Control Email Madness
The advent and introduction of email at work was a boon to those business colleagues who wanted to get in touch but couldn’t because it was after hours — or for myriad other reasons. Picking up the phone could take much longer than sending off an email. Having an email conversation trail is also a good way to keep track of a project or to cover one’s behind if something goes awry. Email, however has become a burden to many business owners and they are looking for a way to control email madness. This, I believe, starts at the top level of management. If you, as the business owner, are diligent in controlling emails, then your staff will likely follow suit. You may also find it beneficial to put a company wide email procedure in place to cut back on the number of emails that are sent and that you receive.
Here are some ways to control email madness:
- Make certain employees don’t continually use “reply all” when it’s not necessary.
- Tell your employees to refrain from sending cute puppy or kitten videos to staff.
- Implement a subject line naming protocol. For example rather than saying, “Meeting notes” you could and perhaps should write “Meeting notes from ABC Planning Session on 10.13.16” Be specific. If you have regular meetings on ongoing topics, come up with an abbreviated naming convention. This makes it easy to sort the messages and to retrieve a string when necessary.
- Talk with your employees. This may eliminate the need for multiple emails if you have an actual face-to-face conversation.
- Make certain your employees don’t use company email for personal business.
When there are emotionally charged issues in the workplace, do not address them in an email. Emotionally charged issues need to be addressed in person; there are no nuances in a written missive an a low level issue can quickly escalate.