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I get daily research reports, and I found todays kind of interesting...
I had to laugh when I read this one. While I agree I waste too much time each day with email, it's not because they are poorly written. It has more to do with the fact that people send emails for no real reason. I still have to read them because there is a chance they may actually be important, but in many cases... there is nothing I need to know in them.
I think the biggest problem is the "respond to all feature" In many cases, people continue to hit respond to all even when comments or information is really only needed between one or two people on the original email list.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Workers Waste As Much As Three Hours a Day Reading Poorly Written eMail
A recent survey by Information Mapping, Inc. revealed that 80% of those surveyed deem email writing skills are 'extremely' or 'very' important to the effectiveness of doing their jobs. The results also showed that approximately 65% of the respondents spend from 1 to 3 hours per day reading and writing emails, with 40% "wasting" thirty minutes to three hours reading "ineffectively" written emails.
Of the participating companies, nearly 50% had 5,000 employees or more, and more than 80% of those surveyed were of professional and managerial levels and above. Key areas within their job functions include training, documentation, information technology, human resources, general management and operations.
Among the primary challenges and issues concerning emails that the survey exposed were:
Recipient is not clear as to what should be done or how to act on the information
Content is disorganized
Critical information is missing or hard to find
Content is too long, wordy and difficult to read
Deborah Kenny, IMI's Vice President and General Manager of Learning Solutions, says "It is evident that organizations can greatly improve productivity and performance by helping employees write more effective email communications."
Workers Waste As Much As Three Hours a Day Reading Poorly Written eMail
A recent survey by Information Mapping, Inc. revealed that 80% of those surveyed deem email writing skills are 'extremely' or 'very' important to the effectiveness of doing their jobs. The results also showed that approximately 65% of the respondents spend from 1 to 3 hours per day reading and writing emails, with 40% "wasting" thirty minutes to three hours reading "ineffectively" written emails.
Of the participating companies, nearly 50% had 5,000 employees or more, and more than 80% of those surveyed were of professional and managerial levels and above. Key areas within their job functions include training, documentation, information technology, human resources, general management and operations.
Among the primary challenges and issues concerning emails that the survey exposed were:
Recipient is not clear as to what should be done or how to act on the information
Content is disorganized
Critical information is missing or hard to find
Content is too long, wordy and difficult to read
Deborah Kenny, IMI's Vice President and General Manager of Learning Solutions, says "It is evident that organizations can greatly improve productivity and performance by helping employees write more effective email communications."
I think the biggest problem is the "respond to all feature" In many cases, people continue to hit respond to all even when comments or information is really only needed between one or two people on the original email list.
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