Efficiency tip - reduce email clutter

WyldLynx has been using teams for over 2 years and realized many business benefits, one in particular is the reduction of ‘white noise’ email. This is email that does not have real business benefit and is most often conversational between teams and organisational staff. It clutters up our mailboxes and the constant inbox focus robs us of valuable time.

While there is some natural transfer of clutter email to teams persistent communication and messaging there are a few things that we have learnt as an organisation to achieve a higher rate of transfer. This has ensured that our email usage is minimal, and the focus is on business related communication. This is essentially a cultural shift and there is a familiar pattern to achieve the best results.

• Clearly define an organisational policy defining what is conversational and what could be moved to teams. This would form part of your overall implementation and change management plan.
• Educate users through any means, identify power users to take ownership of this improvement process.
• Provide tools for the power users to measure the impact of training and ongoing support - set an email reduction target.
• Re enforce the message and provide ongoing support, provide incentives to users that reduce their email usage.

Tip.

We have regularly internal email usage reviews and it’s as simple as asking everyone to open their sent items once a week and have a general look down the list. Was there any email that you send that could have achieved the same result but posting a team’s message?

Culture change is habit change, it won’t happen overnight.