The anger of receiving an email from your boss after work hours
Andreas Hirschi
The increase in communication technologies makes it easier to schedule work more flexibly – but also makes a separation of work and nonwork more difficult. Receiving an email from one's boss after working hours can trigger anger that leads to work-nonwork conflict, according to a US study. Anger reactions were particularly pronounced when the email had a negative affective tone and required a lot of time to read and complete the requested task. On the other hand, emails with a positive tone increased happiness after work hours. Supervisors should thus be careful how they frame emails sent after work hours and use off-hours communication as a way to express praise and appreciation rather than raising challenging demands.