How email can become fun again
Before the email was invented, messages and data had to be exchanged with great effort via post, telephone or disk. With the innovative introduction of email, it became possible for information to reach its recipient no matter where the sender and recipient were or what time it was. Email was fun,accelerating business communication enormouslyand greatly simplifying life at work. It is no wonder email became the most important means of business communication. In fact,over 205 billion emails were sent and received daily last year, and this is expected to grow to more than 246 billion emails by the end of 2019.
Despite being widely used, email communication is no longer as much fun as it once was. It’soften perceived as being disruptive.It was only a few years ago that emails only reached their recipients when they had started up their computers and established an online connection. With digitalisation and the proliferation of mobile devices, employees are online everywhere around the clock and reachable outside of regular office hours. Today, the average worker spends approximately 30 hours per week on emails, even checking them while watching movies, driving and even while on vacation.
Email security issues such as viruses, spam or phishing, also make it difficult for companies to utilise emails.For example, the use of spear phishing emails, or emailing a malicious link or file to targeted groups of people, have been found to constitute 91% of cyber-attacks including the ones on SONY, Anthem and The Pentagon in 2015.
Email can no longer be used in the same carefree manner as it was in the early days. In order for us to best manage our emails, here are three tips on how stress from emails can be reduced:
The use of an automated inbox assistant
For managers who have personal assistants but would prefer more privacy, an inbox-assist function would be suitable. This regulates incoming email traffic and delivers private emails or VIP messages exclusively to the addressed recipient, while normal business correspondence is automatically forwarded to the assistance staff. This enables CEOs, heads of departments and other managers to maintain the necessary privacy, while unburdening them from less critical correspondence. On the other hand, assistants can sort and process the inbox without having to access the mailbox of the supervisor.
In the best case, addresses precluded from forwarding can quickly and easily be defined through a web-based administration portal. In addition to entering individual addresses, the best automated email assistant should also enable an unlimited number of address books to be synchronised automatically, such as Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, Apple iCloud or Google contacts.
Less stress with maximum security
Email for business communication poses challenges not only for employees but also IT departments, being a popular gateway for spam, phishing, viruses and other malware. The private use of business mail clients and access via private smart phones, tablets or external PCs also constitute an increased security risk. To safeguard the exchange of sensitive data and to protect the company comprehensively against cyber-attacks, the deployment of dependable security systems is crucial. Modern email security services not only offer valuable assistance in keeping the stress factor in email communication as low as possible, but also help with the implementation of a comprehensive email security strategy.
Regulating email stress at work
Constant email availability is not only time-intensive, but stressful. This affects productivity, as employees are increasingly overloaded or absent from work due to health matters. Fortunately, politicians and industry leaders recognise this issue and have implemented initiatives to block emails after office hours. To do this, companies must have clear guidelines for the use of communication channels to raise awareness for these issues among their staff in appropriate training courses. Using forwarding functions for emails with higher priority also ensures that very important messages are not blocked. Internal email policies can hence, be easily implemented.
For example, Volkswagen, Deutsche Telekom, Puma and BMW ensure that no emails are delivered half an hour after office hours. Certain companies also allow flexible time intervals to be defined as ‘quiet times’ such as holidays or weekends. Within these time periods, employees will not receive their mails externally. Incoming messages are instead stored in the data centre of the provider in the interim.
Following the end of the defined time interval the user automatically receives all of the messages which have been held back during that time. This ‘quiet time’ can be set up for individual recipients or groups of recipients. This ensures that support staff, for instance, can remain available around the clock. This clearly regulates the times companies are allowed to contact their staff.
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