The rise of email in the UK workplace has seen businesses unwittingly offending colleagues by the way they use electronic communication, a new report by BT has said.
The report said that the rise of the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) has fuelled the problem of poor “email etiquette”, with some 20% of respondents saying that people only send emails from their PDAs to show off about having one.
Around 20% added that they feel emails sent from mobile devices are “very abrupt”.
BT said that email is still seen as an integral communication tool, with more than half of senior management saying an email system malfunction would have a greater negative impact than if the phone lines were to go out of service.
Over a quarter of workers surveyed said they would not be able to live their lives the way they do now without email.
According to BT, 77% of companies questioned use email as their main form of communication.
General manager of Broadband and VoIP at BT Business Mick Hegarty, said: “Being able to access e-mail on the move is a powerful tool that can help businesses get the most out of their time and fit more into downtime periods. But like any new technology PDAs can bring unintended consequences, so it is worth a bit of thought to ensure that quick responses are also effective ones.”
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2006
