24 Jun
E-Mails In Your Company-What’s Wrong Here?
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Do you know what they say or where they go?
Recently an HR manager at a financial firm was copied on an e-mail regarding the pronunciation of another employee’s name. Throughout the day, e-mails concerning this subject were being bounced from seven departments. After becoming frustrated with all of the messages, the HR manager hit ‘REPLY TO ALL’ & responded with “What is the Russian translation for get your butts back to work?” That sounds like something that PEO wouldn’t do.
Though the message was sent in jest, the manager later discovered that through out the course of the day comic e-mail’s and the “send-to” list grew to include the entire company & several clients. Needless to say the HR manager & other company employees were embarrassed by this incident. The Payroll Services department was sent the E-mails also and thought about the wasted time costing the company money.
It’s estimated that in an office of 30 employees who are all hooked up to the web, an average of 2,500 e-mails a day shoot back & forth. With that much “communication” going on, it’s easy to imagine that there’s lots of opportunity for miss-communication. In retrospect, there were several unprofessional areas of behavior that led to this unfortunate incident.
The first misstep occurred when department heads started discussing another employee via their e-mail. When communicating information related to employees it is much better to meet face-to-face than to send e-mails.
Additionally, only those who absolutely need to be copied on an e-mail should be. Always ask yourself if it is absolutely necessary to “carbon copy” someone. If the answer is “yes,” pay close attention to who you add. Lots of times employees will “cc” the entire company, thinking that only employees for whom the message is intended will actually read it. In the case of the HR manager, this assumption obviously proved to be wrong.
Focus on the facts & be brief. Yes, you may be a literary genius like Shakespeare but your readers may not have the time to savor every word you’ve composed. Those who receive your electronic communication are busy professionals just like yourself. This means that you should respect their time. Limit the content of your e-mails to basically saying what you need to say. This will ensure that your readers get the essential information.
Ask yourself how others will take the message you’re sending. Lots of times they try to communicate information in a certain manner, only to find that others have interpreted our writing in an entirely different way. It is best to leave emotional language and apparently light-hearted comments out of your e-mail. Bold and capitalized letters should also not be used.
Reading the e-mail aloud or basically re-reading it silently before you send it will help ensure you’re saying what you need to say. Doing this will aid in keeping the lines of communication working smoothly in your work environment.
Finally, be aware of what you are writing. Are you comfortable with others seeing that e-mail you just wrote? If the answer is “no,” either edit it or don’t send it at all. People tend to be less inhibited when they write and more reserved when they speak. Whatever you need to say via this electronic medium should be done professionally. One way to make sure you hire professionals is to have them verified using National PEO.
If you would like more great tips or need Payroll Services,
Benefits Administration, Worker’s Comp, and Human Resources
for your company. Contact PEO
