Email Etiquette: With Much Bandwidth, Comes Much Responsibility!
Email is like money, it can be used for good or for evil. As leaders, we need to learn how to use this amazing tool for good. With much bandwidth, comes much responsibility!
Know & Understand the Policy
The first step in applying proper email etiquette at work is to read and understand your company’s email policy and 100% abide by it. Ideally don’t use company email for any personal reasons. Some companies are less strict, in which case, an occasional email to or from a spouse isn’t too much of a problem. For example, maybe your spouse emails you because they need you to stop at the store on the way home from work to pick up some items for dinner, or maybe there is a problem at home, like a leaky pipe, that they need to inform you about. Typically, that's acceptable with most employers. But you definitely don't want to abuse any general liberties that the company allows. Obviously, spending your entire workday using company time to conduct personal business is really unacceptable by any standard. So, really just minimize the time you spend doing any personal activities during work time.
Never Send Inappropriate Emails
The most important and unwavering rule when using company email is to never send inappropriate emails to anyone internal or external to the company. I’ve seen this activity almost destroy some otherwise solid careers. When I was an Operations Manager for a very large plant, one of my employees wanted to send an inappropriate joke to a friend but this employee accidently hit the "Send to All" button and everyone in the company received this totally inappropriate joke. She was in complete violation of our company's policy. Otherwise she was a good employee. I had to essentially beg the company president not to terminate her that day, but she did face serious company discipline and was placed in the company's corrective action process.
What if someone is sending you inappropriate emails? If someone is sending you inappropriate emails, ask them to stop immediately. If they do it again, then talk to your Human Resource Department and find out if your IT Department can prevent it from happening again. Maybe they can block that sender. I knew of one company employee who was receiving inappropriate emails however, they never forwarded these emails on to anyone else. They just deleted them. But this employee still got tangled-up with the issue when the IT Department completed a system audit of everyone's emails and they found some of these inappropriate emails in this employee's email folder. In this case, HR issued him written-warning for job performance because this employee didn’t take strong enough action to put a stop to it. After receiving two or three of these emails, he should have reported it to Human Resources. The lack of doing this made it appear that he was indeed condoning these emails. So if someone is sending you inappropriate emails, ask them one time to stop and then after that, report the issue to Human Resources. Note though, that if just one email is extremely offensive to you, then you need to immediately report that issue the HR after the very first occurrence. Use your judgement regarding the egregiousness and act accordingly.
Never Send Angry Emails
Don’t ever send an angry and aggressive email based on your immediate emotions. Honestly, early in my career, I did this a few times and regretted it in every case. So a trick I learned to do when I am really angry with someone, is this: I sit down at my computer, type up my nasty email and get it all out of my system. I never put a name in the send field of the email just in case I accidently hit send. Then I save the draft copy of the email and finish out my day and go home. The next day, I read my email again so that I can capture the main points in my head, then I go and meet with the person face-to-face. Because I slept on-it and an entire day went by, I’m a calmer person. I find that when I'm actually talking with someone and we are looking at each other eye-to-eye, it really helps to defuse what was an emotional situation. Within this two-way dialog, I can really hear what the other person has to say and I get their perspective. Most often, they will share a perspective with me that I didn’t previously understand. I recommend that you take a similar approach. Never send out a nasty email!
Stop the Madness
Lastly regarding emails – when the email string is getting really long, it's usually because people are using email to problem solve an issue. When this happens, it's time to set-up a meeting instead of continuing with this superlong, bandwidth sucking email chain. Send out one last email and inform everyone that you will schedule a meeting to discuss the topic. Then, soon afterwards, send out the meeting request. This will stop the email chain from continuing and when you send out the meeting request, it will lower everyone's anxiety about it. An important aspect for appropriate email use, is to know when email is the wrong tool to use. Often, people use emails when a meeting would be a better format to solve the issue.
Email is a great tool when use correctly but use incorrectly, it can be unprofessional and wasteful! Learn more about how Tools for the Trenches can help your factory leaders!
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