eBehaviour – how to avoid email overload

Recently, in conjunction with Hilary Briggs, a communications expert, Customer Champions has conducted a study into email use and abuse. The study took the form of diaries tracking a typical days’ worth of email, both received and sent, for nearly fifty European business people (majority UK-based). This article discusses two of the most important and interesting issues that came up.”

With few exceptions, internal surveys conducted by Customer Champions for their clients have shown that good internal communication supports high levels of employee satisfaction. As a result they are asked to look into improving these communications and, more often than not, have seen email having a large part to play.

The subject of email elicited surprisingly emotionally-charged reactions ranging from angry frustration, in the most extreme of cases, to some stating a sense of relief on finishing dealing with their email. The two most common sources of irritation, other than SPAM, came under the headings ‘inappropriate use’ and ‘information overload’.

Inappropriate use

One diarist had consistent problems with his manager because she likes to avoid the awkward confrontation of a dressing down by conducting her reprimands via email! A basic example of poor management, you might think, but can you put your hand on your heart and swear you have never let fly over email? It is just too easy to hit the reply button in anger and let rip. Thinking back to the old days of letter writing, this would have been a rare occurrence, probably because of the cooling off period involved, the more formal rules associated with letter writing and because losing one’s temper in writing wasn’t quite the done thing.

This inappropriate use was often seen from people who were fixed into a routine of electronic communication, had eschewed other forms of communication and maybe used email as a barrier to hide behind, as witnessed above. It was not uncommon for people to feel that they didn’t have time to talk to colleagues face to face or even by phone and so a quick email is fired off instead.

Psychologists estimate that at least 60% of a message being communicated is done through non-verbal means. Non-verbal communication includes body movements and gestures, touch, facial expressions, and eye contact. A further 30% of communication happens through tone of voice. Email has neither of these which leaves a meagre 10% at its disposal, at best. In an attempt to add some tone of voice emoticons were sometimes used

:) :( ;) :+ :o

to help convey a joke, sarcasm, etc. Emoticons don’t go very far in terms of conveying the complex range of emotions that a tone of voice can and were not widely used as they were seen by some as a little too frivolous for the business environment.

The impromptu meeting around the water-cooler is often cited by management gurus as the most valuable communication exchange in a company. Remember the office notice board? Maybe it could be resurrected to eliminate those annoying ‘Can whoever left the mouldy sandwich in the fridge please throw it away’ kinds of email. Consider that when you add up the time it took to write that email, the space it took on the network and servers, and the time for everyone in the building to read and discard, the figures add up to a phenomenal amount of wasted money in lost working time.

Customer Champions acknowledge that, for those people who have to communicate over time-zones, email and voicemail are often the only real way. However, we have seen that the telephone is becoming an underused tool due to people not having the time for the small-talk involved in telephone etiquette. But we lose this at our peril – it is this very personal interest that builds relationships which form a vital part of our working life!

Information overload

In business environments where employees felt the need to protect or defend themselves, email was used as a weapon rather than a tool, with wholesale dumping of information being the norm so there could be no accusation of not keeping anyone informed. This leads to poorly tailored information and reams of text to wade through to find the item of real value.

Overload in a ‘blame-culture’ will surely be endemic and impossible to change without a complete change in culture, one might think. Customer Champions have observed people waging their own war on email dumping with some success. This was done in two ways:

First, by leading by example, effort was spent making intelligent improvements to the way they communicated. When sending, the purpose of the communication was considered and the email was tailored around gaining the desired response. The text was kept short and to the point and attachments (most everyone’s pet hate) were only included where absolutely necessary. The distribution list was also considered so only people who needed to know received the message. The subject header was used to carry key information and any deadline date.

A second, rather more radical approach was to simply return emails deemed to be too general with a statement telling the sender that the email has not been read and requesting a more customised version.

‘Unfortunately, there is no quick and easy answer’, says Juliet Miller of Customer Champions, ‘but what we can do is start to address the way people within companies view and use email’. The need to deal with this issue is certainly acknowledged however we still see little being done. 'The Ten Second Internet Manager' suggested picking three discrete blocks of email time to avoid it taking over your day. Something that was echoed in Customer Champions’ survey.

Customer Champions have uncovered overwhelming evidence that poor use of email leads to a more stressful working environment. We’re all familiar with Dress-Down Friday – some companies are now even going to the extremes of Email-Free Friday! They obviously recognise the stress caused by email, however, is creating a complete ban for one day in the week more likely to alleviate the symptoms rather than offer a cure?

Take the next step

To discuss email overload and how to reduce it within your organisation, please contact Customer Champions.

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