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Checking work e-mails after 11pm, normal?

GFI Software survey reveals that work email is encroaching into the personal lives and free time of employees more than ever

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Sanghamitra Kar
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MUMBAI, INDIA: GFI Software, has announced the findings of its third annual independent study into email user habits, which revealed that work email is encroaching into the personal lives and free time of employees more than ever.

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Of those surveyed, some 58 percent admit to checking work email at least once a day in their personal time, up six percent, while 39 percent admit checking multiple times a day or in real-time through pre-work mornings, evenings, weekends and days off. Further more, 39pc regularly check their work email after 11pm.

The GFI survey studies the employees email interaction behavior as well as the hindrances faced in the effective work email use. It says 37 percent of the people surveyed see spam as the biggest hindrance in the effective use of email while 27 percent sighted CCing vast number of people as a major obstacle, which creates high-volume 'Reply All' loops of unhelpful and difficult-to-navigate email traffic.Key findings from the survey include:

  • Monitoring of work email outside of work hours is inescapable, with 74 percent of those surveyed regularly checking their work email at weekends
  • A further 54 percent admit to checking work email while on vacation
  • One quarter (25 percent) feel compelled to reply to work emails within 15 minutes of receipt of an email
  • In total, 67 percent of respondents reply to work emails in under one hour, while over six percent take more than a week to reply
  • Down five percent from 2014, the survey found that 25 percent of workers surveyed use their work email account for personal activities. The drop suggests increased concern over company monitoring of workplace email and Internet use
  • Over 36 percent of work email users surveyed do nothing to organize their email, including archiving, leaving all incoming mail in their Inbox
  • About 13 percent have had an argument at home due to them checking work email during family time.

Only 11pc of those surveyed expect a reply inside 15 minutes, while only 53pc expect a reply in one hour or less, far lower than those actually responding in that time.

The survey revealed a substantial level of work leaking into personal and family occasions.

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