and I never dreaded Mondays.
That's not to say I wasn't glad to retire though.

sweetilemon

My main job I can only access my work email from work, so I'm not there I don't check it. I work term time and my workplace is closed when I am on holiday so no panic there, it is frustrating I can't reply in the evenings but helps me not to worry. 2nd job I use my personal email (only full time staff are given work email). It comes through to my phone so I pick them up straight away, if it's a quick answer I reply, if it's more in depth I will follow it up on my return.

Pixie5740

mgdavid wrote: »

How incredibly patronising.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Although I wasn't actually being patronising. If your company can't cope without you for a couple of weeks whilst you're on holiday you either need to look at yourself or look at your team.

mgdavid wrote: »

You appear to have little idea of the variations in management style across the spectrum of business.

I know enough to recognise a terrible management style when I see it.

mgdavid wrote: »

To give but one example, in the last company I worked as a project manager there was absolutely no process to appoint a delegate to cover for absences, whether courses, holiday or whatever. We used virtual teams, the members would have several projects running at once so were not dedicated and would never agree to cover for a manager as it affected their other projects too much. We had to sort things out for ourselves. If we were lucky we would buddy with another PM on a mates basis, this was completely unofficial and was nigh-on impossible if you were new to the group, or if your buddy left for pastures new. IT remote access was extremely good and the job got done by remote control whenever and wherever one had the opportunity.

That is an example of a terrible management system. If people are unable to delegate during simple, planned for activities such as training courses and holidays how would the company cope if something unexpected happened like an illness, accident or worse still death? The truth is you could be hit by a bus tomorrow but guess what the company would still function.

mgdavid wrote: »

It's all about balance of course, the upsides were an almost total lack of hands-on management or supervision, a high degree of flexibility on a day-to-day basis, working from home virtually fulltime, and a decent reward package. It's a system that seems to work best for people who don't have a hang-up about keeping work and home time separate and are able to switch between the two seamlessly. It also entails an amount of personal responsibility which in turn provides high levels of job satisfaction thus making the whole having to work for a living thing quite bearable. I can honestly say I never hated work and I never dreaded Mondays.
That's not to say I wasn't glad to retire though.

It's not a hang-up about keeping work and home time separate. Downtime is necessary and it's not just me who thinks so. I've already provided a link to an article about German companies deleting emails whilst staff are on holiday. I'm sure the French government were looking into banning companies from emailing staff after 6pm and very senior people at Google know the importance of a work life balance. A backlash to being available for work 24/7/365 has been going on for a while now.

I have all the things at work you describe:

• I'm trusted to get on with my work as I see fit. There is a high degree of flexibility.
• I can work from home if I want but I like going into the office most of the time and talking with people face-to-face.
• I am rewarded very nicely for my work.
• I rather like Mondays.

I still don't need to check my emails on holiday any more than anyone else in the company. We don't phone or email colleagues when they are on holiday. It works very well for us.

Some people are clearly happy or feel the need, for whatever reason to sit and check their emails on holiday but I guarantee that if they didn't the sky wouldn't fall down Chicken Licken.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I'm a PA and while my bigwig boss is on holiday (and not checking emails) it's at my discretion whether I text him about something urgent. The example of a suicide in an earlier post would be something he'd want to know about. Pretty much everything else can wait.

swampduck

Sounds like it's time he actually unsubscribed to a lot of the emails! I did this and it's amazing the difference this makes. He needs look at what is spam and mark it so that's where it goes saving him time and energy in the future.
I have two emails for work - a personal and department one and prior to me actually looking at emails after a break or holiday could easily like your husband have a few thousand sat waiting for me on my return. I take the view that what goes on at work stays at work and when I walk out the door after a day at work - I forget about it!!

The internet is not always a good thing - you need to literally switch off!!

Swampy

tara747

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I disagree. I teach at a university and one of my personal tutees took their own life a few years ago. I was on the other side of the world at the time and would have had no idea had I not checked my work email. Immediately following the death, the family needed support and answers from somebody who knew their child well. Nobody else could have offered that support.

Yes, obviously this is an exceptional situation. My team have my personal number and would definitely let me know if something like this happened. But under no other circumstance would they phone me.

So far I've never had a call from work while on holiday, thank goodness.

Carl31

Gloomendoom wrote: »

I disagree. I teach at a university and one of my personal tutees took their own life a few years ago. I was on the other side of the world at the time and would have had no idea had I not checked my work email. Immediately following the death, the family needed support and answers from somebody who knew their child well. Nobody else could have offered that support.

that's not work related though, that's a personal matter surely? you would have been contacted by other means