Tis the Season to Work -- New Survey From Xobni Shows Most Americans Will Be Doing Work Email During Thanksgiving and Other Holidays This Season

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 23, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Xobni, the creators of a popular Microsoft Outlook add-in that helps people more effectively manage their email and business relationships, today announced the results from a November online survey conducted on its behalf by Harris Interactive.  The survey shows that the majority of employed American adults (59 percent) check work emails during traditional family holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.  Of these, over half (55 percent) check work email at least once a day and more than one in four (28 percent) do so multiple times throughout the day.

American workers continue to be inundated with email at work and this latest survey shows that there is no sign of slowing down during the holiday season with 79 percent of those that check email while on holiday stating that they have received a work-related email from a colleague or client on holidays.  The onslaught of work is leading to growing contempt by American workers with 41 percent of those that ever received work emails from a co-worker/client while they had time off for the holidays saying they are either annoyed, frustrated or resentful after receiving these emails.  Younger adults have the strongest opinion on the matter with 56 percent ages 18-34 sharing they have the above reactions compared to just 39 percent of adults ages 35-44 and 30 percent ages 45-54.  The survey also found that 12 percent of respondents actually "dread" seeing work emails populate their inbox and 10 percent even feel pity for those who do send work-related emails on holidays.

Despite their displeasure with receiving work-related emails on holidays, 42 percent of those that check work email while they have time off for the holidays still believe that staying up-to-date on email eases their workloads once they return from break.  Additionally, 19 percent of those of those that ever received work emails from a co-worker/client while they had time off for the holidays even cited feeling "thankful" or "relieved" at having the distraction.

Working Men Email More on Holidays

Employed males are significantly more likely to check work email on holidays – 67 percent – compared to just 50 percent of women.  Employed middle-aged adults feel the greatest urge, with 65 percent of those aged 35-44 stating that they have checked work emails on holidays.  And while the East and West coasts are traditionally considered to be the beating hearts of capitalism in the United States, the survey found that the Southern region led the way with the most people sharing that they check work emails during the Holidays – 63 percent (compared to 57 percent for the west and 59 for the northeast).

Choosing Work over Family/Friends

For some, the survey found that the draw of work email is just too hard to get away from.  One in 10 (10 percent) who admitted to checking email while off for a holiday stated that they did so while spending time with friends or relatives at Holiday parties/gatherings or during meals.  Younger adults are more likely to do so with 15 percent of ages 18-34 compared to only 10 percent of ages 35-44 and just six percent of ages 45-54.  Some of those (five percent) that check work email while they have time off for the holidays even admitted to using work email as excuse to avoid awkward family moments and other holiday commitments.

Tools and Tips to Solve Email Overload

There are several resources and tricks available to people that will help them be more productive and efficient so they feel less compelled to do work email during this upcoming Holiday season.  For example, email add-ins such as Xobni (http://xobni.com) can help people take back control of their inboxes whether taking time off during the Holidays, or simply to manage the daily inflow of emails to their inbox.  Internal surveys show that the average Xobni user saves 45-60 minutes per week – and is three times more productive when searching and working in email with Xobni when compared to working in Outlook without Xobni.  Benefits of Xobni that helps overwhelmed workers includes:

• Lightning fast email and people search.  Xobni automatically creates a profile for every contact in a user's inbox, helping them to quickly find information and emails exchanged, meetings scheduled, links or documents shared with business and personal contacts.
• Integration of relevant third party data, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Salesforce, in to your Outlook inbox eliminates the need to leave email to find information needed to be most effective.  
• Emails are threaded so you can see the complete conversation reading multiple emails related to the same topic.

For more information about Xobni and how it helps users take control of their inboxes, both on their desktops and smartphones, go to www.xobni.com.

About Xobni

Xobni ("inbox" spelled backwards) is a San Francisco startup that brings together your individual exchanges with social media content to provide a complete view of all your contacts in one place.  Xobni's contact management products offer lightning fast email search and organization of your inbox, as well as an innovative and comprehensive address book for the mobile device.  The technology emerged from a Master's project at MIT in 2006, and has been downloaded almost five million times since it launched publicly in May 2008.  Xobni's first mobile product was developed for the BlackBerry and launched in March 2010.  Xobni is funded by Khosla Ventures, Cisco Systems, BlackBerry Partners Fund, First Round Capital and others.  For more information, go to xobni.com.

About Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive is one of the world's leading custom market research firms, leveraging research, technology, and business acumen to transform relevant insight into actionable foresight.  Known widely for the Harris Poll and for pioneering innovative research methodologies, Harris offers expertise in a wide range of industries including healthcare, technology, public affairs, energy, telecommunications, financial services, insurance, media, retail, restaurant, and consumer package goods.  Serving clients in over 215 countries and territories through our North American, European, and Asian offices and a network of independent market research firms, Harris specializes in delivering research solutions that help us – and our clients – stay ahead of what's next.  For more information, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com.

About The Survey

This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Xobni from November 5th to 9th, 2010 among 2,179 adults ages 18 and older.  This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.  

MEDIA CONTACT

Paul Loeffler on Behalf of Xobni
paul at sutherlandgold dot com
510.593.6765

SOURCE Xobni