Email or Personal Contact?
As we know, emailing has grown to be many companies main source of communication. Not that I agree with this, but it has. Picking up the phone to ask a simple question is not an option for many employees, they revert to email for everything. How many emails do you get a day compared to phone calls 10 years ago? How many text messages do you get vs. phone calls? I am sure many of you are nodding in agreement. Now in my opinion, there is something to be said for still having face to face or phone to phone contact with another human being.
I am not discounting the convenience and ease of email – I love email. I don’t know what I would do without it or my blackberry! I would just like to throw out the question out there – do we overuse email and neglect human contact? Despite the many conveniences of email and the luxury of being able to send en email at any time during the day when a business is closed (etc)., there are also some hang-ups I still have about the improper use of company email.
I am sure many of you can relate to “mis-interpreting” an email due to its “tone.” This happened to me recently and when I confronted the person, their response was, “I knew you would read it wrong.” Not exactly the answer I was looking for, but it got me thinking about email in the workplace in general.
Many larger companies offer Microsoft Classes – how to use word, excel and powerpoint in the workplace. What I think is missing is email etiquette. Remember the classes in school where you learned how to write a letter properly? What about a class that teaches you the do’s and don’ts of emailing in the workplace. This may seem like a common sense topic and why would we waste our time on something that seems so simple? But I would love to teach and/or attend an interesting class on email etiquette.
Most companies have technology/email related policies that tell you what is prohibited, confidential and blocked by the servers, but I think we are missing something.
I’m sure most of you can relate on both a professional and personal level to receiving an email that you took out of context – maybe it was your fault, and maybe it was the senders? Maybe this idea of email etiquette could solve problems like that? Now, I am not saying this idea for email etiquette solves ALL problems and addresses all issues, but I am sure each of you could make a list of your top 5 re-occurring issues and address them in your workplace.
Demographics also dictate and differentiate potential email etiquette issues. When I started my first job after college, my boss made me send him all of my emails I was sending to clients to proofread first. Many of my critiques came back that I was being too casual and writing like I would talk to one of my friends. Though I was annoyed at the time and felt like he was micro-managing me, I think that exercise really helped put me on the proper path for intelligent and well written emails for all of my career.
The other day I was talking to my mother and I had asked her why she keeping “yelling” at me in emails. She had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. She didn’t understand that typing in all caps is perceived as “yelling” in an email.
My biggest problem now is that I tend to write emails and use abbreviations that I would use in text messages – i.e. u or r for words like you or are. When I go back and proofread each of my emails – which is the golden rule – ALWAYS proofread and spell check – I find myself correcting these casual abbreviations regardless of who I am emailing.
The proofreading rule seems simple, but I honestly believe that if employees re-read their email or tried to look at it from the receivers point of view, this would eliminate many potential issues in the world of emailing. Even think about it from a job seeker’s point of reference – how many of you have read an email from a potential job seeker and been appalled by the misspellings and lack of proper grammar use? This is something you can use on a professional level but also carry it over to your personal world.
Even if you don’t think an entire class or training during a meeting is necessary to address company email etiquette, I would encourage each of you to work with your staff to develop mini checklists to store in their head and to use when proofreading an email. If something doesn’t read right – why isn’t it reading right? What would I think if this email was sent to me? How can I rephrase this to sound more professional and less condescending? If my boss were to read this, what would he/she think? Would this email be better served in a conversation? Is there anything unclear or not easy to understand in my email and how can I fix it?
Going forward this is something that I am going to add to email policies and handbooks, I think it could be very useful. This is something that can help us both professionally and personally.
