Mired in E-Mail

The study also found:

• almost a quarter of respondents spend more than an hour each day sorting through their e-mail,
• one-third of the internal business e-mail that employees receive is unnecessary, and
• only 27% of the e-mail that workers receive demands an immediate response.

Employees send e-mails at a high rate in order to be more helpful and communicative, but the constant stream of messages can be counterproductive. To cut down on the clutter, Gartner suggests:

• training employees to use distribution lists more carefully to avoid sending the message to people who do not need the information
• avoiding needless responses.
• end messages with “no reply necessary”

In addition, work groups can use internet tools to communicate such as:

• chat rooms,
• bulletin boards and
• instant messaging