Getting Out of Your Inbox: Better Workplace Email Communication

Email communication remains one of the most useful tools in business. It creates a record, allows people to respond asynchronously and makes it easy to share information across locations.

It is also where too many conversations go to lose clarity.

A complicated decision becomes a chain of replies. A sensitive issue is addressed through carefully worded paragraphs. A simple question reaches twenty people, and everyone spends time deciding whether they are expected to respond.

The problem is not email communication itself. It is using email without considering whether the channel fits the message.

Better workplace email communication requires more intention. Leaders and teams should decide when information belongs in an email, when it needs a conversation and when another tool would make collaboration easier.

The goal is not to eliminate the inbox. It is to stop asking email to do every communication job.

One of the coolest things about working in the communication and learning space is that you come across a lot of new approaches to daily business challenges. Some of them work magic (and others we’ll call creative experiments), but the energy that can surround even the smallest ingenuity in the corporate world is always fun to watch.

Email Communication: The Impact of Email on Workplace Communication

In our post “You’ve Got Email…Ugh,” we discussed the generational gap between email communication language and usage, which seemed to really resonate with many of our Base Camp subscribers. So much so that it seems pretty clear that there’s a significantly negative attitude towards corporate email culture, especially among millennials. So let’s dive back into the challenges of email culture and explore this time how a few companies are attempting to reshape how their employees view internal communications.

Substituting Email:

First starting back in 2015, Accenture North America’s CEO Julie Sweet outlawed the corporate memo. Instead of sending mass emails to inform Accenture’s employee base, the company has now switched to video messages. Sweet and the rest of the leadership team use a combination of pre-recorded and live-stream messages with the intention of encouraging dynamic and organic conversations, and problem solving.

While not every video can be live-streamed, the idea behind switching to video messaging was that a video could convey emotion better than simple text. By showing executives as more “off the cuff” and informal, employees would feel more connected to their leadership, which would in turn create a more authentic business environment.

Restricting Email Communication:

Van Meter, an electronic parts distributor headquartered in Cedar Rapids, IA, recently implemented a ban on sending internal emails from 5pm to 7am during the weekdays and all day on the weekends. As a part of measuring employees’ work-life balance and happiness, Van Meter’s leadership team discovered that many employees did not feel that they were completely unplugged from work, even when at home. They found that the largest common contributor to this was that people felt the need to check their email after every little ding from either their home computers or phones.

While external emails can be sent to clients and time-critical emails have workarounds, the 5pm cut-off for email is exactly that. Unless it’s an emergency, it can wait. Employees who are on vacation even have their emails shut down!

Replacing Email With More Personal Communication: Eliminating Email

Among many European companies, an increasingly popular trend is not only not to respond to email after hours, but to eliminate internal email all together. Atos, a French IT company, recently eliminated the emails of 80,000 employees. Just plain and simple, no email. At Atos, you have to walk to someone’s desk, floor, office etc. and talk to them. (Egad!).

Email Communication: Communication and Interpersonal Connection at Work

So Which Path Should We Take?:

Email communication is easy to hate. Substituting and restricting it are fine, but aren’t there just days when you wish all those little red flags in your inbox would just disappear for good? Email can have a direct impact on company workflow by distracting workers from relevant tasks to deal with less important messages. A study conducted by the BBC in late-2016 revealed that it takes an average of 64 seconds to get back to work after checking a new message and depending on the industry, some estimates can go as high as a few hours every day that are used to answer email!

It’s easy to understand why many employees (and more than a few company leaders), are looking to restructure their internal communications. Think about it. Changing or eliminating email would mean that when you come back from vacation you don’t have to return to 10,000 messages and spend the better part of a day trying to sift through what\’s really important. When you don’t have to scroll through dozens of emails every day that are irrelevant to your current tasks, you are a more efficient workers.

But if the pros are so great for changing our email cultures, why hasn’t everybody already done it yet? Well, as you might expect, there are also a few cons. Say we eliminate internal emails completely at your company. Well, naturally if you need something from someone in another division, you’ll need to ask them for it face to face. And if that person works 9-5 everyday, guess what? Now you have to, too. Without a means of communicating remotely, companies need their employees on-site at the same time. So, if you’re someone who works remotely or off of the traditional 9-5 path what means more to you: getting rid of emails or maintaining your flexible schedule?

It’s nice to fantasize about what a no email culture might be like. But as we’ve said before in early posts, it’s highly unlikely to think that email is going anywhere. In the U.S. at least email is simply too embedded of a communication system to remove it entirely. However, that does not mean that internal communication is stagnant. Far from it! More and more companies are incorporating alternative communication forms.

Apps like Skype (video conferencing), Dropbox (file transfer), and Slack (honestly kind of a hodgepodge of everything) diversify how we interact with both fellow employees and clients, and arguably increase our productivity. Instead of emailing with a client back and forth twenty times, I can set up a video conference with them and eliminate multiple rounds of delayed responses. And instead of having to email multiple folks to find a certain file or being physically in the office to access our shared drive, I can access the file via Dropbox from just about anywhere.

Email Communication: The Impact of Email on Workplace Communication

Email communication is easy to send, which also makes it easy to overuse.

