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It’s been an astonishing few weeks for email news. First, there was the Yahoo breach of security. Then the death of the Blackberry and now a survey from Adobe which revealed yet again just how email addiction is increasing and email response times decreasing.
1. Addicted to email. A recent survey from Adobe reveals that 45% of users check their email even in the bathroom. A frightening 17% still read them whilst driving and 57% check them in bed. Click here to check your own level of email addiction.
The survey also found that half the respondents expect a reply within one hour. This is twice as fast as five years ago, found in previous research from Mesmo Consultancy. Moreover our research revealed that it is usually internals’ who have such an expectation. External senders being prepared to wait longer. Little wonder many feel unable to switch off despite the known downsides of the always on culture.
Although this new study is based on USA respondents, it makes interesting reading and especially for any Director concerned with improving productivity and well-being of their employees.
2. Yahoo hacked. In late September Yahoo finally admitted that over half a billion user’s personal data had been compromised when Yahoo was targeted by hackers over two years ago. Two vital actions for all Yahoo users: first change your password. Second, consider switching to an alternative such as Gmail or Outlook.
3. Passwords are still the weakest link. Michael Chertoff, former head of US Homeland Security revealed that few people set strong passwords. Many default to simplistic ones which can easily be hacked. Click here for more on password management and how to set a secure password.
4. Are those personal apps a potential security threat to your company? Tech companies such as LinkedIn, MySpace and Dropbox have suffered major data breaches, with security research company Ponemon putting the average cost per breach at $4m (£3.2m), or $158 per stolen record. Whilst most organisations let you use these and other apps on your mobile device, Ponemon suggest others too such as Slack, Evernote and WhatsApp, may well be a potential security threat. Once your personal device has been hacked company data on them too can easily be leaked. Although most organisations have tight security policies and practices, getting people to apply them to their personal devices can be very hard as seen above.
5. Death of the Blackberry. That device which was heralded as the mother of improved productivity met its death in late September. Beloved by nearly as many as hated it. Responsible for more divorces than any other piece of modern technology and a nose dive in productivity and well-being should we mourn its passing or rejoice?
Although this new study is based on USA respondents, it makes interesting reading and especially for any Director concerned with improving productivity and well-being of their employees.
Tags: Blackberry, email addiction, email response times, Mesmo Consultancy, Password Management
Do you need to see each and every new email as it arrives? Do all emails carry the same value and importance for you and how you perform your job? No. That is judging by the responses from over 200 delegates on various workshops Mesmo Consultancy has run over the past few weeks. Less than 3% of participants confessed that there really would be a problem if they did not see an email within twenty minutes of its arrival in their inbox.
Bearing in mind your inbox is a picture of you and the role you perform, there are obviously some of you who are
more at the sharp end than others. However, interestingly when pressed about who are these impatient and badly behaved senders, all bar one or two delegates confessed that it was an internal senior manager and not a customer/client who had such short email response time frames.
It would seem that by and large customers/clients actually do have a slightly longer fuse than we anticipate. They expect to wait an hour or two for a reply. They acknowledge that if it’s urgent a phone call might be better and that you as the recipient might not be at your inbox the minute they send their email.
So why do so many people let their days and life be dominated by the arrival of a new email – in some cases dropping an urgent task in favour of a new email? Some possible explanations are:
For those concerned that email addiction might be the cause, you can check yourself out using Mesmo Consultancy’s free email addiction benchmarking tool – click here to start.
For others here are our tip five tips to help you focus and stop being driven by email.
Tags: email addiction, email distractions, email response times, Mesmo Consultancy, Out of Office
Email bullying?
In the USA, October is national prevent bullying month. We do not appear to have anything similar in the UK which is a shame especially as there have been a few cases of young people committing suicide through feeling bullied on Facebook etc.
Email too can easily be used to bully people. For example leaving insufficient time to reply, constantly sending email reminders and demands. Sending rude, arrogant and abrasive emails can be stressful too for the recipient. Attaching read receipt and reminder flags might also be deemed bully tactics. Such harassment is a drain on productivity as found previously. Perhaps the most serious form of email bullying is expecting people to reply too quickly and often outside acceptable working hours. Moreover, email bullying adds to the email overload and hence stress levels.
Any form of bullying is to be deplored and is unacceptable. Social technologies and email have just made it easier to do in a hidden and often covert manner. Deleting and/or ignoring such emails is not an option.
VW recently stopped sending email to workers Blackberrys thirty minutes after their shift ended. That is taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut.
At Mesmo Consultancy we have found a more informed a sustainable solution is to implement a proper email management code of conduct and email best practice charter. It should contain both what is acceptable email behaviour and the procedure if you are on the receiving end of email bullying.
Have you ever been bullied by email? Does your organisation have such an email management code of conduct?
Tags: corporate email etiquette, email best practice, email bullying, email management, email response times, email stress, Mesmo Consultancy