How to deal with after-hour texts from your boss

You know that guilty feeling when your phone beeps while you are having dinner with the family, out for drinks with friends or watching a movie with your significant other and you know it is your boss with an after-hour work request. Do you answer in a bid to impress your boss and hopefully get that raise or promotion while robbing yourself of some much-needed downtime? Or do you ignore it and stress about getting into trouble the next day?

Being able to work from home or from anywhere really thanks to our phones and the internet is both a blessing and a curse.

Setting boundaries when it comes to answering texts after hours might seem like a risky move to many employees, but it is a necessary one.

Here are some tips from ICHAF Training Institute to help you deal with after-hour texts:

Set personal boundaries: Draw the line between personal and work life. That means no more scrolling through emails in bed. An after-hour text now and then might be acceptable, but if it becomes a pattern, you need to have a tough conversation with your boss. Be clever about how you approach this topic by explaining that working after hours doesn’t give you the chance to do it to your best.

Communicate and be honest: Missed that after-hour email and now you see a WhatsApp message waiting for you from your boss? Don’t ignore the message or stress yourself to shreds. If the message is a follow-up to an email you have not yet seen, tell your boss. If you are not at home or near a computer and can’t deal with the email request, let him know that you will get to it first thing in the morning. Being open and honest with your boss might remind them that after-hours work should be limited to absolutely urgent tasks.  

Stick to your office hours when working from home:  While the pandemic has taught us that working from home is very much possible and productive, it can make sticking to working hours quite tricky. You might be expected to be more accessible and you may have been more flexible with your work hours out of gratitude to have a job during lockdown and the economic downturn. This, however, does not mean that you should be taken advantage of by your boss and you do have to learn to say no, politely, when after-hour requests become a bad habit.