Remote workers often feel obligated to respond instantly to messages, causing burnout. One manager uses a "digital human" notice on emails saying replies don't need to be immediate. Setting and modeling boundaries, especially across time zones, helps teams stay healthy.
Boundaries are really important also with remote teams because they will tend to work all the time. So you'll have your A players and they will tend to be online answering your Slack messages, answering your emails at midnight, at 6 AM, you know, with no boundaries. And you don't want your team members to burn out. You want them to set boundaries. So this is something that we work with our team members. I work with myself, like we're constantly working on setting these boundaries and communicating them out. I put an example of my email so you can see. We have like a digital human notice on all our emails that go out that basically say, hey, I sent this to you at a time that I'm working. Please respond at a time that works for you. Do not feel pressured to respond to my email right now. I live in Hawaii, so I'm 6 hours behind East Coast. So I'm sending messages, you know, late into the evening for the East Coast. But I don't want my team members to feel like they have to respond to me immediately. When I send a message. So I think it's important for you to set those boundaries, communicate them, and model them yourself.
