Wednesday, 7 May 2008  
 
 
Emailing has grown by approximately 40 per cent per year since 1996 and consequently we have become a slave to our emails said Sharon MacNevin, Email Management Solutions at the Adelaide Chartered Accountants Business Forum today. 
 
“Email can become a form of ping pong; with a rapid fire of emails between sender and receiver. But when this occurs we are not considering the message and adding to the 65 per cent of emails that fail to provide the recipient with enough information to act on,” said Ms MacNevin.  
 
“This can also lead to misinterpretation or even mean that we send more emails to validate what our intent is,” Ms MacNevin continued. 
 
“We have set up a very urgent environment for email where the demands put on the recipient often does not allow them to task the email into their daily workload. Despite the fact that very little of the work we do is urgent,” said Ms MacNevin.  
 
In 1996 the average email user sent an average of three emails per day and received five emails. Business communication was based on phone, fax, memos and face-to-face. In 2008, the average office worker will spend more than 15 hours a week reading and sending email while costing the organisation approximately $28,000* per year analysing and searching email.  
 
“Before email, messages sent by memos followed a business format. Email has forgotten these rules. Memos were properly titled and contained a defined action and timeframe. Yet emails often provide a variety of options without a clear subject heading stating the intent and including an action,” said Ms MacNevin 
 
The rapid growth of email has meant that many organisations and individuals have forgotten the business guidelines for written communication, sending, receiving and filing of mail. 
 
“People feel compelled to reply to emails even with just a ‘thanks’ adding to the overwhelming number of emails people receive. A simple ‘NRN’ - no reply necessary - can reduce the overload significantly,” said Ms MacNevin. 
 
“We have become a nation unable to resist the urge to keep checking email. With the introduction of blackberrys we can access email 24/7 wherever we are. But we are lowering our production levels rather than being more effective. By simple techniques such as switching off email and limiting access to three or four times a day, will increase our productivity levels,” concluded Ms MacNevin. 
 
Good email etiquette**: 
1. Be clear and concise  
2. Quick responses within four hours  
3. Answer all questions to avoid multiple emails on a single topic  
4. Limit abbreviations, emoticons and capitals  
5. Do not contribute to corporate spam by using the cc field excessively  
6. Only use ‘reply to all’ when the information is relevant to all  
7. Do not overuse ‘urgent’ and ‘important’ flags  
8. Do not request read or delivery receipts  
9. Never discuss confidential information by email  
10. Write subject headings that are relevant.  
 
 
*Steve Ballmer, Microsoft 
** www.emailmanagement.com.au 
 
 
The South Australian Chartered Accountants Business Forum runs until Friday.