The Benefits of Using Email in the Workplace

Carol Ton, 

Data Entry Clerk 

Organization’s Name 

Date 

Name 

Project manager 

Organization’s name 

Address 

Dear sir/madam 

Re: A DESIRABLE CHANGE 

I understand from my experience and research in the organization that the primary communication technique that people use in the company is email. However, I have done a lot of research and heard a lot of complaints from the staff concerning the ineffectiveness of this technique that makes it one of the obstacles to a fast, effective, and reliable communication approach. I, therefore, propose the implementation of the use of the cellphone as the primary way of communication because of its benefits that will lead to beneficial communication in the company. I have also come up with an implementation plan for the report I have written. Kindly go through it and share it with me if it can be a good plan for the company. Thank you. 

Yours Sincerely 

Student’s signature 

Carol Ton 

The organization relies heavily on emails as a way to communicate with the staff both within and outside the company. Staffs use email within the company as a way to connect and to send critical work-based messages that need a quick response from the respondents. The concern, in this case, is that there are recent developments in technology that are outdoing the use of emails due to their effectiveness. In comparison to other means of communication, e-mails are somewhat slow in their abilities to relay information as per expectations, especially in cases where the information is required to make decisions.Due to the structure of this organization, which is hierarchal, the organization needs to change its communication mechanism from emails to more advanced means of communication that will be faster, effective, and reliable. 

The use of email in the organization 

From data which are present in the organization's database, it is evident that staffs prefer the use of emails while communicating with colleagues at all level. It is also evident from such data that while communicating to the top staff in the company, email still stands tall among other means of communication. A look at the company’s database reveals many ways through which the staffs use email. Most of the staff send emails to their coworkers in situations where they do not need to create a disturbance using phone calls. Furthermore, email seems to be the primary tool that workers in the company use to communicate with each other essential announcements such as an internal memo. Emails remain the top priority for the workers in the company when they want to communicate with clients outside the organization and organize meetings. 

Other than that, the organization also uses email surveys, mostly those that target to asses employees' performance within the organization. The employees feel such surveys and send them back by reply to the emails. In most cases, the organization staffs use emails while undertaking departmental surveys. Sharing files through the use of email attachments is also common mostly in a situation where the staffs need to share documents such as memo, letters and any other file that need to be attached to other staffs. Despite such critical use of emails in the organization, many reasons make it use inefficient and ineffective and thus can lead to delays and disappearance of information ( Stadlinger & Dewald, 2017). 

The emails are ineffective 

The role of email as a tool of communication within the company is critical. However, relying on email as the primary approach of communication within the company is dangerous due to different flaws that come with this approach that makes it ineffective in comparison to other advanced methods of communication. First, email is prone to overload. In the year 2017, there were over 269 billion emails that were either sent or received each day. From similar statistics, it postulates that an average worker is likely to receive 122 emails each day. However, only 38% of such emails are essential, while the rest is irrelevant. In this manner, people get tired of going through such a bulk of emails because of a lack of time. In this manner, it makes it easy for them to delete them or skim, and this makes it more risky for them to miss relevant emails. 

The use of email as a means of communication is also less effective in comparison to other approaches because it takes a lot of time. According to a research study by Stadlinger&Dewald (2017), most of the workers waste a lot of time composing emails and sending them to different people. The research reveals that mots workers waste 28% of their working hours per week as they compose and send emails. From the same study, the authors indicate that simply getting back to work after answering an email takes an average of 64 seconds. Further, the use of emails denies the workers the opportunity to hold a real-time conversation with each other. Email is efficient when a staff wants to send a short message to a colleague. However, it is not the best way in a situation where the staff needs to hold a talk and have a real-time conversation. Further, this mode of communication is only valid for those workers that have satiation with computers and desks; however, most of the workers who travel or have no specific stations find it difficult to use this mode of communication. 

The use of email is also an ineffective manner of communication because most staffs use it as an excuse when they fail to be accountable for an action or a call. For instance, it is difficult to trace an email to know if it was received. The recipient of an email must have a connection to the internet, and when they are off-intent, they cannot receive emails. In this case, it easy for the staff to claim that they never received an email in time when they fail to be accountable for any action. Lastly, an organization's success depends on its degree to bring its staff together in a collaborative manner. However, the use of email is not the best way to achieve such because emails cannot coordinate the flow of infection collaboratively. When an organization uses email to serve such a purpose, it is bound to fail because the approach is wrong. With such ineffectiveness, it is evident that there is a need to change the approach and adopt a more reliable and effective means of communication that will enhance the productivity of not only the staff but the organization as a whole. 

The solution 

Due to the structure of the company, the number of employees, and the complexities that sometimes arise that need faster communication, any solution must have some qualities that will enhance productive communication for the company. The solution, therefore, must be reliable, accountable, traceable, easy to use, faster, and is cost-effective. Such are the tenets that will define the best communication technique that will be beneficial for the company as a whole. The use of a cellphone is the best and a recommendable technique that should stand as the primary technique for communication in the organization. Particularly, the use of smartphone stands tall among all as the best gadget that a company needs to rely on as its primary means of communicating within and outside the company environment. There are different reasons and profit the business will accrue for changing from the use of emails as the primary tool for communication to the use of a smartphone as a primary means of communication ( Cardon & Marshall, 2015). 

