I am a firm believer that the future of work is hybrid and businesses and organisations, must embrace and actively facilitate this trend, or face difficulties holding on to their talent and recruiting new talent in the future.

It’s not only companies that must adapt to these changes but we the workforce must change the way we work within a hybrid environment, especially how and when we communicate with colleagues.

Some organisations that have adopted a hybrid approach, still expect everyone to be working their usual hours, e.g. 9am to 5pm.This is a synchronous model of work.

In an asynchronous work model, staff work to their own schedule to get the work done but will also normally include some synchronous activities, such as meetings on Microsoft Teams (other video conferencing platforms are available). This gives staff the opportunity to work unconventional hours around domestic commitments such as taking the kids to and from school, grocery shopping and any other non-work related appointments.

With colleagues working to different schedules, we need to evaluate the timing of our communications with one another. If I'm working early in the morning or late at night, should I be sending an email, replying to a Teams post and expect an immediate reply?

I don’t think so. Neither do I think we should be sending emails and messages at all during unsociable hours. Our communications systems like Outlook and Teams currently default to immediate delivery of emails and messages and do not take into account unconventional working patterns. In the future, deliver of messages may automatically be delayed until recipients are online to receive them, or delivery is scheduled to standard local office hours. But in the meantime, we can compose and send our Outlook emails (and to some degree Teams posts and chats) but delay their delivery to a more convenient time.

Delayed Email Delivery - Outlook Online.

1.      Navigate to Outlook online and compose your email.

2.      Instead of clicking the Send button, click the drop-down arrow next to it.

3.      Select ‘Send Later’.

4.     Select the date and time to send the email.

5. Send the email.  The email will sit in your Drafts folder until it is sent at the required time.

Delayed Email Delivery - Outlook Desktop.

1.      Navigate to you Outlook desktop client  and compose your email.

2.      Select the Options tab and click Delay Delivery.

3.      Make sure that ‘Do not deliver before’ is checked and select or enter the required date and time.

3.      Click Close, then send the email. The delayed email will remain in the Outbox until the delayed date and time:

NOTE:- The Outlook desktop client must remain open until the delayed date and time has passed.

Delayed Teams messaging

While there is not a built-in function to delay posting a message in a Teams channel or a Teams private chat, it’s not impossible to do so by using a flow from Power Automate. In fact, there is a template in Power Automate set up for this purpose, but there are still some limitations.

There is a setup process to follow before you can begin to use the flow to add the flow to Teams.

1.      From the bottom of the left menu in Teams, click the 3 dots and search for the Power Automate app.

2. Click Add

3.      Right click the newly added Power Automated app and select Pin, to keep the icon in place for future use.

4.      If this is the first time you are using the Power Automate app, click Get Started.

5.      Click New flow

6      This flow will use an existing template called Delayed Reply. Enter this in the Search Templates box and press Enter.

7.      Select the Delayed Reply template from Microsoft.

8.      Click Continue.

9.      Click Create flow.

10.     Your workflow has been set up. Click Done.

To send a delay reply to a post:

1.      Hover the mouse pointer over the post you want to reply to and click the 3 dots for more options.

2.      Select More Actions followed by Delayed Reply.

3.      Select the required delay and enter your reply.

4.      Click Submit

I admit, this method is far from perfect and doesn’t really offer enough flexibility as it stands. However, with a bit of tweaking, the flow could offer additional delay options to be useful or even the ability to set a specific date and time for delivery.