Email Overload Drains Corporate Productivity

How much time do your employees spend sifting through and responding to their email messages? Do you think they know how to perform that task well? What are some of the prime missteps that users often make?Email has become the prime communication medium in many small and medium enterprises. Mesmo, an email consultancy, determined that three out of every four employees spend at least half of their day sifting through email messages and a quarter spend more than four hours per day. While that is the case, most companies (92%) offer little to no training, so employees perform this task in an inefficient manner.

One example of email abuse is the cc: function: 81.3% of the respondents thought that others do not use that function correctly. In many cases, individuals are sent messages that have little to nothing to do with their work. Another compliant was that most people think email messages are too long: 62% said that they should be no more than four to five sentences. Security is another limitation: many users do not understand how insecure an email is and use it to send sensitive data. Uses also need to watch for inappropriate comment, which in some cases can be viewed as defamatory.

Memsos has a self-centered way of dealing with the issue: hire a company like it to train your employees on proper email use. Despite the evident self-interest, the company raises a good point. Email has become a vital tool in among employees in small and medium corporations, and outlining the proper use of such tools can benefit the users as well as the company.

How many email messages do you get every day? How much time do you spend trying to sort them? Has your company invested in email training? What do you see as the potential pluses and minuses or such courses?