How much time do you spend on email at work?
Emails can negatively impact employees when it comes to managing their time. Excessive emails can lead to employees spending more time managing their communications than actually doing productive work that benefits the business.
The average worker spends 25% of their working week on email. That is a significant amount of time spent organizing their communications. This means that for a typical working week of 40 hours, 10 hours of that will be spent dealing with emails! For some people this may even be far more depending on their role within the organization.
Email is no longer the most effective workplace communication tool
Email has been around since the 1970s, meaning it has been the communication tool of choice for businesses for a long, long time. With the technological advances that have been made in the last 40 years, it’s incredible to think that many large enterprises are still relying on email as their primary communication tool, especially when you consider that there are a number of drawbacks to email.
#1. Distracting
Email is a very distracting communication tool. You’ve probably been in the situation when you’re working on something and then found yourself distracted by an email coming in, breaking your work flow. It can take a significant amount of time to regain focus on a task after being distracted, meaning email can have a negative impact on efficiency and productivity. If it takes around 20 minutes to fully focus on a task again after looking at an email, then you can see the negative impact that email can have on productivity throughout your working day.
#2. Stressful
Email is negatively impacting productivity and is also putting undue stress on people who feel there is a need to deal with an email straight away. There is a general feeling that an instant response is required when an email enters your inbox, and this has a detrimental impact on an employee’s productivity levels.
#3. Does not support collaboration
It’s estimated that 20% of staff’s time is spent looking for internal information or trying to track down the right colleagues to help them get specific tasks done. Email fails to accommodate for the ways that teams need to collaborate in the modern workplace.
#4. Poor integration
Email doesn’t integrate with the other applications businesses use today. This has a negative impact on efficiency, as staff have to continuously switch between applications to get the job done.
Is there a better communication alternative?
Email has been around for a long time and this means that it is out of date with modern workplace requirements. Despite the negative factors associated with email, it’s still the most widely used communication tool in the workplace, but there is a better alternative for your enterprise.
Improve communication with a digital workplace
A digital workplace offers extensive functionality to improve internal communications and truly connects your workforce. Empower your employees, increase productivity and break down silos throughout your organization. An effective digital workplace is packed full of features and can be tailored to your specific requirements allowing you to quickly supply your workforce from across the enterprise with relevant communications that matter to them.
#1. Announcements
Make sure announcements are heard and not lost in employees’ email inboxes. If your organization currently reveals important announcements via email, then the likelihood is that a number of employees will fail to engage with the email or may not even receive the email at all if they have been missed off the mailing list.
The announcements feature in a digital workplace means that whether it’s an announcement from the CEO, a policy update or special event, delivering essential alerts is simplified. Employees can be alerted to announcements through a short message banner on your intranet’s homepage and via notifications to increase engagement across your organization.
#2. Push notifications
Use push notifications to direct users to engage with new content. The notifications can be sent to any device, so all staff throughout the organization can be kept up to date with developments and are encouraged to return to the company intranet to engage with the latest information.
#3. Social
Support two-way dialogue through social networking that gives everyone a voice, no matter what their position is in the organization. Integrated social features can be embedded on all content published allowing employees to comment and participate in the discussion.
#4. Target users
The likelihood is that not all internal communications are relevant to everyone within the organization. The targeting feature allows you to choose who is notified to engage with your content, ensuring that communications are seen by the right people and reducing the number of irrelevant notifications to staff throughout the organization.
Is it time for your business to improve its internal communications?
Unily are the digital workplace experts. If you would like to find out more about how a digital workplace can positively transform your organization’s communication and collaboration, then please speak to our team who will be happy to discuss your options.
