The first post in three months. Sorry! It's been a busy summer.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32622224
Yet another study, this one from Great Britain, showing unconstrained e-mail lowers an organization's productivity. More interesting than the study itself (for me) is the discussion of the large French company, Atos, that banned interoffice (internal) e-mails in 2011. They've held firm to the decision, claiming productivity gains, but have indicated that significant training in other communications forms (including face-to-face) and cultural shifts were required for the policy to be accepted. Among the cultural shifts was the new organizational norm that allows the bulk trashing of messages received while an employee is on vacation or out of the office. The new protocol requires employees to advise electronic communicants of their absence and their return date. At that point, it's the responsibility of the communicant to resend their communication on the employee's return or find someone else in the organization to deal with the issue. Implicit is the understanding that the out-of-the-office employee obviously can't respond. This may seem odd or even rude, but the alternative is to assume that someone on the Angel Falls trail in Yosemite with two small children and a dog is going to drop everything to respond to an e-mail. Now who's observing the odd norm?
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32622224
Yet another study, this one from Great Britain, showing unconstrained e-mail lowers an organization's productivity. More interesting than the study itself (for me) is the discussion of the large French company, Atos, that banned interoffice (internal) e-mails in 2011. They've held firm to the decision, claiming productivity gains, but have indicated that significant training in other communications forms (including face-to-face) and cultural shifts were required for the policy to be accepted. Among the cultural shifts was the new organizational norm that allows the bulk trashing of messages received while an employee is on vacation or out of the office. The new protocol requires employees to advise electronic communicants of their absence and their return date. At that point, it's the responsibility of the communicant to resend their communication on the employee's return or find someone else in the organization to deal with the issue. Implicit is the understanding that the out-of-the-office employee obviously can't respond. This may seem odd or even rude, but the alternative is to assume that someone on the Angel Falls trail in Yosemite with two small children and a dog is going to drop everything to respond to an e-mail. Now who's observing the odd norm?