UK managers are rewarding after-hours replies over merit, Careerminds research finds

UNITED KINGDOM, July 2026 – The UK government’s promised “right to switch off” was dropped from the Employment Rights Bill in 2025, with no replacement expected before 2027. Meanwhile, almost a quarter of workers already say they feel expected to answer emails in their own time. 

However, Careerminds UK‘s survey of 600 UK employees shows that employees’ response times are closely linked to how often they’ve been promoted, excluding the 16.0% who say they are never contacted outside working hours. 

Key findings: 

• UK employees who reply immediately to out-of-hours messages are 1.3x more likely to be promoted than those who wait (70.8% vs 55.1%). 

• Promotion rates fall the longer employees take to reply: 70.8% for instant repliers, 68.2% within the hour and 55.1% for those who wait. 

• Men who reply instantly to after-hours messages are promoted more often than women who do the same (79.0% vs 60.8%). 

• Millennials who reply quickly are promoted almost twice as often as Gen X employees doing the same (86.0% vs 47.2%). 

• The always-on promotion boost is strongest for managers and senior staff, with gaps up to 17.6 points, and disappears at entry-level and director level. 

“For many employees, this creates a difficult trade-off between protecting their personal time and demonstrating commitment at work”, explained Amanda Augustine, Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC) and resident careers expert at Careerminds UK.  

“Ideally, promotions should reflect the quality of someone’s contribution, rather than how quickly they reply outside working hours. While employees can’t always control how responsiveness is perceived, they can take steps to ensure their dedication and contributions are visible in other ways, whether that’s sharing progress updates, speaking up in meetings or documenting their achievements”. 

Full research findings can be read below: 

• The slower the reply, the lower the promotion rate: Employees who reply immediately to out-of-hours messages have a 70.8% promotion rate, compared with 68.2% for those who reply within the hour and 55.1% for those who wait until the next working day, a 15.7 percentage point gap between the fastest and slowest responders who still receive such messages. 

• Men benefit more than women from the same behaviour: Among employees who reply immediately to after-hours messages, 79.0% of men have been promoted in the last two years, compared with 60.8% of women showing the same behaviour. The gap narrows but does not close among quick responders more broadly, at 74.3% for men versus 61.7% for women. 

• Millennials get the biggest reward for replying fast: 86.0% of millennials who reply right away to out-of-hours messages have been promoted, compared with just 47.2% of Gen X employees (aged 44 to 59) showing identical behaviour. Gen Z employees who reply immediately sit close behind millennials, at 81.2%. 

• The promotion advantage is concentrated in the middle of the organisational hierarchy. Senior employees who reply quickly are promoted at 83.3%, against 66.7% of senior employees who wait, a 16.6-point gap, and managers show an almost identical gap (79.6% versus 62.0%). The effect disappears at either end of the ladder: director-level employees are promoted at a similar rate whether they reply quickly (88.6%) or wait (87.5%), and entry-level employees show no gap at all (20.0% versus 20.0%). 

“Employers need to take a step back and consider whether the promotions they’re doling out are based on real merit or simply availability’, Augustine added. “If employees feel they need to be constantly available in order to get ahead, organisations risk reinforcing behaviours that contribute to burnout. The strongest promotion decisions should recognise sustained performance, collaboration and results, rather than simply rewarding whoever happens to respond first”. 

Amanda Augustine is the resident careers expert for Careerminds, career.io, and its suite of brands: resume.io, TopResume, TopCV, TopInterview, Resume.ai, and others. As a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC) and a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW), she has spent more than 20 years helping professionals improve their careers and land the right job sooner. Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook. 

Careerminds UK surveyed 600 UK workers via Pollfish in May 2026 on promotion history and out-of-hours reply habits. Reply-speed findings are based on the 502 respondents who receive such messages outside working hours. Respondents included a higher proportion of managers and senior staff than the UK workforce overall, so findings should be read as comparisons within this sample rather than as a national benchmark.