No e-mail day!
Hi,
I just read something interesting in The Straits Times published from Singapore. After spending most of the morning exchanging e-mails with his assistant, who was sitting 6 meters away, Mr Scott Dockter (Chief Executive-PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services) got so fed up that he declared Fridays as "no e-mail" days.
This development comes against the backdrop of some startling stats:
- 30 billion e-mail messages are exchanged throughout North US each day, a tenfold jump from 1998
- An avg. US worker wastes two hours a day on non-work activities (e-mails...)
Now, the staff at PBD have to talk with each other, at least on Fridays, if they wish to communicate. Before "no e-mail" days, Dockter was receiving 150 messages per day (his managers were getting 300-400), but two months after the Friday declaration, his traffic dropped by 75 percent. And also, the lost art of face-to-face conversation among employees has been restored.
The situation in most offices is quite the same with people getting deluged with e-mails and hitting "reply all" button without hesitation. Salute to you, Mr Dockter. You took a bold step to tame the e-mail monster.
I am wondering what would I do if I have to do something about the e-mail monster. Some thoughts that cross my mind:
- First of all, I would set a personal example by not sending unnecessary e-mails, being careful about hitting the "reply all" button, checking my e-mails only once every three hours and relying more on face-to-face or telephone conversations.
- I would get people trained on how to use e-mail to improve the productivity rather than allowing it to damage it. We have all been trained to write letters, but I wonder if any school system is teaching people to communicate by e-mails.
- I would arrange to conduct regular surveys to assess the number of e-mails people are dealing with at different levels.
What would you do?
I just read something interesting in The Straits Times published from Singapore. After spending most of the morning exchanging e-mails with his assistant, who was sitting 6 meters away, Mr Scott Dockter (Chief Executive-PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services) got so fed up that he declared Fridays as "no e-mail" days.
This development comes against the backdrop of some startling stats:
- 30 billion e-mail messages are exchanged throughout North US each day, a tenfold jump from 1998
- An avg. US worker wastes two hours a day on non-work activities (e-mails...)
Now, the staff at PBD have to talk with each other, at least on Fridays, if they wish to communicate. Before "no e-mail" days, Dockter was receiving 150 messages per day (his managers were getting 300-400), but two months after the Friday declaration, his traffic dropped by 75 percent. And also, the lost art of face-to-face conversation among employees has been restored.
The situation in most offices is quite the same with people getting deluged with e-mails and hitting "reply all" button without hesitation. Salute to you, Mr Dockter. You took a bold step to tame the e-mail monster.
I am wondering what would I do if I have to do something about the e-mail monster. Some thoughts that cross my mind:
- First of all, I would set a personal example by not sending unnecessary e-mails, being careful about hitting the "reply all" button, checking my e-mails only once every three hours and relying more on face-to-face or telephone conversations.
- I would get people trained on how to use e-mail to improve the productivity rather than allowing it to damage it. We have all been trained to write letters, but I wonder if any school system is teaching people to communicate by e-mails.
- I would arrange to conduct regular surveys to assess the number of e-mails people are dealing with at different levels.
What would you do?
posted by Atul Mathur | 5:28 PM
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