UWO study: "People abuse the privilege of knocking on your door with e-mail"
The sheer volume of e-mail arriving in employee’s inboxes every day is crippling productivity, according to a new study out of the University of Western Ontario.
“Put simply, e-mail is failing as a productivity tool in the workplace,” said Christina Cavanagh, professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the London, Ont.-based university and author of the study. “People enjoy the convenience of sending relevant information quickly and easily, but this is far overshadowed by the volumes of low-value e-mails received each day.”
And it’s not only leeching productivity during office hours. Most of the extra time spent dealing with e-mail is done away from the office, usually at home, she said. Therefore, not only are employees spending productive time on unproductive matters, they’re also using personal time to do so, making work-life balance even harder to maintain. “This represents a huge cost for both employees and their organizations,” she said.
Cavanagh surveyed 57 managers, professionals, clerical workers and executives across a variety of industries. Of these, 70 per cent said the time they spend managing e-mail has jumped an additional hour per day in the last two years alone.
“Inbound e-mail volumes have increased from 36 to 48 e-mails per day, with a major source of the increase being employee-generated, not client-generated,” she said. Because of this influx of information, only 17 per cent of e-mail users can answer all the incoming mail in the same day.
One of the most common complaints she found was the indiscriminate use of the “cc” (corresponding copy) and the “reply to all” features.
“The use of these is considered out of control and contributes greatly to low-value, yet highly irksome, e-mails,” said Cavanagh. “If I could summarize the current mood surrounding e-mail in the workplace, I would use this comment from one of the survey respondents, ‘People abuse the privilege of knocking on your door with e-mail.’”
So what can you do? Cavanagh offers these suggestions:
•Make better use of corporate intranets for routine organizational and employee traffic.
•Advise vendors and suppliers to stop sending promotional information by e-mail.
•Always respond directly to the original sender; don’t use the “reply to all” feature.
•Expect to wait more than 24 hours for a response to your e-mail.
•Start advising e-mail senders about unnecessary messages.
For more on the pitfalls of e-mail, read managing editor John Hobel's editorial by clicking the link below.
“Put simply, e-mail is failing as a productivity tool in the workplace,” said Christina Cavanagh, professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the London, Ont.-based university and author of the study. “People enjoy the convenience of sending relevant information quickly and easily, but this is far overshadowed by the volumes of low-value e-mails received each day.”
And it’s not only leeching productivity during office hours. Most of the extra time spent dealing with e-mail is done away from the office, usually at home, she said. Therefore, not only are employees spending productive time on unproductive matters, they’re also using personal time to do so, making work-life balance even harder to maintain. “This represents a huge cost for both employees and their organizations,” she said.
Cavanagh surveyed 57 managers, professionals, clerical workers and executives across a variety of industries. Of these, 70 per cent said the time they spend managing e-mail has jumped an additional hour per day in the last two years alone.
“Inbound e-mail volumes have increased from 36 to 48 e-mails per day, with a major source of the increase being employee-generated, not client-generated,” she said. Because of this influx of information, only 17 per cent of e-mail users can answer all the incoming mail in the same day.
One of the most common complaints she found was the indiscriminate use of the “cc” (corresponding copy) and the “reply to all” features.
“The use of these is considered out of control and contributes greatly to low-value, yet highly irksome, e-mails,” said Cavanagh. “If I could summarize the current mood surrounding e-mail in the workplace, I would use this comment from one of the survey respondents, ‘People abuse the privilege of knocking on your door with e-mail.’”
So what can you do? Cavanagh offers these suggestions:
•Make better use of corporate intranets for routine organizational and employee traffic.
•Advise vendors and suppliers to stop sending promotional information by e-mail.
•Always respond directly to the original sender; don’t use the “reply to all” feature.
•Expect to wait more than 24 hours for a response to your e-mail.
•Start advising e-mail senders about unnecessary messages.
For more on the pitfalls of e-mail, read managing editor John Hobel's editorial by clicking the link below.
