No, youre not. But a growing number of people in the world will say that you are a jerk for sending that 9 pm email.

The reality is . . . its complicated. Lets dig in.

You being a total machine and working to get things done isnt the issue. The issue is the perception that youre projecting your workhorse mentality onto others who report to you who cant match your speed, urgency, or general kick-ass vibe.

In todays world of empathy, mental health awareness, and work/life balance considerations, a growing population feels like youre part of the problem with your drive, ambition and . . .

. . . after-hours emails.

A recent Wall Street Journal column cited a study of perceived urgency of after hours emails. Heres what they found (link to full column here):

We examined this question in a series of studies with a total of more than 4,000 working adults. We had participants take the perspective of either a sender or a receiver of a non-urgent work email sent outside work hours. We asked “senders” to indicate how quickly they expected a response and asked “receivers” to indicate how quickly theythoughtsenders expected a response from them. We consistently found that receivers overestimated the need for a fast response—something we call the “email urgency bias.”

In both studies, we found that, on average, receivers assumed they needed to respond 36% faster to off-hours work emails than senders expected. What’s more, the receivers reported feeling more stressed by off-hours work emails than senders expected them to feel, and the stress associated with this unnecessary pressure resulted in lower subjective well-being.

Without question, when a work email comes in after hours, a lot of your direct reports are going to treat it with more urgency. As they should, if youre the boss. The best practice is laying some ground rules for what you expect when you send the after-hours email.

But before we dig into that, lets further define the players in this email game of after-hours communication. Below is my roster of the players involved.

There are Three Types of Managers When It Comes to Sending an After-Hours Email:

1--Fire away, lets get s**t done.You might or might not expect an answer to your after-hours email. But youll be damned if youre going to worry about how people feel when you send late or weekend emails. By the way, I support you getting things done. Shine on, you crazy diamond. Theres a reason youre in the seat youre in. The bottom line is if no one is sending after-hours emails, you probably dont have much of a company. Dont shoot the messenger. Its true. A players arent held captive by broad, over-arching calls for empathy.

2--Im not sending this now, it will be seen as anti-work/life balance. This manager has seen the light related to work-life balance and is not sending the message out when they think of it, making a note to send it out during normal business hours. Is this rationalization? Is this the most efficient path? I could argue that many of these messages would be delayed by getting busy. In addition, managers who can say they never send out after-hours emails probably arent—wait for it—working after hours! I could also argue that managers who dont work at least some after hours and weekends are on average trailing from a total production/results perspective. Again, dont kill the messenger. All things being equal, a manager putting in fifty hours is going to outperform one who works only normal business hours. Hard facts from the salt mine.

3--Im sending now but via Outlooks send later tool, so people think Im cranking it out in the morning. Ah! The evolved manager related to after-hours emails. This manager says the following: Im here kicking ass after hours, but Im aware that culturally, people are starting to be criticized for work/life balance signals with off- hours emails. Im using send later so people think my work day starts at 6:22 am. This manager works when they want to work and, if they dont need the response immediately, is winning the game of public opinion by timing messages to be more palatable. Theyre still crushing the team to get s**t done; theyre just showing that they are evolved, even if they wonder why others dont work the way they do.

But lets not forget the employee side of this after-hours email exchange. You can talk about work/life balance all you want, but the reality appears below.

There are Three Types of Employees When It Comes to Email Management:

1--I respond within the hour to anything you send. Nights and Weekends included. You love them. Maybe they do need protected a bit. But damn, its nice to know theyre there.

2--I dont respond during nights and weekends, but Im in control and you arent disappointed by my timeliness of response. Cool. You still love #1 better, but you see this group and trust this group. Were good. Look forward to your response to the 9pm email in the morning.

3--I have trouble being responsive to email. It doesnt matter when it is sent, youll rarely feel like youre a priority. The dirty secret to all the work/life balance world yelling about your after-hours emails is that even if you send all your emails at normal times, this segment still sucks at responsiveness. Theyre also probably the first ones to bitch about your work ethic and drive, and yes, your 9:31 pm email about the Sparkman account.

