And it ain’t cuz Emily Post wants you to.Businesses will benefit from promoting proper email etiquette for three great reasons.
1. Protection from liability. Here’s the no brainer. Certain rules need to be followed to avoid problems for the business. Email messages can and will be reproduced, and employees can, knowingly or unknowingly, put their employers at risk.
2. Efficiency and effectiveness. Many etiquette guidelines promote efficiency and effectiveness, for the sender and the recipient. Following etiquette guidelines will contribute to the overall efficiency of the organization
3. Professionalism. A professional image is important to a business’s success. Proper email etiquette and professionalism go hand in hand.
Please feel free to peruse the category, email etiquette for some great hands on tips.
Last month I posted a resource for sending large files. Another option free option is File Apartment at http://www.fileapartment.com.
Manny sends e-mails in the middle of the night. Regularly.
Have you ever received an email sent at 3:30 am? What did you think of the emailer? Was it positive?
Some employees actually think they will impress their bosses and co-workers by sending emails while others are sleeping. Most people do not view this practice positively. It raises questions about one’s inability to sleep: is this person running on all cylinders at 3 o’clock in the morning; and why is he or she obsessing about this anyway?
Manny’s Antidote: Be cautious about this practice. Just as important as managing your work, it is important to manage the impressions you send. If you are one of those rare folks who does his or her best work in these off hours, your email program most likely has a feature that allows you to delay sending until more conventional business hours.
And it ain’t cuz Emily Post wants you to.
Businesses will benefit from promoting proper email etiquette for three great reasons.
1. Protection from liability. Here’s the no brainer. Certain rules need to be followed to avoid problems for the business. Email messages can and will be reproduced, and employees can, knowingly or unknowingly, put their
employers at risk.
2. Efficiency and effectiveness. Many etiquette guidelines promote efficiency and effectiveness, for the sender and the recipient. Following etiquette guidelines will contribute to the overall efficiency of the organization.
3. Professionalism. A professional image is important to a business’s success. Proper email etiquette and professionalism go hand in hand.
Please feel free to peruse the category, email etiquette for some great hands on tips or go directly to http://bit.ly/camIj and http://bit.ly/aVbFW
We can all point to specific times of the day when we’ve had great energy, when we’ve felt sharper, or have been most productive. How many times have you heard comments like, “I’m a morning person – I can get more done in the first two hours of the day than all the remaining hours combined.” Or, “I’m a night owl – I do my best work after dark.”
Wouldn’t it be great if we could keep that high energy level consistent, all day? Great – yes, realistic – unfortunately not.
The reality is that our bodies work in cycles. Studies have verified that our bodies work in biochemical, physiological and behavioral cycles. This observation has even been given a name – Circadian Rhythm. “Circadia” literally translated from Latin means “around the day.”
So, if our bodies do work in cycles, how can we make the best of those cycles, rather than ignore or fight them? The challenge is to harness those windows of time to do and be our best.
This is where self knowledge becomes our greatest ally. The key to managing ourselves, our work and our lives is to truly know ourselves, our styles, what works for us, our strengths, and yes, our work cycles.
That’s why we should group our email sorting and handling, rather than handle it all throughout the day.
I’ve seen too many great workers use their most creative and energetic times in the day to sort benign email. What a waste!
Choose the times when you most productively handle and sort your inbox, and make appointments with yourself to do it at those times.
And don’t forget that we’ve been harping on you to not only group your email handling, but to choose a max of 5 times daily to go into that inbox! If you can marry that practice with the “right” times of day, you’ve got it made!
When traditional etiquette books were written, email did not exist. The absence of guidelines or rules therefore allowed people to create their own ways of doing things, some of which are downright poor etiquette. All these new technologies – email, voicemail, smart phones, cell phones – have opened the door for some horrific etiquette blunders.
Let’s remember that the basis of all etiquette is RESPECT – not just politeness, but consideration for people’s time and energy and emotions.
When in doubt, ask yourself, “am I being as respectful of the recipient’s) as I can be?”
That’s the key question. That’s the one Emily would have asked you.
Check out this post by Todd Zwillich on his blog, The Takeaway, on congressional rudeness – hey it’s bi-partisan!
http://www.thetakeaway.org/stories/2009/nov/04/web-special-congress-rudeness-bipartisan/
Here is a review of the tool, XOBNI by our friends at Basex…
http://www.basexblog.com/2009/07/16/in-the-briefing-room-xobni-plus/
Did you notice what XOBNI spells backwards?
Hey – don’t just read these, rate them 0-5 on how well you follow them, 0 being stinky, and 5 being fabulous.
1. Be concise. ‘Nuff said.
2. Get to the point. Place your main point, request, or question in the very first sentence of your message.
3. Spell check. Proofread. Make sense.
4. Use proper layout.
5. Use a readable font in a size that is easy to see.
6. Avoid stationery that takes a large amount of megabytes
7. Use the person’s name, either in the greeting, or in the body of the message.
8. Keep language gender neutral.
9. Avoid text lingo (oops, I mean language.)
10. Use only abbreviations that are well known.
11. Avoid emoticons and smiley faces.
12. Avoid long sentences.
13. Use active vs. passive voice.
14. Answer all questions, and anticipate future questions.
15. Include the important points of the message thread.
16. Clean up forwarded emails. Either delete unnecessary verbiage or highlight the important points.
17. Use detailed subject lines to help your recipient quickly understand the focus of your message.
18. For very short messages, use the subject line as the message, ending in EOM (End Of Message) to let them know not to open the message.
19. Avoid writing in ALL CAPS. It is viewed as “shouting.”
20. Use the high priority option only when it is truly high priority.
21. Use the words “URGENT” and “IMPORTANT” sparingly, and only when it is true.
22. Use ‘Reply all’ only when every person in the distribution really needs to receive the message.
23. Avoid sending email messages when you are emotional. Regardless of how you try to mask it, people will “feel it.”
24. Never forward messages that are off color, offensive, racist, or obscene.
25. Don’t forward chain emails, or emails threatening you if you “don’t forward in 24 hours.”
26. Copy ONLY the persons who really need to receive the email.
27. Avoid using email to provide “constructive criticism.” It is never taken positively. Those conversations should be done in person.
28. Avoid using BCC to rat out your co-workers. It turns YOU into the rat.
29. Avoid using email to “discuss” issues among several people – the threads become diffused, and the content is difficult to follow. Call a meeting instead.
30. Avoid sending urgent emails. If you need a response in under 3 hours, visit or call.
