Fostering Good Working Relationships

Using email considerately

Avoiding misinterpretation or offence:

• It is important that the sender is aware of their audience at all times. In doing so it is important to keep any relevant dynamics in mind. Emails do not have expression or tone that you would get in a face-to-face conversation, so when a senior staff member is emailing junior colleagues, what may seem to the sender as a request or suggestion may be interpreted as a directive by the recipient(s). 
• Equally, the tone in an email should be considered, what one person considers to be a reasonable tone may easily cause offence to another. Staff should ensure that care and attention is taken with email correspondence, just as it would be with a written letter, to reduce the chance of misinterpretation and misunderstanding. 
• Communications amongst staff and team members should not be totally reliant on email, it is important to talk and then follow up with an email to confirm. This would avoid any misinterpretation arising. 

Respecting colleagues’ time and work schedule

• One way of fostering good working relationships is being conscious of email use out-of-hours and respecting colleagues’ right to disconnect from work. The normal University working day is 9.00am to 5.00pm and, for the purposes of this guidance, ‘out-of-hours’ emails are those sent before 8.00am and after 6.00pm. 
• Some university activities are 24 hour (e.g. Security) and may need to send email out-of-hours. Likewise, some projects may have urgent need for out-of-hours email in exceptional circumstances. Emails sent outside of working hours can alleviate the sender’s workload, particularly as teaching loads and/or other intensive periods of meetings and commitments are predominantly set within working hours, or can be convenient where travel is required. However, for the most part, colleagues are encouraged to log out from their University email at the end of the working day and they are not expected to respond to emails until they return to work.
• With technology allowing staff to access emails via mobiles, tablet and laptops while on the move, the boundary between work and personal time can become increasingly blurred. Whilst it is the prerogative of the sender to send an email whenever they choose, it is also the recipient’s prerogative to choose when to read their incoming emails (i.e. normally within working hours), provided this is in line with the accepted levels of professional behaviour and aligned with the expectations of their role responsibilities.
• There should be no general expectation that staff will read emails out of hours. It is important for staff to remember that whilst you may not be expecting a response out of hours the receiver may think otherwise. All staff should use the following line in email to reiterate the organisation’s respect for our employees’ personal time “Note: I do not expect any response out of core hours.  Please respond when appropriate during your normal working day”.

Responding promptly to email: 

• A lot of frustration experienced by staff is due to delay in responding to emails. Reply promptly to e-mails – if you cannot reply within a reasonable time (e.g. 48 hours) send a brief response to say the email is being dealt with, and you will revert. 
• Where the matter requires an urgent response, an initial phone call, or a follow up by telephone may be more appropriate than sending someone multiple emails. Remember the receiver may not be sitting reading emails at the time that you are sending the email. 

Tackling Problems: 

Where staff feel that colleagues are not making efforts to abide by the contents of this guidance around email etiquette it is reasonable to:  

• Speak with the person who sent the email – ideally in person or by phone, but not by email – reminding them about the principles within this guidance and encouraging them to follow its advice. All staff should aim to support and remind each other of the importance of respecting boundaries and working in a professional and efficient manner.  
• The option to speak to your line manager or HR Partner in the first instances for a second opinion on email content and further advice if necessary, if you feel it to be inappropriate.  
• Try applying a degree of professional empathy to the message sent and consider whether you could be ‘reading too much into it’. It would also be important to take a step back and considering whether the issue is typical in your experience of an individual, this may separate a ‘one-off’ from a more serious issue. This would also inform the feedback that you would give to the individual. 

Personal email usage 

• Email functionality is provided to staff for work purposes. However, it is recognised that in a more flexible work-life environment, Incidental personal use is permissible provided it does not consume more than a trivial amount of resources, does not interfere with productivity, is not for private business activities and does not involve any illegal or unethical activities.

Non-owner account access:  

• All email accounts maintained on the email systems are the sole property of NUI Galway. Despite the fact that users should not have an expectation of privacy in relation to records created and received in the course of business activity, email etiquette dictates that access to the email accounts of other users should be limited. Such instances may arise where a member of staff is absent from work. A simple form may be used to record a requirement for other staff members to gain access to their email account. Where this is required QA417 ICT Policy to Access Another Account should be followed.