Run through it, and your choices are clear. Keep doing what youre doing or adapt.

The Wall Street Journal article recommends making these disclaimers in your after-hours emails—I kid you not:

--“Even though I’m sending this email outside regular work hours, which fits my own work-life schedule best, I don’t expect a response outside of your own work hours.”

--“Note that you might receive this message outside of my office hours but that I have no expectation to receive a message outside of your office hours.”

--“Please know that I respect boundaries around personal time. If you receive an email from me during your personal time, please protect your time and wait to respond until you are working. It’s important that we all prioritize joy over email whenever possible.” (KD note - !!!!!)

I honestly am fatigued by these messaging suggestions. The problem with these messages is that youre still the boss, and you need service on the things you need service on.

Id recommend the following options: 1) do nothing different and keep on rocking emails when you want, 2) adapt and use the send later option and still rock how you want to rock, or 3) make sure everyone on your team knows that youll text or call them if you need an immediate reply to an after-hours email, which prevents you from the absurd messaging recommended above in every after-hours email.

If youre concerned about this, Id recommend the send later option. It still says youre working harder than most and need people to be in range of your sense of urgency. Id text people as needed without making the proclamation.

The bigger the company, the more youll need the strategy in this area in years to come. Big companies follow broader society trends more responsively than smaller companies.

Your employees feelings matter. But then, so do yours.

KD out.

-9:54 pm

Posted at 08:21 AM in Communications, Culture, Leadership, Manager Tips, Workplace | Permalink | Comments (6)

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Editors Note: To keep the crazies away on both extremes, I present my status and views on vaccination below.

--Vaccination Status: Fully Vaccinated (Pfizer)
--View of Employer Mandates: Supportive that organizations should do what they think is best, especially in healthcare or high contact businesses
--Historic View of Broad Federal Mandates: Not Supportive
--Zodiac Sign: Scorpio (actually Taurus, but Scorpio sounds super credible)

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Now that weve got the housekeeping out of the way, lets break down one underreported aspect of the looming vaccine mandates by the federal government via OSHA.

Lets talk about remote workers.

Its interesting to me that thinking about remote workers hasnt gotten more attention since the potential of an OSHA vaccine mandate was announced by the Biden administration. After all, the number of hours worked remotely by the American workforce rose by 500 percent during the pandemic, and many of these workers remain 100 percent remote.

First up, if youre late to the game and need to know why OSHA is being used for the proposed vaccine mandate, click this link to read up. OHSAs involved because its the clearest path for the Biden administration to get the mandate done in a legally defensible way.

The bones of the vaccine mandate proposal are pretty simple for the private sector: all employees in companies with one hundred or more employees must be fully vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID tests.

But what about remote workers? If you have an employee whos been Zooming the hell out of her job since April 2020, and theres no sign that shes coming back into the office, whats the requirement for her? Does she need to be vaccinated or tested under the mandate?

The simple answer is that we dont know. The OSHA rule covering this hasnt been released and likely wont be for thirty to sixty days. So, until we get that rule/guidance, we dont know for sure.

But there are some good hooks from a legal perspective in the past week. Consider this from our friends at SHRM, who above all else LOVE A GOOD LEGAL UPDATE:

The details of what the ETS will include are scarce at this point, leaving many questions unanswered, Fisher Phillips said. How will the 100-employee threshold be counted? Will employers be required to collect proof of vaccination? What type of testing will be required? Will remote employees be covered?

Brightwell thinks it unlikely that the ETS will apply to remote workers under the grave danger requirement. If employees are not exposed to anyone in the workplace, the risk of contracting COVID-19 is not work-related.

Thats speculation on the part of a legal expert who appears credible. Shirley, modifying your marketing PDFs from her cottage in Montana, would not seem to rise to the level of grave danger.

This specific update from Fisher-Phillips includes a cite from Labor Department late last week goes further and includes dialog with the Department of Labor:

Will remote employees be covered? Unless the ETS specifically addresses remote employees, remote employees likely will not be covered by the emergency rule. OSHA largely avoids addressing safety issues concerning employees working from home.

