Emailing from work is a high risk endeavor especially now that company’s are required to store all company emails. Right on cue, CareerBuilder.com offers Netiquette: The Niceties Of Workplace Email Use. They quote a survey with a rather small sample size, but there is a surprising statistic:
A 2006 survey of 416 companies by the ePolicy Institute in Columbus, Ohio, concludes that 26% of them have fired employees for inappropriate email conduct. That’s up from 21% in 2001.
I have seen some egregious emails come from corporate email accounts. I have also dealt with many candidates who use their company email to converse with me regarding a job opportunity. I am surprised everytime that happens.
At any rate, there are some good tips in the short article. First, something I subscribe to wholeheartedly:
Be professional. You are not a teenager — avoid the little smiley face “emoticons,” abbreviations, or too many exclamation marks, etc. Keep your tone respectful and friendly.
I truly despise those emoticon things – leave them for the teenagers using instant messaging.
Second:
Don’t let email become a substitute for face-to-face communications. Sometimes an in-person or phone talk is more fruitful than an endless chain of emails.
That topic is one we addressed in this post from last week. I am an avid fan of email, but many times a phone conversation or face-to-face meeting is far more effective.
This topic is quite timely – I am writing this post while sitting in a video conference room of one of our customers. We have a break in our meetings and one of the offhand topics that came up was employee emails. They have been working with their salespeople to ensure that they send out professional, properly-worded emails to their customers. Their experience has been simple – poorly-worded emails cast their company in a bad light. A bad light that their customers have graciously shared with them.