Effective e Mail

1. Effective e Mail 27th September 2011 Ray Roberston

2. Todays Objectives To look at the pro’s and con’s of e mail To look at ways we can deal with our incoming e mail more effectively To look at ways we can improve the effectiveness of the mail that we send To look at some specific Outlook tutorials. Ray Roberston

3. Me I work with college senior managers, curriculum managers and teaching staff to ensure that we use technology effectively and efficiently to achieve our strategic and operational objectives. Prior to my current post I lectured in Marketing and Sales and I hold post graduate qualifications in marketing and marketing management. Ray Robertson ELLT Manager West Suffolk College Ray.robertson@wsc.ac.uk www.ELLTatWSC.ac.uk Ray Roberston

4. E Mail Benefit or Curse? Ray Roberston

5. What’s your view? Ray Roberston

6. Ray Tomlinson is not a household name, but perhaps he should be. Ray was responsible for the e-mail revolution. In 1971, he developed the code that enabled him to send an e-mail between two computers for the first time. The man to blame Ray Roberston

7. Some food for thought Ray Roberston

8. 34 per cent of workers feel 'stressed' by the sheer number of emails they receive and the obligation to respond quickly and a further 28 per cent feel 'driven' because they see them as a source of pressure. Source The Observer Ray Roberston

9. Research undertaken by Glasgow University found that employees working on a computer typically switched applications to view their emails as many as 30 or 40 times an hour, for anything from a few seconds to a minute. While half the participants said they checked more than once an hour and 35 per cent said they did so every 15 minutes, monitoring software fitted to their machines for the experiment showed it was more often. Ray Roberston

10. And 62% of workers check business emails while at home or on holiday. Ray Roberston

11. Plus Workers distracted by email experience a 10 point fall in IQ (more than twice that found in cannabis studies) Ray Roberston

12. Each day the average office worker spends 49 minutes managing emails. 4 hours is spent each day managing emails by senior managers. Ray Roberston

13. What about YOU? Ray Roberston

14. E mail should be a tool that improves communications It should not be A constant interruption to your workflow and a creator of stress Ray Roberston

15. Keep in mind Some situations / communications do require face to face or telephone conversations and e mail is not an effective substitute. Ray Roberston

16. So lets look at improving our e mail practice from two angles: Dealing with incoming mail Mail we generate Ray Roberston

17. Incoming Ray Roberston

18. Most Important that we Ray Roberston

19. Devise an e mail routine – and stick to it Some Proven Ground Rules Ray Roberston

20. Resist continually checking your e mail Ray Roberston

21. Switch off alerts Switch off email popup alerts on your desktop Switch off email sound alerts on your desktop Don’t set up email alerts on your smart phone Ray Roberston

22. Check e mail no more than once an hour (if its that urgent they should call you) Ray Roberston

23. Each time that you check your email, process it immediately (more on this next) Ray Roberston

24. Effectively processing your incoming mail Ray Roberston

25. Create Folders Ray Roberston

26. Process Ray Roberston

27. CC’d or BCC’d You can often choose to ignore these messages altogether. They weren’t intended for you anyway – you can delete them or file them in a CC/BCC folder. Don’t give into paranoia i.e. I must read everything to make sure I know what’s going on. Ray Roberston

28. Ray Roberston

29. To reply or not to reply? Ask yourself, does this mail needa reply? If you can reply quickly,(under two minutes) then do it straight away it will save time. If it needs action that will take longer, file it in your answer, read or follow up folders. This also helps avoid situations where you forget to take action because you've briefly looked at an email, and it has been marked as read. Ray Roberston

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31. Choose the time of day that you’re least productive to focus on responding to and clearing e-mail Ray Roberston

32. Be very careful when forwarding messages. • Make sure that any forwarded message is truthful and accurate.  • The truth of alarmist e-mails, such as rumours, virus warnings, pleas for help, prayer requests… can be checked out on sites such asTruthOrFiction.com.  Ray Roberston

33. Deleting Mail Deleting from your Inbox is not sufficient You must also empty your “Deleted Items” folder You should also empty your Sent Items folder Ray Roberston

34. Use the ‘out of office’ message when on holiday to reduce email volume from colleagues. Ray Roberston

35. Any other suggestions? Ray Roberston

36. Outgoing Mail Ray Roberston

37. Email is a good way to communicate, but it isn't an immediate medium. Don't assume people will read and act on your email straight away. If something is urgent, ring them or if possible go and see them. Ray Roberston

38. Keep it brief. Think about what it is like to be in receipt of long emails. Ray Roberston

39. The PASS Process • The four questions the PASS process asks are: • P for Purpose – What is the purpose of your email? • A for Action – What action needs to result from your email? Does it have a due date? • S for Support – What supporting documentation needs to be attached to your communication? • S for Summary – Have you successfully summarized your email message in the subject line? • Only after successfully evaluating each of these questions should you click the infamous “send” button. Let’s look at them a little closer. Ray Roberston

40. P – What is the purpose of your email? Ray Roberston

41. First, does your email correlate with a meaningful objective or task? If it does not, you may need to ask yourself whether the email needs sending at all. Ray Roberston

42. After concluding that the message is vital to something of importance, you need to read your email message and ensure that it’s purpose is clearly communicated through the message body.   Ray Roberston

43. Try to summarize what you’re striving to accomplish through the communication in the first paragraph. That way, the reader is able to read the remaining content of your email from the right context. Ray Roberston

44. A – What action is required as a result of your email? Ray Roberston

45. The 3 most common email actions: Task: The recipient has to complete an actual physical task (for example, order report copies or call Jack Doe). Respond: The recipient needs only to respond to the email with the information that you requested. Read: The recipient needs only to read the email for their benefit. Ray Roberston

46. Eliminate confusion regarding your expectations from the recipient by clearly stating the action you want them to take. Include any due dates necessary for the actions requested. Remember to be specific. ‘Can you please finalise the usage report and mail it to me by 29th of September.’ Ray Roberston

47. S – is any supporting documentation required? Ray Roberston

48. Ensure you have identified and attached any and all supportive documentation required by your communications purpose or needed by the recipient to perform any of the actions you have requested. You cannot expect somebody to read the monthly sales report if you have not attached the monthly sales report to the email message. Ray Roberston

49. If you are sending an attachment, remember lots of people get their emails on the go on a smart phone so help them by including the content of the attachment or a summary of it, in the body of the email as well where appropriate. Ray Roberston

50. S – Summary in the subject line? Ray Roberston