Answer weekend emails!!

Weekend Emails: Are you open for business or not?

Weekend Emails:  Don’t believe the hype:  

In the September 2011 issue of HRMagazine, a by-lined article discusses the statistic that one in three employees receives work-related weekend emails from their boss and is expected to respond. It also states that if managers don’t have to send weekend emails, they shouldn’t. I can’t believe this topic was printed, let alone in this economy!!!  Disclaimer: This is written primarily for Corporate America employees. Those working in start-ups usually work under a different mindset.  Burn = Urgency

In the last couple of HRMagazine issues, a couple of articles have fired me up.  Actually, just plain pissed off. For those unfamiliar, HRMagazine is a monthly publication for HR Professionals. Most would consider it “the” HR resource for HR professionals. SHRM.org, the Society for Human Resource Management, publishes it. Yes, I am a card-carrying, certified, and tested member.

For the record, SHRM puts out a lot of great stuff and is a resource I use regularly. The site saves me a lot of legal fees. HR, myself included, would all be a lot worse off without it.

Bullshit

That being said, I feel compelled to write. For those new to this blog, let me re-state it for the record.  I know several really smart HR folks. Mostly, I don’t care for many HR people, their attitudes, or how they treat people. (Yes, I offend a lot of HR folks). I started this blog to push a different point of view. If you read further, you are going to get an earful. I think many HR folks are well-intentioned, but they live in a Pollyanna world and are naïve to society.  I call Bulls**t.

The unbelievable article reads:

” Managers need to set clear expectations about what needs to be addressed over the weekend. And if items might just as easily wait until Monday, say so.  If you don’t have to send an email on the weekend, don’t send it. Create it in draft form and hit “send” on Monday morning. . .  I don’t think employees should respond if the manager marks it as “urgent”. . . ” 

OMG!  Holy S**T.  Did I just read that? This is precisely why I don’t care for most HR attitudes. There are way too many variables for this to advise to go sour. The employee and the company will suffer. And this is what they are evangelizing to the HR professionals?  The very folks that have the power to shape corporate policy and influence corporate culture?  Here is what HRNasty would say to weekend emails.

Answer illegal interview questions!

ANSWER THEM.  It’s the same thing I say to ILLEGAL interview questions. ANSWER THEM!  Don’t think twice, don’t bitch, don’t roll your eyes, or get exasperated. Just answer them.

Here is why I don’t care for this advice:

In my view, my job is to support my manager. We have all been hired by our managers to make their jobs AND lives easier.  If your manager is sending you an email on the weekend, they are

• probably of the mindset that there isn’t anything wrong with working on the weekend or
• behind and having work to do. They may have a deadline that YOU don’t know about.  They probably need your help.

Most managers became managers for a reason. They were promoted for a reason. These people got results, they got shit done.  They made THEIR manager’s job easier. I bet they answered emails on the weekend.

I left Corporate America after 10 years for a technology start-up. In the above-linked blog, I encourage you to answer illegal questions. Yes, answer them.  A lot of HR professionals are looking at me WHY?  They ask, “WHY promote bad behavior?” More than likely, the person asking the question probably doesn’t know any better and isn’t doing it on purpose. Avoiding ANY question will take you out of the running for a position.

Sure, you can say, “I don’t want to work for a company that asks illegal questions, but I want YOU to decline the company under your terms, not have them decline you because you refused to answer an illegal question. I don’t want the company to decline you because the person interviewing you didn’t know any better or the HR person didn’t explain the interview rules to the person conducting the interview.

You can change the hiring process from within the company, not from the unemployment line.

If my manager is sending me weekend emails regularly, and I don’t answer them, what will happen?

Your manager will get into a habit of working on the weekend and NOT expecting a reply from YOU.  You are conditioning them to think negatively about your work ethic. When they hit the send button on a weekend email or anything after hours, their first thought will be “they won’t get to this till Monday”.

• When it comes time for a particular project that may require extra effort (or time on the weekend), that project will go to someone who IS answering emails on the weekend and putting in the extra hours. (Special projects usually set you up for more opportunity and more money)
• When it comes time to “re-org,” AKA Reduction in Force, you will have a strike against you. Special Projects Boy above will have a gold star next to his name. 
• When another manager comes to your manager asking about your performance, the response will be, “They are dedicated, but I know your group works on the weekend. . . .”
• At the least, the person who likes their job will do everything they can to be the best they can be. If you think your job sucks, you are doing everything you can to get away from it.  It is a poker tell.
• You get the idea. . . .

The reasoning

• “I talked with my manager when I was hired and they don’t expect me to answer emails on the weekend”.  (Trust me, the economy has changed this mentality)
• My manager gets paid more than me. Of course, they get paid more than you, and they work more hours and more accomplished.  (if you want to get paid more, or even get paid, show more productivity in a 40-hour work week.)
• I have a family. Work-life balance is important to me. (I am all about work-life balance, but let’s not bite the hand that feeds you.  In this economy, you need “WORK” to balance your work-life.)

It’s as if the economy isn’t hard enough already. It is as if companies have a hard enough time making payroll. Here is a magazine catering to HR professionals encouraging folks to STOP WORKING and think twice about weekend emails. This is the Land of Opportunity.  Are you an American or an Americann’t?  Plenty of people out there who are not working would be happy to answer those emails on the weekend. Are we going to say stop answering emails after 5:00 PM as well????   Am I in left field here?

Unlimited data plans 

I highly doubt that most managers send weekend emails Saturday morning through Sunday night. Most managers are not working around the clock.  It doesn’t kill anyone to answer a couple of extra emails. There is a technology out there called smartphone people. Unlimited data plans and folks with blisters on their thumbs text so much.

A few extra emails aren’t going to kill anyone. I am just saying. . .

See you at the after party,
HRNasty

nasty: an unreal maneuver of incredible technique, something that is ridiculously good, tricky, and manipulative but with a result that can’t help but be admired, a phrase used to describe someone good at something. “He has a nasty forkball”.

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