Email is a powerful tool - for good and ill - and too many Kiwi employees are missing the message, says Diana Clement
KEY POINTS:
It's so quick and easy to type a few words and hit the "send" key. But single emails have been known to sabotage careers.
The most famous case in New Zealand was that of Paul Buchanan, politics lecturer and security expert at the University of Auckland, sacked for sending an abusive email to a United Arab Emirates student. The Employment Relations Authority ruled later that he was unjustifiably dismissed, but he wasn't reinstated and his career lay in tatters.
One friend was quoted in the NZ Herald at the time saying the accusations made Buchanan out to be a racist, making him almost unemployable in his discipline.
Back in the old days, written communication came in the form of letters and memos, which employees took their time over and secretaries often checked. These days we usually bash out the first thing that comes to mind.
"We were never taught how to write emails," says Sharyn Elstob, career adviser at Auckland-based Focus on Jobs. Becoming email literate, on the other hand, can be a highly effective tool in an employee's arsenal.
But email communication is full of fish-hooks. Elstob says these can include:
* Too much communication.
* Misinterpretation.
* Not being received or opened.
* Your colleagues or customers being offended because they can't read between the lines.
* The ease with which confidential emails can be forwarded.
Good email communication requires that the context is right, the layout good, gestures and intonation are included, and the right impression created.
Step one is getting the heading right. If it says "marketing department", "just checking", "question", or something equally vague, it may not be opened. "You need to be able to identify if this email is something of importance," says Elstob, "[and] come up with a heading you think references the importance of that message."
Layout is the next critical factor. "You need short sentences and short paragraphs with white space between the paragraphs."
Any email over 25 lines is just too long, says Elstob. You could consider sending more than one email - each covering a different subject or aspect of the communication, she adds.
Virtually everyone who has written emails will have had one misinterpreted at least once - even if they don't know it.
"This is one of the biggest criticisms of this medium," Elstob says. "We can't think about how the other person is feeling when we read an email. Were they enthusiastic or had they had their arm twisted?"
Elstob says it's important to use gestures and intonations in writing, such as little smiley faces, and to explain what you're thinking. You may even need to state that it's not an angry message, otherwise the recipient may feel told off.
But don't try to use humour, sarcasm and irony, especially if the person receiving the email doesn't know you particularly well. These emotions are often misinterpreted in writing.
Many people don't realise that it's possible to give emphasis by using cases carefully. New email users often fail to realise that words in capital letters are a form of "shouting" online and should be avoided in business communications. Using title case, bold letters, or asterixes instead, but in moderation, can give words an emphasis without offending the reader.
How you communicate in an email will lead others to form impressions of you that may stick with you for your entire career. Even getting the spelling and grammar wrong is a huge mistake, says Elstob. "If you are sending out an email with lots of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors you are not saying: 'I can help you get to where you want to go'."
Use spell and grammar checkers. If you know your grammar isn't up to scratch, Google the words: "common grammatical mistakes" and you'll find an array of materials online to help you overcome the problem.
One email feature to use sparingly is the carbon copy (cc) and blind carbon copy (bcc) features, which allow you to copy emails to others.
You should only send copies to people who really need to read them. If you're using the bcc function because the matter is sensitive, rather than to protect other people's email addresses, then you might want to discuss it in person. Other misuses of email that can really annoy colleagues, customers and business partners include:
* Sending emails with massive attachments. Nothing in excess of 1MB should be sent without permission from the recipient.
* Copying your email to too many people.
* Requiring receipts for all messages.
* Sending HTML messages unless you know your recipients can read HTML.
* Flagging all messages with a red exclamation mark or follow-up flag.
* Failing to use appropriate greetings or sign your name at the end of an email.
Many an employee has put their own career in the gutter by misuse of email. Eminent cardiologist Harvey White did his career no good, even if he was later re-instated, when he emailed photos of his genitals using an Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) email address.
He was sacked in 2005 but reinstated to his $200,000-a-year job on an Employment Court order. Even so, the doctor lost a case for name suppression in 2007, despite arguing that it would put his future employment prospects at risk.
Employees need to be aware following this case, says Steve Mayo-Smith, who was the ADHB's chief information officer (CIO) at the time, that email is usually backed up on a company's servers.
"So if at any point there is an issue, the company can go back and look at any of your emails," says Mayo-Smith, who is now CIO for Radius Health Group Limited.
Employers usually do, and should, include in employment contracts the right to see employee's emails sent using company email systems.
The second technical factor that can trip up employees is spam filters. Most of these are also able to intercept and filter inappropriate emails going out of the company.
Nor does deleting email from your local computer get you off the hook. For example, says Mayo-Smith, when an email is deleted on a system that uses Microsoft Exchange Servicer, it leaves an electronic signature and can be retrieved by IT staff.
Staff members using web-based email programmes such as Gmail and Hotmail are not immune either. If these are accessed through the company firewall, your activity can be tracked.
Inappropriate or abusive content is not the only "no-no" when it comes to misuse of company email systems. A common problem is employees running businesses on the side during work hours and using the company email system for this purpose.
Or they may simply be spending an inordinate amount of time on websites not related to the business's activity.
Mayo-Smith says that companies don't usually scan and read all email. Instead, they tend to bring in computer forensics when they are suspicious that somebody is doing something wrong.
"It is quite possible to shadow someone's email to see what is going on," he says. "We would be looking for unusual activity or non-business activity."
What's not acceptable in a work email can vary depending on the company, but some good rules of thumb are:
* Don't send anything you wouldn't want to show to your grandmother.
* Avoid sending jokes, chain letters, petitions and any other mass email communications.
* Don't send any emails during work time that relate to a business you run personally.
* Never get involved in online arguments, known as "flame wars". Heated email exchanges have no place in a work environment. Deal with misunderstandings off-line.
* Don't reprimand or sack people via email.
* Always read your emails before sending and consider how you might react to them.
* Don't complain about the company or your superiors to anyone via email.
* Remember there is a human being at the other end of that email.
* Be careful when typing in email addresses, especially where your system uses predictive text. It's all too easy to send the email to the wrong person.
* Protect colleagues' email addresses. It's never a good idea to display addresses of recipients who don't know each other.
The final word goes to Elstob: "This is 2008. Go out and learn how to do emails."
