Xmas crackers: Avoiding email clangers

TrainingZone

Xmas crackers: Avoiding email clangers

By TrainingZone

Tags: Behavioural Skills

Email is good for information and confirmation - not so good for persuasion and emotion, says Bryan Edwards. Here are his tips to email etiquette.

When sending:

In character, email is somewhere between an informal telephone call and a formal letter, but an email can be easily kept as a permanent record – a phone call is more difficult. Avoid slang, careless writing, thoughtless comments, too many dots or exclamation marks

Consider the recipient – who really needs to know? Is it 'nice to know' or 'essential to their job to know'?

Talk to your boss about the types of information he/she needs to be copied in on

Don't reply to a group if your message is intended for one individual. Beware of forwarding your reply to the whole group

"Where is the recipient? If they are in the same office area, why not pop over and talk to them instead. Think of how long it takes to 'talk' the message compared to having to write it out."

Beware of humour and sarcasm – unless you know the recipient very well

Where is the recipient? If they are in the same office area, why not pop over and talk to them instead. Think of how long it takes to 'talk' the message compared to having to write it out

Don't use email as an excuse not to talk to somebody

Never email in anger. Calm down first, or consider an alternative method – email is not the best means to sort out a problem. Face to face can be a much more effective way of getting how you feel across to an individual

Indicate the subject of the email, and the purpose, in the subject header, to help the recipient e.g., Leadership Training: Joining Instructions below

Keep to business issues, avoiding personal emails and gossiping

Re read the message before sending, putting yourself in the shoes of the recipient – what is the tone like? What unintended messages could the recipient see in your email? Am I being succinct enough?

Beware of download times on attachments

Be careful about criticising people and organisations by email. A hasty remark by phone will be forgotten, on email there is a permanent record

Avoid writing in capital letters (to some this is the equivalent of shouting, and it makes it more difficult to read)

If you classify all your emails as urgent, people may gradually stop treating them as such

Be careful about copying the message to the recipient's manager – some people may view this as untrusting and underhand

When reading:

Deal with email at set times of the day only. If your company does not have any guidelines as to how frequent you should access your inbox, then two or three times per day is a good guide. The tendency is to open email as soon as one arrives – if it was that urgent to reply, perhaps the sender should have picked up the phone

Turn off the automatic 'incoming email alert' facility

Remove unwanted emails regularly – one user had 350 emails in his inbox! Always question why you keep an electronic copy?

Set regular times e.g. last day of the month, to review and delete your emails

"Never email in anger. Calm down first, or consider an alternative method – email is not the best means to sort out a problem. Face to face can be a much more effective way of getting how you feel across to an individual."

If you feel emotional after reading a message, give the sender the benefit of the doubt and assume there has been a misunderstanding. Have you read the message carefully? Are you quite sure you've understood?

If it's about a complicated topic, or it's a request for ideas or opinions, consider replying by phone, or meet up with the person

If you are out of the office for a few days, check to see if an automated 'out of office reply' can be set up, giving an alternative person's name who may be able to help

Remember

The more emails you send out, the more you will receive. If you want to change the way people communicate with you, make some changes yourself first.

Bryan Edwards is a freelance trainer in interpersonal/managerial skills and has designed training materials for a wide range of organisations. Bryan runs www.abctrainingsolutions.biz which markets a wide range of fully-designed, ready to deliver workshops, self study packs and other training materials