Over the years customers are increasingly talking about the negative effects of email on worker productivity. This concern is especially pronounced for service oriented businesses that depend on billable hours, such as consulting, law and accounting firms. That doesn’t mean other businesses are immune to the effects. This week, I’ve heard about yet another large company in the financial services sector that is recognizing this problem and planning to do something about it. The CIO of this company has mandated to “Make Email boring”.

The main causes for lost productivity can be loosely grouped into three categories:

  • Internet borne SPAM – your run of the mill inbox clogging advertisements for questionable products;
  • employees over-communicating via email also referred to as occupational SPAM, and
  • the use of corporate email for personal or non-business purposes

While the SPAM problem was on the top of the list until just a few years ago, investments in better SPAM filtering solutions have pushed the other two categories into the spotlight.

Anybody who owns a blackberry or other email enabled wireless device or worse has to deal with a spouse or co-worker that is hooked, hmm uses one, can appreciate the notion of email overuse. The “crackberry” is only the tip of the iceberg though. A study conducted at a large consulting firm showed that mid-level managers were so inundated with email, especially carbon copy mail messages (aka “Tail Covering” emails) that they had to work additional hours every day just to keep up. Worse, the employees were also checking email after hours, weekends and on vacation just to avoid an overflowing mailbox on their return. The result was decreased job satisfaction and rapid burn out.

The issue of personal emails on company time is a tricky subject. Although many companies are publishing rough guidelines in their employee handbooks, any form of pro-active monitoring or enforcement is typically missing. Our studies consistently show that a large percentage of all corporate mail traffic can be classified as non-business communication. Besides the obvious impact on productivity there is a serious and well underestimated risk in personal email. I think the recent news coverage is illustrating the problem rather well.

The proper use of email as an integral business productivity tool should be reviewed regularly as part of the corporate IT strategy. Usage patterns do change and existing policies may need refinement over time. Many companies have already invested in other collaboration tools that greatly compliment email, but the drive to adoption is an ongoing effort.

The initiative of making email boring is a great example of how to draw attention to the issue.

Some additional reading on this topic:
Tips for mastering email overload
Five fast email productivity tips

Technorati Tags: , ,