Do You Check Work Email Outside the Office?
GFI Software recently announced the findings of its second independent study into email user habits, which revealed a stark increase in the way that work email is encroaching into personal lives. Of those surveyed, some 44.8 percent admit to checking work email at least once a day in their personal time, while 40.4 percent admit checking multiple times a day or in real-time through pre-work mornings, evenings, weekends and days off.
Other key findings from the survey include:
- · Nearly a third of those surveyed (31.2 percent) respond to work email within 15 minutes or receiving it during work hours. A further 23.4 percent of respondents answer work email within half an hour during office hours.
- · When sending email, the same respondents are less fussy about response times, with only 10.6 percent expecting a reply inside 15 minutes and only 18.2 percent expecting one inside half an hour. Most expect a reply within one hour (23 percent) or at least within a day (21.8 percent) of sending a message.
- · Just under a third (31.8 percent) still resist the temptation to look in on their company email outside of the working day.
The survey revealed a substantial encroachment of work email not only into personal time, but also into social events and other milestone non-work occasions. For example:
- · Nearly two thirds (63.6 percent) of those surveyed admit to checking work email while on vacation.
- · While attending an event at their child’s school, 6.7 percent have gone through work email.
- · A further 5 percent have checked email during a wedding ceremony.
- · Even during a funeral, 3.8 percent have checked mail.
- · …and a further 3.8 percent owned up to checking their work email while their spouse was in labor.
Source: GFI Software