Sleep being lost over bulging inbox

Anationwide study of working Britons suggests almost half (43%) are unable to deal with the increasing deluge of emails hitting their inbox every day.

A further 30% claim they are suffering from sleep deprivation because of an overload of unread messages.

According to the study, which was commissioned by financial advisers Pure Commercial Finance, the average employee has a whopping 651 unread messages in their inbox at any given time.

This leads to more than 12% feeling the need to check their inbox first thing in the morning as well as last thing at night, with 10% claiming replying to work emails when they are meant to be relaxing with their family leads to arguments in the home and on holiday.

The research found 51% regularly miss emails, while 17% routinely delete ones they have never read in an attempt to clear their inbox.

The average worker will also fire off

24 emails to the wrong person every year by mistake, sometimes with serious consequences.

Nearly 8% have had a serious disciplinary issue because of a missed email, 6% admit they’ve cost the company money for the same issue – and 3% have been fired because of a work email mistake.

Other email mishaps include sending a joking message to someone only to have it completely misread (6%) and accidentally sending a message to the person the email was about (4%).

A mortified one in 50 Britons has accidentally sent racy images of themselves to clients or colleagues.

More than a third of us (36%) have sent angry emails only to regret them once we’ve calmed down.

And exactly a third have had an email argument with a colleague which they believe could have been solved if they had just talked face-to-face.

Jade Thomas, from Pure Commercial Finance, says: “This research shows how emails can be overwhelming and ultimately, take over an employee’s life.

“It often stops people from going about their daily job, as they’re wasting too much time hunting through their inbox and replying to emails that can always wait.

“We encourage members of staff to close their inbox for a few hours a day and to focus on their activity.

“This helps employees be more productive and minimise stress.

“If something was that important, then the office number is in every employee’s sign-off.”

The research also delved into work email etiquette, and revealed that most hated was the use of kisses in work correspondence. Of those polled, 44% said putting “xx” at the end of work emails was totally unprofessional.

Also on the list was sending emails without proofreading first (32%), using emojis (29%), and getting the name wrong of the person you’re emailing (28%).

The data showed that people can feel very awkward about the inclusion of kisses in work emails, with 22% hating that they feel obliged to reply with an “x” .

If you want an email read, you should send it to Plymouth as the city is email control capital where residents are most on top of their emails, with 48% having a clear inbox at the end of every day.

Londoners have the most unread mails with 956, compared with people in Nottingham who only have 295 – the lowest on average.

A time and a place for everything: Replying to work emails when you are meant to be doing something other than work can lead to arguments in the home.