Working with others
Agree how fast you'll each reply
A simple team conversation to stop reading silence as a problem
With your team, agree rough reply times for chat, email and tickets, and how to flag something that can't wait that long.
- 15 minutes
- You and your team
- Every few months
- Conversation
Why this can work
Reply times on most teams are assumed rather than agreed, so everyone waits on a different clock. Settling rough expectations for each channel gives the whole team one clock to go by. People can focus without guilt, and people waiting know when it's reasonable to follow up.
Read moreHow to set team communication norms
You’ll come away with rough reply times for each channel, written down where the whole team can see them.
- Notice what's happening, and say it.
A slow reply someone read as a snub, a follow-up sent an hour after the first message. Start from what you saw, what you think it means, and what you might try.
You“I've noticed we sometimes read slow replies very differently. I don't think we've ever said what we expect. Could we take fifteen minutes to agree some rough times?” - Draft a starting point.
A rough time for each channel your team uses, plus how to flag something that can't wait. Rough and specific beats perfect.
To: your teamFollowing up on what I raised: here's a rough starting point for how fast we each reply, so we're all working from the same expectations.
Chat: within a few hours during the working day. Email: within one working day. Tickets: by the priority on the ticket.
If something can't wait that long: how to flag it, such as a call or a tag.
Tear it apart in meeting. The point is that we all hold the same version.
Swap the highlighted parts for your thing. Works on Slack, in email, or said out loud. - Talk it through together.
Fifteen minutes in a meeting you already have. Ask each person what they need from the others, and what would make the times hard to keep.
- Write it down where everyone will see it.
A pinned message, the top of the team doc, the channel description. An agreement nobody can find tends to fade.
- Check in after a month.
Ask what's working and what isn't, and adjust. New people, new tools and busy seasons are all good reasons to revisit.
Good times to repeat it: after a slow reply gets misreadwhen someone new joinswhen your team adds a new tool
Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Someone mid-review and someone on customer calls need very different things from the rest of the team. The conversation works best when everyone hears what makes the others' work easier.
What might make this harder
Raise it with your manager first, starting from what you've noticed. They may want to bring it to the team themselves, which is fine.
Questions people ask
How fast should you reply to messages at work?
It depends on the channel and your team. Many teams settle on something like a few hours for chat and a working day for email, with a separate way to flag anything urgent. What matters most is that everyone agrees.
How do I set communication norms for my team?
Start with one question, such as reply times for each channel. Draft a rough version, talk it through for fifteen minutes, write it down where people will see it, and revisit it after a month.
What is a team working agreement?
A short, shared set of expectations about how a team works together, such as meeting habits, reply times, or how decisions get made. Reply times are one of the easiest parts to start with.
Why this works, and where it comes from
Nobody on your team has done anything wrong when a slow reply gets misread. One person thinks chat means within the hour; another thinks it means when you get to it. The same silence reads as focus to the person keeping it and as a snub to the person waiting. Because nobody ever said what they expected, everyone fills the gap with their own assumption, and the small frictions add up.
This is a small slice of a familiar practice, the team working agreement, where a group writes down how it will work together. Plenty of teams try to agree on everything at once and end up with a document nobody reads. Taking a single question, how fast do we reply on each channel, keeps it to fifteen minutes and makes it easy to live by.
The point isn't faster replies; it's everyone reading silence the same way. For someone who needs long stretches of focus, an agreed longer window is freedom. For someone who depends on quick answers, knowing the real expectation lets them plan, or flag when something can't wait. Hearing each other's reasons is usually what makes the agreed times stick.
It's the wrong tool when the friction is really about one person who is repeatedly unreachable; a team agreement then becomes an indirect way to have a conversation that belongs with them, or with your manager. And if the arguments are about what deserves an interruption at all, rather than how quickly to answer, start with that conversation instead.
Other simple things to consider
What to do next
More in Working with others
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An exercise written by Truest, based on our experience. Last updated September 25, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.