Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Workers Waste As Much As Three Hours a Day Reading Poorly Written eMail

A recent survey by Information Mapping, Inc. revealed that 80% of those surveyed deem email writing skills are 'extremely' or 'very' important to the effectiveness of doing their jobs. The results also showed that approximately 65% of the respondents spend from 1 to 3 hours per day reading and writing emails, with 40% "wasting" thirty minutes to three hours reading "ineffectively" written emails.

Of the participating companies, nearly 50% had 5,000 employees or more, and more than 80% of those surveyed were of professional and managerial levels and above. Key areas within their job functions include training, documentation, information technology, human resources, general management and operations.

Among the primary challenges and issues concerning emails that the survey exposed were:

• Recipient is not clear as to what should be done or how to act on the information
• Content is disorganized
• Critical information is missing or hard to find
• Content is too long, wordy and difficult to read

Deborah Kenny, IMI's Vice President and General Manager of Learning Solutions, says "It is evident that organizations can greatly improve productivity and performance by helping employees write more effective email communications."

E-mail Tips From Charles Warner

1. Write using proper grammar. Capitalize appropriate words—at the beginning of each sentence, proper names, etc. When you write without using proper capitalization and grammar, you are being lazy and self-centered—thinking about what’s easiest for you to type, not what is easiest for the recipient to read.

2. Don’t use Internet abbreviations such “lol,” “rut,” etc. These abbreviations are OK for instant messages (IM’s), not for e-mails. If you use them in e-mails, you arrogantly assume recipients know the secret Internet code as well as you do.

3. Don’t use attachments unless absolutely necessary. Most people hate opening attachments, are afraid of them, and, thus, don’t bother opening them. Cut and paste into an e-mail rather than using attachments whenever possible. (Note: About 90% of students who send me papers as attachments fail to put their names on the attached paper.)

4. Don’t ask for return receipts because people hate having to respond. Trust the Internet. Asking for a return receipt demonstrates your insecurity and your needs and shows you don’t respect the time of a recipient.

5. Use an appropriate signature. Virtually all e-mail programs have signature functionality, so use it. A signature should contain your title (if you have one), your address, your phone numbers, you AIM name, and your Web site or blog if you have either.

6. Use paragraphs. Write in short paragraphs—most e-mails run on in one long paragraph, which makes them hard to read and digest.

7. Keep e-mails concise. Too many e-mails run on and on because people don’t take the time to edit themselves.

8. Edit. Never send an e-mail without editing it. Read it over carefully once you have written the e-mail and take out unnecessary words, correct the spelling and grammar, capitalize, break it up into paragraphs. Edit out redundancies (we all have a tendency to repeat ourselves to make a point).

9. If you want a reply, say so. If you don’t need a reply, say so. Too many e-mails are needless responses, such as “Thanks.” If an e-mail doesn’t require a response, don’t send one.

10. E-mails are forever. Remember, e-mails are saved on your hard drive and on the servers of your e-mail supplier and, therefore, are permanent. Don’t write anything in an e-mail that you wouldn’t want the government or your company/organization to know about. This warning includes use of indecent language. Some corporate e-mail programs filter out indecent language (certain swear words). So, keep you e-mails as clean as you’re comfortable with.