An organisational psychologist has shared the dos and don'ts of sending and receiving emails at work, claiming that emails can be 'damaging' for people's health if you don't follow certain rules

It used to be the case that office workers would clock off at 5pm, head home and not have to give a second thought to their job.

But in the technologically advanced age that we now live in, co-workers are always just a click of a button away on email, chat or Whatsapp.

It's quickly become standard practice to receive work emails well after the end of a shift and feel the need to respond to them at all hours.

But according to an expert, this can be 'damaging' for our health and employees need to set better boundaries.

Professor Sir Cary Cooper, an organisational psychologist from the University of Manchester, has shared his thoughts on the dos and don'ts of work emails with The Mirror and he had two rules in particular that would be helpful for everyone.

He said: "Emails are the second biggest issue for stress and mental health in the workplace, after a bad boss or line manager.

"My National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work found that emails were actually damaging people's health. There's a lot of evidence for this now in the research field called technostress.

"So with that in mind, there are some dos and don'ts of emails and the first rule is don't send emails out of office hours to people unless absolutely necessary, because that affects you too.

"Obviously there may be things that are time sensitive, but if you can try to stick to 9-5 and not at night and not at weekends."

He went on to share the second rule, which is all to do with the people receiving your messages.

"The second rule is don't copy the whole world into your email, don't CC in everyone to cover your backside.

"That's what so many people do, they send it to X, Y and Z to make sure that everybody knows this, but that means other people are getting all of these messages all the time about things they don't really need to know."

An exception to the first rule may be if you are someone who is working flexibly and has to do shifts in the evenings or weekends in order to have time during the day to be with your children.

However, the professor still recommends avoiding sending emails to anyone who isn't working at that hour and instead scheduling emails for when that person will be online - this could be the next morning, for instance.

The expert also urges people not to send an email to somebody on a Friday afternoon telling them they don't need to deal with the email until Monday, as they are more likely to deal with it there and then.

He claims it's a "classic" move, but if the email can wait until Monday as you say, then leave it until Monday.

And for your own sake, he advises popping your out of office message on your work emails when you aren't working at weekends and not just when you're going away on holiday.

Professor Cooper adds: "If you adhere to [these rules], it means other people won't do this to you as well."

This comes after he explained the mistakes people make in job interviews and also how your boss could be making you unwell.

Source:
courtesy of MIRROR

by COURTNEY POCHIN, LIFESTYLE EDITOR

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