(Editor’s Note: On a September 10 webinar, Labor Department officials confirmed that remote workers not working in contact with others would not be covered by the emergency rule provided they don’t come to the workspace.)

So its unlikely that remote employees will be covered. But remember, we have the following classes of remote employees:

1--Fully remote - Ive never seen this person live and in the flesh.
2--Hybrid remote - Has a set schedule to be in an office periodically; could be one to two times a week, or one to two times a month.
3--Appears a few times a year to build relationships and meet and greet. (Shirleys in town for the bi-annual meeting, make sure you say hi.)

In addition, remote workers probably look a lot like the rest of America when it comes to vaccination status, with one big exception:

Most remote workers havent faced a choice on vaccines. Many are vaccinated, but those who dont want the vaccine have been isolated for awhile. And if youve made the call that they can remain 100 percent remote, its almost 100 percent guaranteed that the percent of unvaccinated is higher than the rest of America.

And now, we come to the big question and the accompanying reality:

--The Big Question - Do you treat remote employees like everyone else at your company and ask them to get vaccinated or tested?

--The Reality - If you believe that theres a higher percentage of unvaccinated in remote-work America, do you want to take steps that might make them ponder a move to a different employer?

To be sure, the proposed vaccine mandate is not a hard mandate. You can still decide to test the folks who dont want the vaccine, and youd think youd be fine. That is, until you start pondering the absurdity of testing a 100 percent remote worker whos not in the workplace with others, and will be reminded of the absurdity of taking a picture of their negative test on a weekly basis and uploading it to Sharepoint.

Yes, I just gave you the path to record keeping for remotes. Take a picture of your test. Upload it to Sharepoint. #winning

At the end of the day, theres no wrong path. Make your call and get ready to communicate if your remotes are included in this.

And yes, there will be key employees moving from hybrid remote to full remote until this is past us. Theyll test on the rare occasions they have to come in, without changing their status from full remote.

Nothing makes broad calls on a topic like this more personal than the threat of losing great people.

Good luck with your call on remote employees.

Posted at 12:24 PM in Change, Communications | Permalink | Comments (5)

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Editors Note: This post was published before the proposed Vaccine Mandate for all private employers with more than 100 employees by the Biden Administration in September 2021.

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Were just going to shut everything down for two to three weeks, and well be good.

--Everyone, late March 2020

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In a pandemic, wouldnt it be cool to say, I dont know?

Masks, distancing, hybrid school, vaccines and more. The reasonable position on all of it is that most of it makes sense. But, if you become absolute about your position and your position turns out to be wrong, it kind of undermines your authority to be absolute moving forward. This is the problem with COVID hot takes eighteen months in.

Three weeks to flatten the curve.

Masks are effective. Wait, two masks might be better!

Say hello to leisure travel and eating out with freedom once you get the vaccine.

You cant get COVID once you get the vaccine.

Uhhhh. Like a lot of moderates, Im stuck in the middle. Im OK with how weve handled it to this point. Pandemics seem to be tricky (shocking!), and weve tried some stuff and have a vaccine. It makes sense. But weve been wrong enough on all the non-vaccine stuff that its human nature that some people are going to be skeptical of the vaccine.

Thats where you come in, HR Leader. Time to rally around the Covid vaccine.

Whats that? You say you dont want to be involved? Good luck with that. Having no plan or point of view still means you have a position. With FDA approvals starting to roll out, youre going to be looked to for an opinion on how to maximize the percentage of your workforce that is vaccinated.

Ill stop here and offer up the reality. Different companies have different views on COVID and using incentives/mandates/penalties to get people vaccinated. If you are at a business thats not going to get involved with mandates/driving behavior, thats fine from my moderate point of view—you do you. This post is for HR and Talent leaders who have to help find the path to higher vaccination rates, because their business, leadership and/or boards make it a necessity.

Maximizing vaccine rates at your company is a game of incentives, threats and intrigue. Especially in a tough labor market where its hard to find people. In a morbid turn, the Delta variant probably makes it easier for you to take a stand related to vaccination.

