The festive season is the chance to spend time with family and friends. To catch up with year’s personal stories and put the office to one-side.

Of course it isn’t always possible to work aside completely. A 2010 survey found 59% of workers checked company email at some point over the holidays, with the most popular reasons for doing so being the need to stay up-to-date whilst off and to ease the potential workload when they returned to work.

Thankfully, with a modern email platform you can keep informed of important messages without having to leave the comfort of your home:

Mobile

All modern mobile devices support a variety of email platforms. ActiveSync is available for Microsoft Exchange users and keeps your emails, contacts and calendars in sync. With push notifications whenever a new email arrives. So a glance at the phone in your pocket will tell you straight-away if a message has arrived. Then you can decide whether to risk sneaking a quick read or wait till later.

Webmail

The alternative to using a mobile device (maybe the temptation to check for emails too often would be overwhelming?) is to rely on webmail. All Simply Mail Solutions email platforms support webmail. The latest versions of Exchange Basic, Essentials, Classic and Executive provide OWA 2013 access for customers. Users on other platforms can access the relevant webmail links from our Customer Area section.

Our Exchange-based email platforms provide a fully-featured webmail service, including access to contact and calendar information, through an Outlook-style interface. Users on Zimbra have their bespoke webmail interface.

Remember to relax

Just because you can check your email at home over Christmas, that doesn’t mean you should be checking all the time. This is the time of year to relax and enjoy the company of others. Mobile email and webmail are there to give you reassurance that you can keep an eye on things if you need to. Not to be monitored every five minutes.

Save checking the work email for Boxing Day when you’re ‘relaxing’ on the sofa and about to embark on another round of turkey sandwiches.

Picture credit: Flickr