Lack of e-mail training ‘shortsighted’

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E-MAIL is an essential business tool, but it seems that few people have been trained to use it effectively.

A survey by e-mail management consultancy Mesmo has revealed that a whopping 92% of respondents said that neither they nor their managers had been offered any form of e-mail training.

It’s all the more surprising as the survey also revealed that three-quarters of all employees spend about half their day dealing with e-mail, and of these, a quarter are spending more than four hours a day.

Mesmo MD Monica Seeley suggests this is a shortsighted approach.

“When you combine the survey findings with Government and independent surveys which show that each of us wastes at least 45 minutes a day dealing with unwanted e-mail, we are losing around 20 days a year of productive working time,” she says.

“This is an outrageous waste of a company’s investment in people and needlessly adds to workplace stress.

“Training quickly gives back this time and more. Organisations tend to produce a constant stream of communication and often make inappropriate use of the medium.”

Other issues raised include the correct use of the “cc” option and lack of guidance on issues such as style, clarity, brevity and content.

Almost half of all respondents said their companies had no EDRM (electronic documents and records management) policy, while an additional 30% said they did not know if their company had a policy at all. Lack of such policies can lead to serious breaches of confidentiality and security of company data.