Here are the most likely explanations:

A full inbox can mean that your employee has disengaged from their responsibilities. If they aren’t responding on time to emails, it could be a sign that they aren’t checking for new messages or that they haven’t done the work required to reply.

The HR Capitalist presents another possibility: “The person with a full inbox can be overwhelmed — a white flag if you will that no person could reasonably be expected to deal with the volume and demands they’re under.” If an employee has too much to do, they may not have time to answer the emails piling up in their inbox.

Moreover, as researcher Wayne Hochwater told Business Daily, “Engagement often means taking on more tasks than one’s less engaged co-workers, but with the expectation that the company will provide more of what is needed to assist along the way.” In this way, being overwhelmed can even result in the first issue–an employee not caring–or rather, not having the resources to be able to care.

An employee dealing with personal issues may find even a regular workload to be too much to handle, and they may feel emotionally distant from their work as psychological problems consume their energy.

Regardless of which explanation fits the situation, you’re going to want to find out what is going on, for the sake of the company and potentially your employee’s happiness as well.

If the email issue has been present long enough and become noticeable enough to cause concern, address the problem head-on and find out what you can before arbitrarily assigning blame. You may be able to stop the problem before it expands into other aspects of your employee’s work performance, or at least identify the issue and work toward a mutually beneficial solution.

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