Please Brush Up on Email Etiquette
by Laurel Hyatt
Do you know
how to use email? Sure you do. Well, you know how to use email technology. But can you use email as an effective way of communicating? That’s another story.
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Laurel Hyatt
Managing editor
Workplace Today®
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It’s so easy to hit the “send” button that many of us really don’t stop and think about what we’re doing. Is the message necessary? Are we copying it to too many people? Is this better said in person or on the phone?
Email is eating up too much of our time. We receive—and probably send—messages that are complicated, without knowing what we’re supposed to do or even for whom the message is intended. It can take several minutes to read a long, convoluted email, only to discover it has nothing to do with you. And then 10 minutes later, the person who sent it calls to ask if you received the email and what you thought of it.
It’s time to set some boundaries—for yourself and for those who send you messages.
Experts have provided many tips on email etiquette, and I’m summarizing the ones here that I think are the most useful, and will cut your email clutter the fastest.
1. Always keep the receiver’s needs in mind. Put yourself in their shoes. How do you feel when you receive an email that rambles, has no point, and doesn’t tell you what is required of you?
2. Use a specific subject. Titling your message “Hello” or “Staff meeting” or “Annual report” or something equally vague doesn’t help the receiver. See tip number 1. Instead, get to the point with subjects such as “Agenda for staff meeting this Thursday” or “Please review our department’s submission for the annual report.” And always, always include a subject—it’s no fun having to file emails with blank subject lines, even if you can add them in later.
3. Address the person in question directly. If you copy a group of people in an email, start by saying, “Hello everyone” if you mean to apply the information to all those copied, or “Jake—this is for your information; Susan—please respond by Tuesday”, etc.
4. Use the polite form of addressing someone (“Mr. Jones”) unless you know them or unless they give you permission to use their first name (“Bill”).
5. Include the message thread. For people who receive many messages a day, they may have forgotten the background to an email. Include all the previous correspondence based on that subject to tweak their memory and make the email more useful if they will keep it in an archive.
6. Spell out the action required. Do you want someone to respond by Monday morning? Then tell them. If no action is required, then let them know it’s for their information only. If you require them to do several things, why not number them in order so they can cross the items off their to-do list?
7. Use point form if you have several items requiring a response. Again, numbering them will help the receiver reply quickly—they can number their replies and do them in point form, too.
8. Try to anticipate and answer the receiver’s questions in your first message. This will cut down on an endless cycle of correspondence.
9. Don’t write in all capitals. It’s like shouting at someone and makes it harder to read. If you have something you want to emphasize, enclose it in asterisks.
10. Don’t use the high priority function unless something is really urgent. Otherwise, it’s crying wolf.
11. Don’t reply to all the people in the original email unless the answer is important to all of them. You may choose to carry on a more detailed email correspondence with just the one or two people who are the most affected.
12. Re-read your messages before you send them. Check for grammar, spelling, etc. Make sure you have answered all the questions in any original email.
13. Be on your best behaviour in email correspondence: having an electronic paper trail can come back to haunt you. Don’t say anything too personal or nasty in an email. If you have a problem with someone, go see them or pick up the phone. It’s also a common courtesy. If you’re angry with an email you receive, don’t fire off an angry reply. Take a deep breath and either answer courteously or talk to the person directly.
14. Stay away from inside jokes that don’t apply to everyone you send the email to. I really don’t have time to reminisce about how you got lost at the conference in Toronto last year that I didn’t even attend.
15. Don’t forward emails to other people that were sent to you in confidence. Again, keep everything on the up and up.
16. Say thank you. If you send an email requesting help from someone you don’t know and they reply, it’s common courtesy to thank them for their time.
17. Don’t be too nice. Yes, that’s right: there is such a thing as too nice. By this, I mean don’t get stuck in a loop of “thank you’s” and “you’re welcome’s”. Thank the person once, say you’re welcome, and leave it at that.
18. Include your contact information in your signature at the end of the message. This includes what city you’re in. I’m tired of having to look up area codes from a phone number to see where someone is located and what time zone they’re in.
That should be enough to get you started. If we promise to follow this etiquette, we may just make cyberspace a better place.
What do you think about email etiquette? Write to me at laurel@workplace.ca and we’ll consider publishing your letters to the editor.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Laurel Hyatt
Managing Editor, Workplace Today®
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