E-mail alert
E-Mail is fast becoming the de facto means for people to communicate. It is quicker to send e-Mail than a letter, it is less intrusive than a phone call and you have always got a copy of what it was you agreed to.
However, many employees see e-Mail as a perk in the same way that a blind eye is often turned towards personal use of the telephone. This has led to as many as one in four e-Mails being sent for personal reasons.
At first glance it may seem there is little harm in allowing employees to swap a few jokes across the internet - after all it helps keep them happy and the cost is very low. But without an appropriate approach to e-mail you are wide open to abuse.
Take for example the recruitment consultant who needed to fill a specialist post urgently. He e-mailed everyone in his database - and put the list of people in the "to:" field. Sound harmlessNULL Everyone who got the e-mail also knew who else it had gone to. The consultant had handed to his competitors his complete contact database, while at the same time exposing people who had wanted discretion in their search. At least three people on the list worked for the same manager - and the manager was on the list too!
Or consider the worker who thought it would be a great joke to send an e-mail out from a colleague's mail account asking for "kiddie porn". It was such a great joke that within an hour the company's servers had crashed from the weight of complaining e-mails, and the worker and his "friend" were shown the door shortly afterwards.
One of the problems is that e-mail is seen as immediate and informal. A query comes in, then you write the reply and send it back without a second glance. What is written is what you might say to them face-to-face, but without the context of tone of voice a simple statement can lead at least to a lost customer, at worst a visit to the courts.
Clearly education is essential - and not just in the use of your particular e-mail package. The consequences of sending a written message to a client or an insurance company on what amounts to letterhead has to be understood by everyone. Writing skills are essential, but so too is the discipline to sit back when the typing is done and reflect on what you have said before you hit "send."
The reality is I know few business people who give their employees the same unrestrained access to the company letterhead that seems to be tolerated with e-mail.