It's time to start talking

By ANGELA McCARTHY

How tempting is it to tap out an email request to the person in the next office rather than walking around the corner? Or criticise or censure someone by email, avoiding a face-to-face confrontation? Or inadvertently "fwd" confidential information to the wrong people.

How tempting is it to start losing touch with reality because you always communicate by email?

Telecom internet and online marketing manager Chris Thompson tells of a customer who received an email threatening to kill him. Who did he contact? The police? Hell no, he contacted Xtra - his internet service provider (ISP).

"The separation between communications and the content is important. If someone is threatening to kill you, you ring the police, not your ISP!"

Xtra regularly gets requests from people wanting to retrieve emails they have just sent and regretted. And that's the trouble with email. It is a great communications tool that is being abused because people often use it without thinking, says Robyn Pearce, a time-management specialist.

"Instead of automatically replying by email, we need to train ourselves to stop and consider the most efficient way to find out the answer or get information across. Does there need to be a dialogue? If so, is email the way to do it?"

Pearce recalls a chief executive telling her how her new company started with a strong verbal communication culture. Then the office space was partitioned and suddenly the chief executive found people emailing each other, even though they were only a partition away.

"She nipped it in the bud by laying down rules for email-use - discipline is required."

Indeed Pearce goes so far as to call email an addictive tool and is impressed with a couple of large New Zealand companies that have instigated occasional email-free days to break the habit of email overuse, particularly internal use.

They have to use an alternative - such as walking along the corridor and speaking to their colleague. Are you breaking out in a sweat at the thought?

People forget email is a written medium, a flat medium that has to be taken at face value (no pun intended), says Pearce.

How often do you receive terse or aggressive emails that immediately get your back up or are ambiguous because of a lack of punctuation or structure?

She has a friend with an email rule for staff and self, the "front page of the Herald" test.

"He tells staff to ask themselves whether they would be happy to have their email written across the front page of the Herald. If not, he advises, don't send."

The "real-time" sense to email means people often send or respond in an emotional state, says Jan Alley, director of Jan Alley & Associates, a human resources and training consultancy.

"You can't afford to do that. You should do a draft, walk away and then come back for another read."

And that applies to throw-away comments and jokes as well. Think before clicking the send button.

Another common misuse is managers censuring or criticising by email. Alley heard of a manager who sent a group email to criticise something minor only one or two people were doing incorrectly. "That sets up so much bad feeling for nothing." Well, maybe not for nothing, if it meant the manager could avoid communicating about the problem face to face.

HR adviser for Rodney District Council, Sheryl Lewis, says the council has had cases where staff have complained about the harshness of emails they have received. "But usually the sender hasn't realised."

She says the council is discussing making an email policy. As an organisation that has grown rapidly, she says they need to educate for better email usage, such as the practice of using email groups instead of mass emailing, she says.

This isn't uncommon. Thompson points out it wasn't so long ago that people checked their emails once or twice a week. Now they have their email inbox set to show new messages every few minutes, and there is usually something there.

He says Xtra email traffic has doubled in the past three months, although 60 per cent of that traffic is spam.

"While Xtra's figures don't represent the whole market, they do give a pretty good indication of the upward trend in the usage of email as a communication tool."

However the increased use of emails brings new demands on customer service. We expect a fast turnaround response from emails, says Thompson.

"For example, if I leave a phone message for my mechanic, he answers very quickly, but he takes a couple of days to respond to an email, yet I want a timely response. We expect emails back in real time, but it isn't real time."

Email is also now gaining official status as a business communication tool and a legal document. "The emails we send and receive from Xtra customers are legally binding. So is a job offered by email," says Thompson.

It is not surprising that some companies are now looking at how to maintain a professional image with email, such as stipulating emails are written in appropriate English, and spell- and grammar-checks are used.

Email and text are blurring the traditional differences between written and spoken communication, says Alley.

"Written language has always been more formal than spoken, and for good reason. When you can't hear the voice, you need more formality."

Personality types will use email differently as well, says business psychologist and executive coach Jasbindar Singh.

People with a "personality preference to introversion" may be more inclined to correspond by email than pop in to chat about an issue.

"Extroverted types get their energy from the outer world and other people and like to interact with others, whereas the more introverted types prefer the internal world and like to reflect on ideas and issues before responding."

When used well, email is a wonderful tool, says Thompson. "It can provide human contact. I keep in regular contact with colleagues overseas through email. They could be in the office down the hall, or the office in Bombay or London."

Thompson feels people are becoming more astute about using their email systems, deflecting unnecessary and time-wasting emails and ensuring their own reach the right person.

And that doesn't mean adding an urgent tag to an email to get a quick response just because you want to get home to watch Shortland Street. It is all about getting it in perspective.

After all, businesses are relying on email more and more , which means email policies are fast becoming as important to a business as virus, worm and spam protection.

Email's ups and downs

THE UPSIDE

* Provides permanent records and paper trail

* Ease of providing information to several people

* Time-saver when used wisely

* Fast response time

* Good and cheap method of communication between time-zones

* Way to make contact when busy

THE DOWNSIDE

* Time waster - email conversations, forwarded jokes, mass emailing

* Face-to-face communication can become non-existent

* Tone can be easily misconstrued

* Information can be sent in inappropriate format

* Forwarding and cc-ing can affect security and confidentiality

* Reprimanding or sacking by email is dehumanising and disrespectful