Where'd email training go?

Over 10 years ago half of all employers trained on the best use of email. Today the burden is greater, but less than a fourth provide help.

The salesman watched you sign the last form to purchase your new car. But before he lets you walk away with the keys, he's going to "introduce" you to the features found in your vehicle. Patiently, you sit through a 30-minute introduction to each button in the vehicle.

Does this make you an efficient driver?

Hardly. But sadly, this is similar to the type of training you've probably received on email communication. Statistically speaking, when it comes to "driving" email, we're all over the road. Wasted email costs us money ($530 billion), time (15-20 days a year), bandwidth (server space, backup cost, etc.) and increases legal exposure. Until we change the culture of communications in a digital environment like email, we're just car salesmen — handing over the keys to an expensive car and expecting everyone to know how to drive.

From bad to worse.

In Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) article titled "The Internet: access grows, policies lag" in HR Magazine, Dec, 1997, Mike Frost reported that training on the effective use of email (i.e. how to write and communicate effectively, not just use the buttons) was dangerously low. Frost adds that "only half (of employers) provide training on the proper use of email." According to the research, over 20 percent of the respondents logged complaints about inappropriate emails and very few had an email use policy in place.

But that was 1997. Things must be better now, right?

Sorry.

In a similar survey this month, SHRM and the privately-operated Institute for Corporate Productivity (I4CP) announced that only 24 percent of survey respondents were trained on proper use of email.

The likely culprit.

How did we go from bad to worse? One factor is that email sits in the twilight zone of corporate training. Mike Song and Tim Burress' white paper titled "Who owns email anyway?" illustrates how most training doesn't happen in business environments where IT, HR and administration departments feel it's the other departments' responsibility. Consider the rapid growth of email use in an environment that requires ownership from all three departments, and you can begin to understand an important factor in the decline of email training.

The beginning of a solution.

The solution is part policy, part training, part culture shift, and it begins with a conversation between each stakeholder. Here are some resources that might help:

• Sample email policies from About.com Having a policy does not equal efficiency, but acts as more of a legal tool. Consider adopting one but don't expect it to make people more efficient email users.
  
• 10 email guidelines from HR Magazine These 10 tips can provide helpful discussion points in a meeting. You might also consider reading The Hamster Revolution, by Burress and Song.
  

Follow up with the right training. New users will need a course on the software you're using (show them the car). Follow up with training on information management (show them how to drive). Training that combines writing skills with the digital tips that make this information stream more manageable provides the best opportunities for lasting change and efficiency.