What Are Your Emails Saying About You at Work?

Email has become the preferred method of communication in most offices through out the United States replacing both the telephone and the fax machine. Have you ever stopped for a moment to consider what your emails are saying about you at work? Emails by nature are less formal then an official snail mail letter, but that is no excuse to throw caution, grammar, spelling and style to the wind. Yet many workers are guilty of throwing together a dozen or so emails daily that are neither well written nor clear and concise. Others are guilty of writing long flowery, metaphor filled prose that is perfect for a creative writing class, but agitating to the recipient trying to decode the message and figure out what action is required on their part. A well written email should be relatively short, clear and concise, grammatically correct, and formatted properly.

An email should be formatted flush to the right and single spaced between paragraphs. It should also have some sort of salutation and closing. Your salutation is dependant on the working relationship you have with the intended recipient. For a fellow co-worker, it can be as simple as their name followed by a coma. For management, your salutation should be more formal, something like “Good day Mr. Livingston.” You should always have a closing in your email as well. If the occasion calls for it, “thank you” is appropriate. But, do not use “thank you,” if there is nothing to be thanking someone for. In email correspondence, “thank you” seems to be the only closing anyone knows. You have other options such as “sincerely”, “regards”, or “take care.” Every email should not and can not appropriately end with “thank you” or “thanks”! You should also have a signature set up on your email account that inserts the following information on every outgoing message: Full name; official title; company’s name and address; phone and fax numbers and email address. Think of the signature as a calling card. It lets the recipient know immediately who you are and how to get a hold of you.

The element of style in an email should be short and sweet. You should use simple language and get to the point. Writing an email should not be an exercise in using you GRE vocabulary flash cards. If you want to say that the meeting has been cancelled, don’t write “due to unforeseen events in the matter of said established group cluster time, with great chagrin has been annulled.” Just use simple everyday language. If the effort of trying to impress someone with linguistics, you will lose the intended message. Always pay close attention to sentence structure and spelling. Chances are your email editor has spell check, please use it! And for God’s sake, put a something in the subject line.

Sarcasm does not work in email. No matter how hard you try to make it work; it won’t. You will only come across as rude, obnoxious, or mean. If you can not help yourself, the least you should do is write it in italics and warn the reader. Do not write your entire email in caps. Writing in Caps is the equivalent of shouting. Also, take a moment to read what you wrote before sending your email. Does it sound condescending or demanding? If it does, you need to go back and rewrite it to change the tone. Always give your email a read through before sending to make sure it does not unintentionally offend the person you’re sending it to.

When replying to an email, make sure you read it entirely and understand it before sending a reply. If you send an answer that makes no sense in response to the original requested information, the person at the other end will be wondering if you are retarded or just didn’t care to make an effort. They may very well send you a response back all in caps to vent their frustration with you. If you forward an email, make sure you are not inadvertently sending it to the wrong person. Always double check the send to line before sending. Once an email is sent, it’s gone. Also, be cautious of what you write in your emails. As a rule, you should never send anything you would not want other eyes to see. It is very easy to forward an email. Sadly, a lot of co-workers routinely share the messages others send them for laughs and giggles.

Try to stay away from sending global interoffice spam. Types of interoffice spam include but are not limited to chain letters, management blogs, horoscopes, and funny pictures or jokes. It is okay to send that content to your close friends at the office occasionally. But if you’re sending it globally and daily, most people will roll their eyes and delete it without reading the message. Chronic interoffice spammers generally do not realize that other people groan when receiving mail from them.

Consider every email you send to be an extension of yourself. Every one of them should promote your ability and not cause others to question it. Take the time to write them well and do not throw caution, grammar, spelling and style to the wind. Emails should be clear and concise. A poor judgment in an email can quickly come back to bite you. Once an email is sent, you can not take it back. When you write email, always assume at some point it will be forwarded to somebody else and not just the person you’re sending it to. Keeping this information in mind, your emails will only say nice things about you in the workplace.