Employees copy additional people for visibility, forward long threads for context and send written updates because they are uncertain whether a meeting is necessary. Over time, the inbox becomes a combination of task list, information archive, approval system and conversation platform.

That creates several communication problems:

Important messages compete with routine updates.
Employees receive information without knowing whether action is required.
Long threads make decisions difficult to locate.
Tone is interpreted without vocal or visual context.
People respond to individual points without addressing the larger issue.
Sensitive concerns escalate through writing.
Employees feel pressure to remain continuously available.

Communication volume is not the same as communication effectiveness.

Email Communication: Why Email Overload Becomes a Leadership Problem

Leaders help establish the email communication habits of a team.

When a manager sends messages late at night, employees may assume an immediate response is expected even if the manager did not intend one. When leaders copy large groups on routine questions, others begin doing the same. When every decision is made through a chain of replies, teams learn that clarity is less important than documentation.

A leader may believe the team has a time-management problem when the larger issue is a lack of communication norms.

Teams need shared expectations about:

Which channel to use
Who needs to be included
How quickly a response is expected
What qualifies as urgent
Where final decisions are documented
When a written exchange should become a conversation
How after-hours messages should be handled

Without these expectations, every employee develops a separate interpretation.

Email Communication: When Email Is the Right Communication Channel

Email communication works well when the message:

Does not require an immediate response
Needs a written record
Communicates a clear update
Shares documents or background information
Confirms a decision
Assigns straightforward next steps
Reaches people working at different times
Can be understood without extensive discussion

The subject line should make the purpose visible.

Compare:

Project Update

with:

Decision Needed by Thursday: Customer Event Budget

The second version tells the recipient what the message contains and whether action is required.

Email Communication: When to Choose a Conversation Instead

Email communication becomes less effective when the message is sensitive, ambiguous or likely to create several rounds of clarification.

Choose a conversation when:

Giving difficult feedback
Addressing conflict
Discussing performance concerns
Exploring competing perspectives
Making a complex decision
Sharing information likely to create an emotional response
Attempting to resolve a long email thread
Needing immediate collaboration
Communicating something that may be easily misunderstood

A conversation does not have to become a one-hour meeting. A focused ten-minute call may resolve what could become twenty written responses.

Match the Communication Channel to the Message

Different communication channels support different outcomes.

Email

Use email for clear information, documentation and communication that does not require an immediate exchange.

Messaging Platforms

Use messaging tools for quick coordination, simple questions and informal updates. Avoid allowing every chat channel to become another inbox requiring constant attention.

Shared Documents

Use shared documents when several people need to review, edit or comment on the same material. This keeps feedback connected to the work instead of scattered across emails.

Video or Phone Conversations

Use a call when tone, nuance or rapid clarification matters. A conversation is often more efficient when the issue contains uncertainty or disagreement.

In-Person Meetings

Use an in-person meeting when the group needs focused collaboration, relationship building or a discussion that benefits from fuller audience awareness.

The right choice depends on Content, Style and Situation. What needs to be communicated? How will the channel affect the way it is received? What does this particular situation require?

Email Communication: Set Clear Expectations for After-Hours Communication

Flexible work has made email communication more convenient, but it has also made availability harder to interpret.

An employee may send an email at night because that is when they prefer to work. A colleague may receive it as an expectation to respond.

Leaders can reduce that uncertainty by making expectations explicit:

State whether after-hours responses are expected.
Use scheduled send for messages that can wait.
Define what qualifies as urgent.
Identify which channel should be used for emergencies.
Avoid praising employees primarily for constant availability.
Respect vacation and other approved time away.
Model the boundaries the team is expected to follow.

The objective is not to prevent people from working flexibly. It is to separate flexible sending from required availability.

Email Communication: Getting Out of the Inbox Without Creating More Meetings

Reducing email does not mean replacing every message with a meeting.

An unnecessary meeting creates many of the same problems as an unnecessary email. It consumes attention, interrupts focused work and may fail to produce a clear outcome.

Before selecting a channel, ask:

Does this information require a response?
Does the audience need to discuss it?
Could the message be misunderstood without tone or context?
Does the communication need a written record?
How quickly is a response actually needed?
Who truly needs to receive it?
Where will the final decision live?

These questions help teams choose the most useful format rather than defaulting to habit.

Email Communication: How Leaders Can Improve Internal Communication

Improving internal communication does not always require another platform.

Start by clarifying how existing tools should be used. Create simple communication agreements, test them with the team and adjust when they create friction.

Leaders can also improve email communication by:

Reducing unnecessary recipients
Writing more specific subject lines
Placing the requested action near the beginning
Separating information from decisions
Summarizing long discussions
Moving sensitive issues into conversation
Documenting decisions in one agreed location
Reviewing recurring meetings and email reports
Asking employees where communication regularly breaks down

Better email communication is not created by sending more. It is created by making each message easier to understand and act on.

So whether we like it or not, the reality is that we live in a culture of 40 hour work weeks and email is one of the predominant tools that we use to communicate, despite its unpopularity. But there is the hope for change on the horizon! Does your office have a unique solution to email headaches? Is there a specific approach you with your company would try? Head back to Base Camp and join the conversation!