According to a report made by Carleton University you will spend, on average, a third of all your time at the office reading and answering emails. That comes in at a massive 11.3 hours a week spent dealing with work emails. With so much time being spent on work emails it is probably worth your while reading up on the types of thing you should avoid sending in company emails.
You’d be surprised just how much of an affect your email etiquette can have on your career trajectory. The main thing to consider with work emails is that they’re permanent and when push comes to shove, they’ll also be made public. Your tone is always important but there are a few things that you should always avoid sending in work so let’s take a few minutes to look over them now.
You Should Never Send Any of These In a Work Email
1. An email you wrote whilst you were emotional
This might seem like commonsense but the problem with being emotional is that commonsense goes out the window. If you’re het up and angry or even feeling sad and disappointed about something, dealing with it immediately can seem like the most suitable course of action. If you act whilst emotional, however, you may end up making everything worse than it already is.
Don’t send that hastily written email. Get up from your desk, go for a little walk round the office and take some deep breaths. Only send emails when you’re feeling calm and in control.
2. Anything too negative
Whereas it might be OK to highlight something that needs improvement or a way of increasing efficiency in an email, you need to be careful when doing so. Being overly critical of somebody or something can leave you looking petty or, even worse, vindictive and calculating.
If you’ve got a serious issue that you’d like to raise with a colleague or manager, organize a face to face meeting and air your grievances in person.
3. Gossip or jokes
Once you hit send, you have created a piece of digital evidence that is immediately beyond your control. Also, written messages are very easily taken out of context and things sent in jest could see you end up in hot water. This is particularly true if you’ve said something about another person’s religion, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.
These types of topics are not appropriate in the workplace and they’re just not funny either.
4. Long rambling emails
Put the most important information at the top of the email and try to keep emails to one or two short paragraphs. It could be worth your while saving a draft of the email you’re about to send and then trying to edit it down if needs be. You do not want to hide what you’re trying to say amongst some unimportant verbal padding.
Nobody has time to waste reading waffle so be concise and to the point.
5. Personal Business
Work time is for work. You really shouldn’t be conducting your personal business using work email facilities. Doing so is unethical and could even be grounds for dismissal. You should respect the company’s time and property and keep your personal business to yourself.
It is all well and good having personal projects to work on in your spare time but you should not be putting your job in jeopardy by working on your own projects during work hours or on work equipment.
6. A Resignation
This is just bad business practice. You might be leaving the company behind but that does not mean that you should start treating with disdain or your colleagues with disrespect. If you’re tendering your resignation you are doing something serious that needs to treated as such.
A face-to-face discussion with your boss is much more appropriate than sending an email. If you resign over email you will damage your reputation with your company and could even end up damaging your job prospects in the future.