Thats why Im here. To rank the Vaccine incentives/penalties—by harshness.

Here. We. Go. On to the rankings, from softest to hardest:

1--Incentives - Youre so nice. Kind even. Youre throwing out extra PTO days or $500 to get the vaccine. This is the least harsh of all the options. Its also the one least likely to move the needle, because youre likely just paying for someone to get the vaccine with more urgency than they would have anyway. They were likely to get it, and you gave them the final prod with a free Honey Baked Ham. Well played. Not likely to get you to 90% vaccinated, however.

2--Vaccine Mandates - I know what youre thinking. This isnt the harshest one? No, it isnt. If vaccinations are important to your organization, this is the one that signals where youre at. You can also talk about all the reasons why youre doing it: keeping people safe (really important for healthcare organizations), etc. Theres nothing like clarity when youre trying to lead.

3--Medical Insurance Penalties/Surcharges - Delta Air Lines will impose a monthly $200 surcharge on unvaccinated employees enrolled in the companys health care plan, CEO Ed Bastian announced in amemo earlier in August. This is undoubtedly the harshest way to deal with employees when you want them to get vaccinated.

Why are additional premiums a dumb idea? Lets start with the broad strokes. If you want all your employees to be vaccinated, LEAD and go to vaccine mandates as your strategy. The whole, its going to cost you strategy just leads to ill will, indecision, and creates a long trail of dissatisfaction in your organization. Youre creating a class of people and asking others to look down on them. Just cut the cord, mandate the vaccine if thats what you want to do, and get ready to recruit.

If you need more of a reason than pure leadership to know why insurance penalties are a bad idea, lets so some math. Im using the Georgia workforce for Delta Air Lines as an example:

Total Delta Employees in GA: 33,000

Estimate of count of non-vaccinated: 9,000

Annual cost of non-vaccinated insurance penalty per employee:$2,400

Total pool created annually by the penalty payments:$21.6 million

Cost per COVID hospitalization: $24,000

Number of Hospitalizations that would need to happen to use the entire pool: 900

Id note here that Delta says their cost is north of $50,000 per COVID hospitalization. Clearly, they are self-insured and have access to the data, but all cites available show average hospitalization cost from $17K to $24K, so I used the higher number of those two.

To give you a sense of COVID hospitalization rates, Georgia has had 72,822 COVID hospitalizations since the start of COVID on a population north of ten million. If I plug in those numbers to the Delta population, it comes to a projection of roughly 237 hospitalizations (versus the 900 theyve funded via the penalty) that could be expected over the same period. You could argue that the rate would be lower since we now live in a world with many vaccinated, but variants like Delta put that analysis at risk, so lets assume the run rate might be the same.

So the Delta program isnt looking to simply pay the costs of hospitalizations; they had to make the number much bigger to provide the penalty needed to move human behavior. Anyone who stays and pays that penalty is going to hate the company for the rest of their life. Gallup says employing people and making them hate you is a bad idea.

All of that to say the following. If you are at a business thats not going to push, thats fine from my moderate point of view—you do you.

BUT, if youre going to push for vaccinations, incentives wont get you there. You can stop short of the vaccine mandate, but Id argue things like the Delta COVID penalty are just going to create ill will. If you want people to be vaccinated, make the call and lead—and mandate the vaccine.

Good luck with the educational campaign. And fire up the recruiting engine regardless of your approach.

Leadership is hard.

Posted at 11:58 AM in Leadership, Manager Tips, Managing, Wellness, Workplace | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Most people dont worry about having to do business introductions. Id say that for 90% of the world, introducing someone to a person inside your network for the express purpose of mutual gain isnt a thing.

For 10% of us (myself included), the requests come on a weekly basis. Its a thing and its full of peril, as the tweet below (email subscribers, click through if you dont see the tweet) from Valley investor Chris Sacca outlines:

If you ask for an introduction, once it’s been made, it is on you to follow up first.

If you make an introduction without double opt-in, it’s on you to come up with your last words before the firing squad.

— Chris Sacca

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