FT
Ferrari clamps down
on the use of group emails to encourage staff to talk to each other
THE PROBLEM
Ferrari last week clamped down on its
employees’ use of group emails to encourage staff to talk to each other
directly. It said the injudicious sending of emails was one of the main causes
of inefficiency. Are restrictions on use the right answer?
THE ADVICE
The author: William Powers
Creative experiments
such as Ferrari’s are essential right now as email collapses under its own
weight. Restrictions of various kinds have been tried for years but with mixed
results. When implemented as pure prohibitions imposed from above by
management, employees will often flout the rules and devise ingenious ways to
cheat. “No-email Fridays” have not been terribly successful.
But when companies
(such as Intel) have pitched email limits as positive initiatives that can help
employees do their jobs more effectively, and in some cases made them
voluntary, workers responded with greater enthusiasm. People have an easier
time changing their digital habits when they can see how the change will
benefit them.
The writer is the author of ‘Hamlet’s BlackBerry’
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The executive: Robert Shaw
Atos decided to
become a “zero email company” in 2011. Staff were spending more than two hours
a day managing their inbox; up to 70 per cent of what they received was, in
their view, spam.
Our answer was
behaviour change not restriction. Today employees know to use the right tool
for the job and, if possible, to prioritise face-to-face or phone interaction,
which works best if you want to create trust. Instant messaging has risen
dramatically in popularity and we have pioneered the use of social networks to
create a sense of community in the workplace. In one case, social networking
has reduced time spent on problem-solving from two days to 45 minutes.
The writer is Atos’s zero email programme director and CEO of
BlueKiwi Software
-------------------------------------------
The consultant: Monica Seeley
Businesses are
thought to lose up to an hour a day per person unnecessarily through email overload,
especially when a conversation would be quicker. Email abuse such as
excessively cc’d email is always the symptom of deeper cultural problems in an
organisation such as micromanagement and mistrust.
Ferrari is right to
tackle email misuse by clamping down on how many people are included in the
email dialogue. But it’s a sledgehammer to crack a nut. A far better and
sustainable measure is to identify the cause and then educate employees in best
practice. This includes developing a clear communications strategy and working
out where email fits in as a channel.
The writer is founder of Mesmo Consultancy and author of
‘Brilliant Email’
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The CEO: Leerom Segal
While I agree that
email causes inefficiency, I can tell you with absolute certainty that
restrictions in the absence of alternatives are not the answer. Email’s
problems (such as the lack of accountability when it is not clear who is
responsible for what) are not solved by communicating face-to-face. Ferrari’s
approach sounds like it might be treating the symptom rather than the cause of
inefficiency.
Alternatives to email
exist. When internal communications flow through a system that supports
accountability and intelligent workflow, productivity and engagement soar. But
that’s just the start. Predictability, knowledge management and individual
empowerment are beneficial side-effects we discovered when we switched to
replace email with our own internal collaboration tool.
The writer is chief executive of Klick, a digital marketing
company
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