The Right (and Wrong) Ways to Handle Email When You're on Vacation
A study on time away from email reported that being cut off from work email significantly reduces stress and allows employees to focus better. Research subjects who read email were in a steady “high-alert” state with more constant heart rates, as determined by heart monitors. However, those who were removed from email for five days (with their manager’s approval, it should be noted) experienced more natural, variable heart rates.
Maybe so, but while some people are more relaxed when away from email, it seems to me that others would be more anxious. After all, not checking email doesn’t mean that those messages aren’t piling up. Knowing that the pile is getting ever bigger and will eventually require their attention is bound to be a stress inducer for some people, especially if they’re concerned about what they’re missing. So, it’s not surprising that more than half the employees in one survey admitted to checking email while on vacation.
Still, it’s nice that some organizations encourage employees to take a vacation from email when they take a vacation from work. Some even go a step further, making it a requirement that employees avoid email while on vacation, referring to it, in one case, as “an embargo on email to and from the company during vacation.”
To guarantee that employees adhere to the email embargo, other employees at this company receive an email alerting them not to communicate with the employee who is going on vacation. With terms like email sabbatical having entered the workaday vocabulary and digital detox retreats becoming ever more popular, such an approach may be the right one.
Alas, most companies lack such a formal policy regarding email during vacation. But if you’re fortunate enough not to have to be on call 24/7, you can use an email auto-responder to alert people that you’re away and they shouldn’t expect to hear from you. Just be careful how you word your message. The location brag, in which you describe the beach you’re sunning on or the deep powder you’re skiing in, may not be the best way to maintain good relations with the worker bees back at the office. Instead, simply state when your vacation starts and ends, whom to contact in your absence, and, if appropriate, how you can be contacted in an emergency.
Don’t forget to turn off the auto-responder when you return. Some people seem to forget to do this until long after they’re back at work. Then again, maybe it’s no accident.
