Skip to main content
Commsy creative stuff straight to your inbox

Blog

Email is not the enemy

< Blog home

Email is not the enemy

Once upon a time email was the answer to all our problems.

But in recent years we’ve fallen out of love with it, resenting its intrusion into our lives at all hours of the day. So, how can we turn the tide of opinion, and ensure that email reclaims its place as a valuable channel of internal communication?

Seeing your name appear in the CC line of an email that’s completely irrelevant to you, has been known to spark rage in even the most level-headed employee.

However, email itself is not the enemy – the humans using it are where the real issues lie. Whether it’s emailing the entire global company about the cake in the Derby office or emailing at 10pm in the evening and expecting a response, our behaviour around email has deteriorated and something needs to change.

And while emails sent by individuals is not the responsibility of the internal communication team, we can have an impact on the culture that surrounds that, helping to reduce noise,and ensure the right messages are cutting through.

There are many reasons why people are demonstrating the wrong behaviours around email, so let’s take a closer look at what they are, and how internal communicators can help…

Define the purpose of all your channels

Have you defined, and then communicated, the purpose of your various channels and how and when to use them?

We’re so busy communicating for everyone one else, that it’s easy to forget to communicate how we communicate. So, people might be using email as their default, because they don’t know what the right way to communicate is.

Consider running a small campaign to raise awareness of your various channels and their purpose. Be sure to document that in a place that’s easily accessible to everyone – people are time poor, so if they have to hunt for an obscure page on the intranet that lists all the channels, they’re unlikely to do it.

But remember a one-off campaign won’t be enough, you’ll need to constantly reinforce the right behaviours. If you see someone sending a mass email that should have been an intranet article, contact them and explain how their success story could have had a much bigger impact on a different channel.

Help people use email in different ways

Ways of working are changing, and organisations are starting to realise that a traditional 9-5 doesn’t suit the fast-paced, complicated world we all live in. However, when everyone is working different hours, it can lead to emails being sent at all times of the day and night. Which is fine, as long as the recipient is clear on what’s expected of them.

It’s quite common now to see out of offices where people have a sentence in their email signature, saying that due to their working hours, they may send emails after 5pm but that no reply is expected out of the recipient’s working hours.

What a great message that reflects the world we live in and that we all need to work in slightly different ways. It’s respectful of each other and encourages a positive behaviour.

Rather than communicating hard and fast rules about email, consider your different audiences and how you can encourage people to respect each other’s preferences.

Role modelling

It’s one thing sharing the correct behaviours and asking people to abide by them, but if leadership aren’tfollowing those behaviours, things are unlikely to change.

If you’re communicating that email shouldn’t be sent after 6pm because that suits the culture of your organisation, then leaders need to be the first people to implement this – not just not sending email, but also not replying to emails they receive after this time.

Whether or not a reply is expected, leadership need to understand the power and influence they have – people could feel very uncomfortable about not replying to an email from a senior leader until the morning.

Replying to an email can seem like a small, inconsequential action, but it’s important we help leaders understand the role they play and the wider impact it has when the wrong behaviours are demonstrated.

Apply some nudge theory

Nudge theory can be a great way of encouraging people to change their behaviour – as long as it’s done ethically. As humans we are very influenced by the behaviour of others. An example in the book, Inside the Nudge Unit by David Halpern, is that if a person is standing next to a bin and has a piece of litter in their hand, they are still more likely to drop it on the floor if they see that others have done the same.

In 2014, the Behavioural Insights Team a.k.a The Nudge Unit, created the EAST model which explains that to persuade people to do something different, you need to make it:

  • Easy
  • Attractive
  • Social
  • Timely

When it comes to the right email behaviours, there’s a number of ways you could do this.

You could make it easy for others to reach the right people, by reviewing your email distribution lists and checking they’re up to date and reflect the various audiences.

