E-mail As Electronic Communication.
E-mail messages can be quickly written, edited, and stored. They can be distributed to one person or thousands with a click of a mouse. Recipients can read them at their own convenience. And the cost of sending formal e-mail messages to employees is a fraction of the cost of printing, duplicating, and distributing comparable letter brochure. However, e-mail communication has certain drawbacks.
Misinterpreting The Message
It is true we often misinterpret verbal messages, but the potential to misinterpret e-mail is even greater. If you are sending an important message, make sure you reread it for clarity.
Communicating Negative Messages
E-mail may not be the best way to communicate negative information. When Radio Shack decided to lay off 400 employees, it drew an avalanche of scorn inside and outside the company by doing it via e-mail. Employees need to be careful communicating negative messages via e-mail, too.
Time-Consuming Nature Of E-Mail
An estimated 62 trillion e-mails are sent every year, of which approximately 60 percent, are non-spam messages, and someone has to answer those non-spam messages! A survey by Canadian managers revealed 58 percent spent 2 to 4 hours per day reading and responding to e-mails. The average worker checks his or her e-mail 50 times a day.
Here are some little tips and strategies about how to deal with emails.
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Don't check e-mail in the morning. Take care of important tasks before getting ensnared in e-mails. Otherwise, you may never get to those tasks.
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Check e-mail in batches. Don't check e-mail continually throughout the day.Some experts suggest twice a day. “You would not want to do a new load of laundry every time you have a dirty pair of socks.”
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Stop sending e-mail. The best way to receive lots of e-mail is to send lots of e-mail, so send less. Shorter e-mails garner shorter responses. So that a well-written message can and should be as concise as possible.
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Declare e-mail bankruptcy. Some famous persons, who receive a lot of e-mails every day occasionally declare “e-mail bankruptcy”. They wipe out their entire inbox and start over. Keep in mind that e-mail can be less productive than it seems: We often seem busy but get less accomplished through e-mail than we might think.
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E-mail emotions. We tend to think of e-mail as a sort of a sterile, faceless form of communication. Some researchers say the lack of visual and vocal cues means emotionally positive messages, like those including praise, will be seen as more emotionally neutral than the sender intended.
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Privacy concerns. There are two privacy issues with e-mail. First, your e-mails may be, and often are, monitored. You can't always trust the recipient of your e-mail to keep it confidential. Second, you need to exercise caution forwarding e-mail from your company´s e-mail account to personal, or “public”. These accounts are not as secure as corporate accounts, so when you forward a company e-mail to them, you may be violating your organization´s policy or unintentionally disclosing confidential data.