Information Mapping, Inc. has announced results from a recent survey concerning e-mailing within the workplace. Significant findings revealed that 80 percent of those surveyed deem e-mail writing skills are “extremely” or “very important” to the effectiveness of doing their jobs. The results also showed excessive time is spent reading and writing e-mails, with approximately 65 percent spending from one to three hours per day doing each.
Among the primary challenges and issues concerning e-mails that the survey exposed were: Recipient is not clear as to what should be done or how to act on the information; content is disorganized; critical information is missing or hard to find; and content is too long, wordy, and difficult to read. When asked how much time during an average day was wasted reading ineffectively written e-mails, 34 percent indicated between 30 to 60 minutes, six percent said one to three hours and 58 percent spend between 0 and 30 minutes.
“It is evident that organizations can greatly improve productivity and performance by helping employees write more effective e-mail communications,” said Deborah Kenny, IMI’s VP and GM of Learning Solutions. “E-mail writing is a critical competency for today’s business professionals, but too few e-mail messages are organized clearly or effectively. Poorly written e-mails translate into substantial inefficiencies and costs that have a significant impact on an organization’s bottom line.”