[shimms]

It sets the expectation for a lot of people that they should be checking and responding to messages at all hours.

I’m a night owl, I like to do thought work after the day of busy meetings. I don’t want my direct reports feeling like I expect them to reply at 11pm when I send them an email, or on Sunday if I’m working. So I schedule it to arrive in the morning or in the next work day instead.

You can tell them until you’re blue in the face, but actions speak louder than words.

[kevincox]

If you don't want people to feel that this is expected then just tell them that you don't expect immediate responses.

By scheduling the message to send in the morning you are just setting the expectation to be awake and respond then, you aren't removing the issue you mentioned, you are just picking a different time to set the expectation.

[shimms]

There is an expectation that during core working hours people will be somewhat responsive. That will differ org to org, and perhaps in your org there are no set working hours. In that case my current approach probably doesn’t hold as much.

My experience has been that simply telling them not to feel obliged to respond doesn’t really cut it, and people feel obligated regardless. This may be a cultural thing too, and again will probably differ company to company and region to region.

[Kiro]

No idea why you want to miss out on an opportunity to show your boss that you're working late. The only use-case I see for scheduling is to do the opposite and schedule it in the night to pretend to be "going the extra mile" by working outside business hours.

[shimms]

I’m talking about the opposite where you are the boss. I don’t send emails at night so my staff don’t feel the expectation to be constantly checking and replying to me. Just because I work weird hours doesn’t mean I expect my staff to.

If one of my team sends too many emails at weird hours I’d make a point of talking to them about their workload and life balance at an upcoming 1:1 to make sure things aren’t getting too off track.

[Mehdi2277]

Because teams want a cultural expectation of normal work hours. I am often a night owl and I’ve sent messages late at night and gotten asked my manager if I’m overworking and since then try to avoid doing it unless I’m responding to someone.

[selfhoster11]

Not all of us are performative, or want to set the expectation that we don't have a personal life.

[AlwaysRock]

You're getting downvoted but I have known a lot of people who will set non-urgent emails to delay send at 7:30-9pm so they look like they are working late. It's silly but most of those people ended up getting promoted.