You can make it attractive to people by promoting the benefits of good email use to them in a campaign. You could trial good email etiquette with a small group of people, track how much time they save and then share that figure as a headline in your campaign to attract people’s attention.

The social aspect is seeing colleagues demonstrate the right behaviours, whether that’s leaders as per my previous point, or by appointing champions to lead the way in their teams, and even the IC team itself. Start small and build momentum – the more people see it becoming the norm, the more likely they are to follow suit.

And finally – keep it timely. If you work in an organisationwhere you have periods of peak email, don’t run a campaign about email etiquette during it. It will be too late as people will be busy and already deep into bad email habits. You want to reach people just before so that they start with the right mindset and are more likely to implement the right behaviours.

Talking about email can feel very tactical. But it comes up time and time again in focus groups and surveys as both the most used channel and the most irritating channel. Whether you like it or not, email has a strong association with internal communication, so if we can fix the underlying issues, it will be much easier to get our organisations and colleagues to listen to us about the more strategic areas we want to be working in.

So, let’s give email a second chance and remind ourselves why we fell in love with it in the first place.

By Helen Deverell for Alive!

“The guys at Alive understand the complexities of our business which means we don’t need to explain the detail of every project or design piece – they’re already on it, which keeps things moving and delivers the results we need.”

Emily Stoten — Head of Marketing, Selecta

“I feel like they own and care for the project as much as we do! I would not use anyone else for my creative work and think Alive is ahead of the game.”

Jo Hobbs — Communications Manager

“Thanks for all your help. We are delighted with the campaign, both in terms of the creativity and messaging but also the thought taken over the rollout of the materials. All looks absolutely fabulous!”

Sarah Crowdy — Campaign and Media Officer Communications, South East Water

“We went to ‘Alive’ for ideas on how to run a specific employee program in Europe. Alan and his team were brilliant in coming up with fresh, creative and practical approaches. The team took charge and executed brilliantly. We are pleased with the progress made so far and hope to have the same level of partnership and commitment going forward.”

Sobha Varghese — Tata Consultancy Services

“‘The short animation developed in co-production with clinicians and young people is outstanding! Informative, developmentally appropriate, vitally fun and engaging. We are really grateful for the expertise of the Alive with Ideas team for their innovative approach in building children’s health literacy.'”

Kath Evans — Director of Children’s Nursing at Barts Health

“Our mission was to update the DASA brand visuals to better reflect our innovative and forward-thinking organisation. After receiving numerous pitches from different branding agencies, Alive stood out with their clear passion and understanding of our identity and goals. We thoroughly enjoyed working with the Alive Team who provided expert guidance and injected some much needed creativity into the project; resulting in an accessible and engaging new brand that we are immensely proud of.

Thank you again for all the work you have done with us!”

Lianne Springer — Communications and Engagement Lead - Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA)

“Alive wowed us during the pitch process and they didn’t stop wowing us throughout the whole project. Every person we worked with at Alive were so friendly, knowledgeable and clearly passionate about what they do. They have worked with us to really understand what we do and have created a new brand and website that really stands out from our competitors. Thank you!”

Louise Burnard, Head of Marketing and Communications UK — Be | Shaping the Future

“I think the team have done such a brilliant job, particularly with responding to our requests. It's one of the best mental health videos I've ever seen. Very proud to be associated with your exemplary work. Thank you so much.”

Dr Anna Batho — Clinical Psychologist – Critical Care, UCLH

“We have worked with Alan, Caroline and the wider Alive With Ideas team for many years. In that time, they have provided a dedicated service that is second to none. We appreciate their attention to detail and creative approach to bringing our brand, communications and stories to life. And would recommend them to anyone looking for creative communications support.”

Georgia Beech — Internal Communications Specialist, Ocado Group

“This is brilliant. I wanted to give my heartfelt thanks to all of the team who worked on this. You all understood exactly what we wanted to communicate and why, and then managed to do it in a way that was far better than anything I could have imagined. I’m a bit choked up to be honest!”

