Emails are thoroughly engrained in the work culture of our modern society. On average, Americans spend several hours of their day on work-related email activities! That’s an incredible amount of time when you consider that email barely existed at work 25 years ago. Make no mistake – email is incredibly useful. The rate at which information is exchanged is unreal. With this great power comes great responsibility, though. Many people wield the power of email with reckless abandon, wreaking havoc in its’ path. In all seriousness, let’s talk about email etiquette in the workplace and 10 email sins to avoid at all costs! Do any of these sound familiar?
Email Etiquette In The Workplace: 10 Email Sins At Work To Avoid At All Costs!
Without further ado, here’s our list of 10 emails sins at work we should all try to avoid. These range from innocent mistakes, to poor conduct to obliviousness! Click below to jump ahead.
- Emailing A Coworker Off Hours & Demanding A Quick Reply
- Sending Work Emails While Intoxicated
- Calling Someone Out For A Mistake & Copying Multiple Other People
- Sending The Dreaded ‘Wall Of Text’
- Making A Promise (In Writing) & Not Delivering
- Treating Emails Like Instant Messages
- Sending Emails To People When They’re Out / On Vacation
- Sending Out Late Night Emails
- Attaching Massive, Inbox-Jamming Files
- Solely Communicating Vital Information Via Email – Never Verbally
We’ll go through a bit more about why doing these 10 things in work emails are workplace sins of the highest order below!
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Email Etiquette Rule No. 1: Emailing A Coworker Off Hours & Demanding A Quick Reply
Now that we get emails on our phones, it can feel like we’re working 24/7. Even though we usually receive a couple of emails after the workday is done, it’s understood by most people that you don’t expect a response until the next day.
But how about those coworkers who DO expect a response?
Whether it be a boss making last-minute plan changes or a coworker being needy, receiving emails after hours with the expectation of us responding is quite annoying. It invades our personal life and keeps us at work ‘mentally’ when we should be focusing on other aspects of life.
Positive email etiquette in the workplace requires us to leave work at work – that includes business hours! Demanding responses after hours is one of the most common and annoying email sins at work!
Read Next: How To Not Be Annoying At Work: A Few Things To Keep In Mind
Email Etiquette Rule No. 2: Sending Work Emails While Intoxicated
This goes without saying – if you’ve been drinking, stay off the work emails!
At best case, you’ll be in a happy state of mind and will express your undying love for your coworkers. This will be weird, but forgivable.
But what happens when you’ve been drinking and get upset or angry? I don’t know what you’ll say, but I do know that you’ll regret it. You’ll end up saying things you otherwise would not in a sober state of mind.
It’s generally best practice to avoid emailing after hitting the hooch. One of the core tenets of email etiquette in the workplace is to not email while drunk!
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Email Etiquette Rule No. 3: Calling Someone Out For A Mistake & Copying Multiple Other People
Mistakes happen to all of us – especially at work! Sometimes they’re innocent, while otherwise mistakes come from negligence, arrogance or other causes that ‘deserve’ a punishment.
Unless the person REALLY deserves it or you need to do some self-preserving damage control, it’s best to keep accusations out of emails, where they’re recorded indefinitely.
This multiples tenfold when a person decides to call out someone else’s mistake in an email and copy several other people. Not only does it put them on the spot, but it drags everyone into the issue and creates unnecessary tension, too.
Remember – once something’s written, it doesn’t go away!
Even when they’re deserved, blaming others in writing is still one of the most harmful email sins at work. Good email etiquette in the workplace calls for us to not put our coworkers on blast when they don’t deserve it, or when it doesn’t help anything.
Read Next: Is My Boss Manipulating Me? Here Are 12 Signs Of A Manipulative Boss
Email Etiquette Rule No. 4: Sending The Dreaded ‘Wall Of Text’
The average employee feels they’ve got more work on their plate than they can handle. When you combine this fact with the hours people already spend on email each day, there’s no room left for the ‘wall of text’.
What’s a wall of text? This varies from person to person, but here are a few characteristics:
- Takes several minutes to read
- Takes even longer to break down and comprehend
- No clear objectives or requests
- Lots of unnecessary information
- No use of formatting (breaks, paragraphs) or punctuation
Some people believe that emails should be no longer than tweets i.e. a sentence or two. While this isn’t always practical, it stands to reason that shorter emails are better. Not requiring our coworkers to spend an hour reading what we send is a big part of email etiquette in the workplace.
