Here are ten tips that will and your employees help you deliver effective e-mail — and avoid being fired.
- Never send (or forward) racist, sexual or pornographic materials.
- Never assume that e-mail is confidential. Employers generally have the right to review their employees’ e-mail.
- Never assume that e-mail is permanently deleted. It rarely is!
- Don’t send spam or chain letters via e-mail. It can be illegal.
- Don’t gossip or criticize others in an e-mail because it may come back to haunt you in the form of defamation or libel charges.
- When responding to an e-mail, make sure you reply only to the sender, and not everyone on the cc: list, unless that’s your specific intention.
- Refrain from sending angry e-mail. It may embarrass you later.
- Don’t write in all caps. It’s the online equivalent of SHOUTING.
- Avoid misspellings that can make you look careless or sloppy. Not all e-mails have spell-checkers, so you might consider composing your mail in another text-editing program, and then cut and pasting it into e-mail.
- Remember that e-mail is international. When sending e-mails to another country, always use a polite address and avoid using acronyms and idioms that may be particular to American culture.
SOURCE: Corpedia Training Technologies, Mesa, AZ, January 5, 1999.