Timing is everything when it comes to getting one reply to your email—and apparently posting it on a Sunday afternoon will likely prompt a reaction from your team.
Accordingly recent research found that the best time to send internal messages is between 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM on Sunday
After analyzing 8.7 million emails, communications software company Axios HQ found that those sent during this time period had a 94% chance of being opened, compared to the usual 50 to 76% chance of being opened during the week.
Meanwhile, the second most effective time to reach your team is between 6pm and 9pm on Sunday, researchers said, when emails have an 86% open rate.
Messages sent during these times get “low competition” because they don’t compete for employees’ attention with Monday morning meetings and the constant stream of emails that follow.
But don’t confuse employee response with happiness: even if emails sent on a Sunday afternoon have a better response rate than on a busy work day, they’re unlikely to generate a positive reaction.
Previous research has warned that weekend emails are the worst if you care about employee mental health
Technology has become increasingly intrusive in people’s lives outside of work, and previous research has shown that workers are struggling. turn off and get Sunday night anxiety because they are always contactable.
Dr Matthew Davis, Associate Professor at Leeds University Business School, calls this modern phenomenon the ‘techno invasion’.
he said has Times (UK) that it is “linked to people feeling more stressed, less satisfied with work and work-life balance”.
“My concern would be if people see this and think, one weekend I’ll start sending these out more regularly,” he added. “Because it’s fine for some … but there’s a good proportion of people (for whom) that’s going to add that sense of burden.”
Dr Laura Giurge, assistant professor in the department of psychological and behavioral sciences at the London School of Economics, echoed this in 2021. out-of-hours email notification employees are likely to feel they have to work around the clock.
“Senders underestimate how stressful after-hours emails can be for recipients,” he wrote. “In other words, when we see our inbox as a transmitter, we seem to underestimate the impact our out-of-hours behavior can have on the well-being of others.”
But it’s clear from Axios’ research that people already know that sending an email on a Sunday afternoon won’t go down well with staff or members, as data shows they generally avoid doing it except in emergencies.
Despite the fast response rate, the weekend is the most popular time to send emails: the researchers found that messages sent on Saturday and Sunday are typically “essential communications” and account for a measly 2% of messages sent that week.
There is a difference between being open and reading
The report also highlighted the risk of opening an email, but then ignoring it due to employee annoyance at the time of the notice.
“Send windows do not always equate to read windows,” the researchers acknowledged, noting that the percentage of employees who opened an email does not reflect whether it was properly read or responded to.
Ultimately, managers who really need a response to an urgent email should take Giurge’s advice and make that clear in the subject line of their email. “To help others protect their well-being, it is important to clearly define the deadlines for our requests,” he stressed.
Likewise, those sending non-urgent emails on Sunday should also clearly state that they can take advantage of the open fast rate without compromising the welfare of their employees.
A version of this story was originally published on Fortune.com on August 4, 2023.