Sarah Wright, Head of Communications and Campaigns — NEA

“Each time I work with the team, I am always stunned at the effort and creativity that goes into each detail and am always eager for the end result. The team is extremely accommodating and always provide a fresh approach to our projects that elevates our communications materials!”

Alana Khaytin, Communications Specialist — Braskem America

“What I really appreciate about Alive is that they work with us as partners, and care as much about getting it right for our patients as we do.”

Sara Langston, Patient Engagement & Marketing Manager — italk

“Alive are unique in how much they deeply listen and invest in you and your ideas. I have not come across a company that listens as much as they do to ensure your needs are understood and met (actually - they always exceed my needs and expectations). Everyone I recommend Alive to has an equally brilliant experience. When you work with Alive, you are not only getting some genius creativity brought into your life, you are also hanging out with some of the best examples of human beings I’ve ever known.”

Steph Tranter, Hybrid Exec Coach & Psychologist — StephTranter.com

“Alive helped us create a video of our response to the floods of winter 2019. Our Chief Officer received messages from all round the country praising us for it and was really pleased with both the video and the response to it.”

Alexander Mills, Communications Manager — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“Alive were professional, friendly and great to work with. Most importantly they were creative, helping us to bring an extremely important safety campaign to life.”

Jack Grasby — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“The (Alive) team were able to creatively pull together and document (in just over 2minutes) everything our service has achieved over the last few months, from thousands of prescriptions deliveries to hundreds of phone calls made to the vulnerable. The final product was so powerful and reflective of what our service has and continues to achieve. It couldn’t have been better received within the service – thanks Alive for once again helping us to communicate our vision!’”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire & Rescue

“We worked with the team at Alive to create our staff recognition video.
At a time like this, its never been more important to share the amazing work that our staff have done and continue to do on a daily basis under very difficult circumstances. We wanted to shout about this and recognise that when the time came, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue stepped up to the plate. We didn’t want an ordinary thank you post on social media or a basic email sent out internally, we wanted something special. Enter Alive. ”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“This looks amazing - brought a smile to my face scrolling through it :-)”

Jack Ford, Head of Marketing — streamGO

“Our company is fun, we have great brands, but most importantly we’re all about our people – and I wanted an agency who would understand that and help us bring it to life through our website and other comms. Straight away I felt that Alive ‘got’ us and provided the creative inspiration exactly where we needed it, as well as the technical expertise to deliver a well-functioning website.”

Keren McCarron, Head of Corporate Affairs & Communications — KP Snacks

“Boom!
Thank you so much. Incredible work done at incredible speed by incredible people.
Outstanding work as ever and what a turnaround. As for the concepts – wow. These are that good it would be an insult to describe them as just good. It’s a joke, quite frankly. This is exactly the Alive effect I was after. Right now I feel like I am living in an Alive With Ideas wonderland. Thank you!”

Jack Grasby, Campaigns Manager — SYFR

“If you are looking to improve creativity and build teamwork, I highly recommend a session like this for your team. No matter where you are in your creativity journey, a workshop like this can give your team a boost of energy and ideas to invigorate their creative thinking.”

Amy Lilja, IC Manager — Hennepin Healthcare

“Alive were there to help when we were working every hour to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. They gave us the creativity, ideas and support we needed to deliver campaigns which empowered our residents in the most difficult time most of us have ever seen, personally and professionally. The team understood what we needed, worked closely with us and delivered fast without any compromise on quality. Working with Alive has been a joy in the darkest of times and I have no doubt will have helped to save lives. Thanks team x”

Julie Odams, Assistant Director of Communications & Customers — Derbyshire County Council

“We got 'Alive' involved to help us shift mindsets across our organisation and they delivered! Using simple, clear and creative ideas the team have delivered us a campaign which has seen a dramatic increase in idea sharing and development. They’ve also played a significant role in creating a culture of shared success. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with again, in fact, we already are!”

Gavin Buckle — B&Q
Alive logo