Read Next: Being Direct In The Workplace, Without Being A Jerk: 10 Simple Steps
Email Etiquette Rule No. 5: Making A Promise (In Writing) & Not Delivering
Making a promise and breaking it is bad in any case, but it gets a whole lot worse when we promise it in writing and fail to deliver!
Unless we are sure that we can keep a promise we make or hit a deadline we propose, it’s best to avoid putting specifics in writing. They incriminate us in the future and make others doubt how truthful we really are.
It’s simple to avoid this email sin at work – don’t make promises you can’t keep in writing!
Read Next: How To Be More Efficient At Work: 8 Easy Practices
Email Etiquette Rule No. 6: Treating Emails Like Instant Messages
Do you feel like it’s difficult to focus on work when your phone is dinging every few minutes? Me too. If it weren’t for the need to take phone calls regarding specific projects, I’d keep my phone on silent the entire day and check it when I’m able.
These smartphone dings are annoying enough as they are. How about when we’re part of an email chain that’s being treated like a chat room? The dings are frustrating and the inbox gets clogged with all sorts of meaningless chitter chatter.
Even when we love our coworkers, one of the cardinal email sins at work is to fill their ears with dings and buzzes. Email etiquette in the workplace requires us to not send their phone into overdrive.
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Email Etiquette Rule No. 7: Sending Emails To People When They’re Out / On Vacation
It’s already an unwritten rule but should be a written rule at this point – one does not send emails to people when they’re sick, on vacation or takes a personal day!
To be clear, this doesn’t mean we NEVER send emails to people who are out of the office. If we need to pass along some pertinent information, that’s fine.
The trouble arises when we are expecting a response, passing blame or sending any other emails that are ‘disturbing’ to those that are out. When you’re fully aware that a coworker receives emails on their phone, it’s safe to say that we’ll be interrupting their time off by sending emails like these.
A huge aspect of email etiquette in the workplace is by not intruding on someone’s personal life!
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Email Etiquette Rule No. 8: Sending Out Late Night Emails
As stated previously, it’s bad practice to send out emails late at night. Since the majority of us receive work emails on our phones, it’s safe to assume that at least a few phones will be dinging when we send that 1:00am email.
The majority of people don’t want to be sending OR receiving emails at that hour. We rely heavily on proper rest and recuperation when not at work to perform our best. While sending out emails at night can show dedication and serve as proof of those late hours, they’re still most likely waking someone up.
Read Next: How Can I Get Back My Focus At Work? 4 Common Situations
Email Etiquette Rule No. 9: Attaching Massive, Inbox-Jamming Files
In the past, this was one of the email sins at work that was forgivable – there simply wasn’t an easy way to share files beyond sending emails with attachments.
Now, there’s seldom a good excuse for sending a 10+ MB attachment via email. Services like DropBox and other cloud-based file sharing systems are free and easy to use. They only require that you send a link for the recipient to click/download, as opposed to the files jamming up the inbox.
That’s the worst part about it – large files fill up our inboxes MUCH quicker than normal emails. Many inboxes have a size limit – when we exceed that limit, we must move or delete emails out of our inbox before we can send or receive emails again. When one is not at their computer and is working via phone, this becomes impossible.
This makes sending extra large files one of the most ‘deadly’ email sins at work – think about your coworkers inboxes, please!
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Email Etiquette Rule No. 10: Solely Communicating Vital Information Via Email – Never Verbally
Rounding off our list of 10 emails sins to avoid at work is….communicating ONLY through email.
As we said earlier, email is fantastic. It makes exchanging information and documents so much easier than the archaic, ancient ways of the past (looking at you, fax!).
Just because email is so great, doesn’t mean that we can successfully work with others while only communicating by email. At work, people require direction, engagement, chances to ask questions, more information and the chance to express their thoughts. Emails barely allow for this and when they are relied on too much, we get some of the situations above such as walls of text, instant-messenger emails, etc.
In turn, the email-savvy among us must face this potentially hard truth – email is only a part of effective communication, not the sole means of doing so.
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Email Etiquette In The Workplace: In Summary
While email is an amazing tool that’s revolutionized the way we do business, it’s not the be-all, end-all solution. There are many poor uses of emails in the workplace. Luckily, we know what they are and understand the negative consequences that can come along with this. We hope you’ve learned something about emails sins at work and know what to avoid going forward! Thanks a lot for reading.
