When William Becker saw his wife fume about a 5 a.m. email from her boss demanding immediate extra work, he imagined a new scholarly study.

“In general, my research is moving towards specific emotions that we feel, and how they influence us in the workplace,” said Becker, assistant professor of management, entrepreneurship and leadership.

In the private display of anger at that early-morning email, Becker found a prime illustration of how communication in non-work hours can cause a maelstrom of feelings. His spouse’s boss “was just sending emails at all hours of the night and morning, which was interesting for me,” he said. “Because I actually got to see her when she would get one of these emails.”

“You really have to know your employees pretty well before you start sending out emails”
Bill Becker

While there are several business studies about the proliferation of communication outside of normal work hours, few of them also analyze the feelings those messages evoke, said Becker. “If you aren’t including emotions, you’re kind of missing what’s going on.”

Becker designed the study with two research partners — Marcus Butts, associate professor of management at the University of Texas at Arlington and Wendy Boswell, professor of management at Texas A&M University. Initially the three researchers surveyed friends and professional acquaintances for their study.

Those study participants answered questions about workplace relationships and job expectations and agreed to report back when they received an after-hours work email for the next five days. The idea was to capture feelings as they arose, said Becker. “What’s cool about emotions is they come on so strong and have an immediate effect, and later on, maybe we don’t quite remember how angry we were.”

Seeking more participants for the study, Becker invited Neeley School of Business graduates to contribute. Several hundred signed up within a week. With a diversified participant pool, the researchers controlled for age, gender, marital status and company size, but study results showed that none of those parameters made a significant impact.

“What’s cool about emotions is they come on so strong and have an immediate effect, and later on, maybe we don’t quite remember how angry we were.”
Bill Becker

The research showed two factors were more important: length of the message and the employee’s attitude about segmentation (the perception of the divide between work and nonwork time). But factors exerting the most influence over emotional response were the tone of the email and the nature of the relationship with the email-happy boss or co-worker.

“When there was an antagonistic relationship with your supervisor, even kind of neutral emails caused a lot of anger,” said Becker. “Because you’re getting it after-hours, now you’re injecting your relationship with that person into it.”

Though Becker expected a preponderance of negativity and complaints about communication in nonwork times, the research showed a fair balance between positive and negative emotional reactions — more evidence that emotions are often misunderstood.

The professor said heeding feelings and monitoring tone of communication aren’t perfunctory aspects of business school pedagogy. In his MBA classes, students keep journals to better examine the emotional dimensions of their interactions.

Becker wants future managers to pay attention to their employees’ inner worlds, especially when communicating after the workday is over. “You really have to know your employees pretty well before you start sending out emails,” said the professor. “Really think about how is this person going to react.”

Given the exponential increase of technological communication and continual redefinition of work-life balance, he said, “those interpersonal skills are more important than ever.”