Has email passed its sell-by date?

By Nishwa Ashraf, Editorial Assistant, Melcrum

It’s personal and can reach a wide audience, both geographically and numerically.

For the best part of 40 years since its invention, email has provided a productive solution for communication.

But if you’re often finding yourself wasting time foraying through the junk and spam clogging up your inbox, rather then dealing with business that matters, you’re one of many employees seemingly shying away from using social media as a means of communication.

Employees are spending an average of six hours or more a week reading and sending internal emails, according to research from business consulting and technology services firm Concentra.

It’s the equivalent of 41 working days, or just over eight weeks, every year.

The study, which was completed by British employees in a range of industries including healthcare and the financial services, revealed that 33 percent of employees questioned admitted they spent six hours or more drafting and reading emails, every week. A further 28 percent said they take between three and five hours a week to keep on top of internal mail.

And for 85 percent of senior managers and 88 percent of HR teams, email is still the communication channel of choice, despite the growing number of social media channels available for business use over recent years.

Conversely, 50 percent of respondents believed that less than half of the internal emails they receive are useful.

And with the abundance of communication channels available today such as social media tools linked to intranets and portals, it begs the question: Why aren’t more communicators embracing social media tools when email has so many inherent flaws?

Plenty of business communication and workflow is centered around email, but for the time-conscious, the results are hard to ignore. It’s ridiculous to think that so much time (and money) is spent tunneling through a mountain of email, that’s mostly filled with junk.

Whether it’s web- or server-based, email for communicating and managing workflow has its limitations:

• Junk/Spam: Our mailboxes are brimming with junk mail that’s ever growing. Even the most intelligent email filters can’t prevent all spam sneaking through.

• Security: Business documents sent over email are not confidential.

• Viruses: There is no certification mechanism for email senders, which is why computer viruses are most commonly delivered through email.

• Delivery: There is no guarantee your email may reach the intended person; your filter may mark important documents as spam.

• Real-time: Delays in replying prevent immediacy in conversation.

• Ubiquitous access: For businesses that use server-based emails, it can be problematic for remote users to access their emails, hence the popularity of web-based email.

• File sharing: Both parties may not see identical file and directory structures, depending on the users email platform.

• Application framework: Email is primarily a message-orientated service.

Of course, I’m not dismissing email entirely – it has its place within a business environment. Many internal communicators maintain that email is the most effective channel for companywide corporate messages, but on a micro scale where messages are orientated toward smaller teams of employees, using internal email for communicating is akin to snail mail. Line managers, for example, would be better off using an instant messenger application or internal microblogging platform like Yammer to communicate with his or her team of employees. By simply embracing and encouraging the use of social media tools, communicators can quickly prevent delays and reduce the amount of junk email sent and received throughout the organization, saving both time and money.

Could social media channels be the long-term solution for communication and workflow processes?

What are your thoughts?

To hear more about how communicators are using social media in a way that makes a real difference to their business, look out for Melcrum's forthcoming Social Media for Internal Communications conference, in Belgium. See Melcrum.com for more details.

Comments

[Todd Chaffee]

Nishwa, I appreciated your well researched article - with statistics I can use. I agree that although email has it's place, there are better tools these days.

You might also find this article useful which gives companies some good reasons to consider for using internal social networks as a replacement for email.

http://bit.ly/7VACzk

[Sarah Perry]

I think internal communicators need to think about eliminating “mass internal communications emails” altogether and start aggregating these messages into a scan-able ‘one stop’ format to reduce overload. Allowing staff to specify their needs and interests and using this information to target messages is also really important.

Social media is not necessarily the right answer in all cases as it’s just as easy (probably even easier) to ignore if messages aren’t that compelling but are nevertheless are important to the organization (a significant percentage of internal comms I dare to say…)

It’s time to get creative and be more visual in communications. Think; screensaver messages, desktop news tickers and desktop alerts (for urgent / important messages that need cut through). Social media certainly has a place in the mix but it’s not a silver bullet and is best used to spark interaction, keep a finger on the pulse and to provide a forum to connect people.

Internal social media behaves quite differently to external social media. Uptake tends to lower and people are typically more formal and less likely to post casual comments (or course it depends on the culture of the organisation)

It’s not only mass email, intranet or social media, there are a range of other options too.

[Nishwa Ashraf]

Todd, I'm glad that the post may have been of some use to you, and many thanks for the link provided - the apt points in your article resonate my view for utilizing social tools in place of email.

It's peculiar that social media in some form would not be present within the working environment, especially for communication. If Twitter and Facebook have shown anything, it’s that social media is a fully integrated part of society, so why the void when it comes to the workplace? Especially when these tools can diminish the amount of junk in our inbox.

I agree, Sarah, social media is not always the answer in all cases and your limitations are spot-on. Like I said, email has its place. But as it's still the most popular choice of communication, communicators really need to look at alternatives, be it by using social media, desktop alerts (great idea), or some other form, in order to save both time and money.

[Cindi]

Email will be around for a long while yet, mark my words. Its a timeless thing of the internet, if you ask me. EVERYONE has an email address. Some people don't like social sites, and avoid them like the plague.

[Fiona Mattock]

Really interesting article Nishwa, I am interested in how we can use social media tools such as twitter to communicate a message, it is something I have been thinking about for a while and would appreciate any thoughts, surely due to the pull nature of social media i.e. you only look when you're interested it can only be used for low priority messages?

[cheap computer]

If employees spent six hour per day drafting and reading internal emails and majority of emails are not relevant that means they wasting their time. But companies should come up with some solution. Interesting article to read!

[toki evleri]

I am interested in how we can use social media tools such as twitter to communicate a message,

[bebekler]

Social media certainly has a place in the mix but it’s not a silver bullet and is best used to spark interaction, keep a finger on the pulse and to provide a forum to connect people.