Email is still very much an ingrained activity among SMB employees, to the extent that 74% check work email outside of standard work hours, with most of those doing so at least several times a day, according to survey results from GFI. Indeed, almost two-thirds of the respondents overall said they check email outside of standard work hours at least once a day. Separately, a significant chunk of respondents said they’ve at some point checked their work email on weekends (80.9%) and during a vacation (59.1%), and 5.6% even admitted to having done so while they or their spouse was in labor. Last year, a study from Gyro found that 85% of senior executives in the US and Europe at least occasionally send and receive work-related emails and have business discussions during vacations.
Despite all of that, 90% of respondents to the GFI survey consider email to be a blessing rather than a curse.
Interestingly, respondents indicated that when it comes to email response times, they don’t expect as much from others as from themselves. About three-quarters said they usually reply to emails at work within an hour, including a plurality 31.6% who said they typically respond within 15 minutes. But, when they send a work-related email with a question, only about half expect a response within the hour, with a plurality 22.9% expecting it within a working day.
About the Data: The study was conducted between April 10-16, 2013, among 503 US employees at SMBs (1-500 employees).