First, the use of a mobile phone is effective for communication as it reduces the chances of a face-to-face meeting, mostly in situations where someone may need elaboration or explanation that may take time when written. The use of email, for instance, may require staff to take a lot of time explaining in a written form on a topic. However, the use of mobile will only take minutes, and the communication shall be effective and efficient. The use of a mobile phone is also efficient mostly for the workers who work at the ground site. With mobile phones, a worker at the site is capable of communicating with staff at the office efficiently without the need for a meeting ( Moreno-Munoz et al., 2016). 

Flexibility is another advantage that mobile has over email. The flexibility comes when the user needs to send a short message or want to call. With the mobile phone, they can do both. They can elaborate and also use messages faster to communicate with each other. For example, a mobile phone allows a person to communicate quicker and efficient with the client, even when either of them is away from the office. Scheduling meetings becomes easier when the person has a cellphone than when they use other forms of communication, such as the use of email. Furthermore, it becomes even easier to conduct a teleconference via cell phone when a person is away from the office or on holiday. The degree of flexibility that comes with the use of cellphone in a company is beneficial because it enhances faster, efficient, and reliable communication. With such rate of flexibility, there is less time wastage, and there is no delays or broken chain in the organization’s operations when a single important party is missing from the company (Wang, Pauleen& Zhang, 2016). 

The smartphone also comes with a lot of different technologies that will be efficient for communication from the top to the bottom of an organization. The smartphone has made it easier for collaboration within the organization, something that email cannot enhance in an organization. Smartphone avails different online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. These are two platforms that have become critical in the current society and business. The use of Twitter and Facebook, an organization, can form a forum for collaboration to enhance sharing information faster and efficient. With Facebook groups and Twitter teams, an organization can form a small society of staff within a social media platform to enhance a better communication platform for the benefit of the organization. There are other applications such as WhatsApp group that have become efficient for different business operations. With such apps, staffs get connected, mostly when the need to share any information arises, it becomes easier to share information wholly and faster than when using different approaches such as email. In this case, there is a lot of time saved when communication is efficient and more quickly. Furthermore, it becomes efficient and cost-saving when organizations can share the bulk of data to many people at the same time (Stromberg et al., 2016).  

Even though email has been used for many years within the organization as a primary means of communication, there are evident flaws that warrant a swatch from email to cellphone use in the company. The flaws that bring about inefficiency and ineffectiveness with the use of email as a way of communication has a cellphone as the primary remedy. With a cellphone, the flexibility comes in and the ease to use in addition to colligative communication, which all collude to create a suitable environment for productive communication that id desirable in the organization. 

Decision-makers and the implementation Approach 

The project manager is the best to implement the desired change in the organization. The project manager will have a team of the human resource manager, financial manager, strategic manager, and change manager that will collaborate to ensure that change is achievable. Human resource management understands the organization's staff and their needs and could be the best departments to organize a team to implement the idea. The financial department should also be in the mix to forecast a proper budget to implement the plan. Note that the plan may include installing different technologies such as the Network system as this will be efficient for the employees who will be using the smartphone for a different purpose that is business-oriented. The change, in this case, will consider issues such as speed, commitment, and the need for change. The three factors will be critical to drive the change and define its success. The following will be the implementation steps that will be efficient for the plan that individuals propose for the change in the organization. 

Due to the fact this change is desirable in squeezed time, a three-step implementation procedure will be critical. It will be a three C's change implementation model that aims to reduce change resistance when implementing a change in the organization. The first C will be communication. Communication will come immediately after assessing the need to implement the change. The assessment should base on different reports on the issue in the organization that point at the need to have such a change. Communication will include communicating the various stakeholders that there is a change that is about to happen and explain to them the reason that makes it necessary to have such a change in the organization. Note that change resistance becomes inevitable when there is no proper communication between the change management team and the staff. Creating change awareness will be critical in reducing any resistance. Having educational programs and also having meetings with the staff could be the best way to communicate the change to the staff. 

The next step is to enhance commitment. Commitment comes in many ways. The first is finding the best team to increase change, which will include assembling the best team to educate the staff on the change. It will also be a commitment to integrate or create communication channels and applications such as WhatsApp group, Twitter, and Facebook Accounts. It will also be a commitment to answer questions that employees will need, creating posters and placing them at strategic places where the employees will see and read the reasons why change is necessary (Powell at al., 2015). It will also be a commitment to finding change agents, train them, and then allow them to interact with the employees to enhance change acceptance. The last is control. Control will be about controlling the changer and evaluating its effectiveness. It will be the final step where there will be feedbacks and answering questions, solving conflicts, and also assessing the direction the change is taking. It will also be a step where the team will be dealing with any form of resistance to ensure that the firm achieves change. 

From the report, it is evident that as much as the organization has been relying on email as its primary way of communication, there is a need to change the communication technique because of its evident flaws that have made the communication system ineffective and inefficient. It is the reason that makes it necessary for the organization to adopt the use of the cellphone as a primary communication technique because its advantages replace the flaws that come with the use of email as the chief means of communication in the company. 

References 

Cardon, P. W., & Marshall, B. (2015). The hype and reality of social media use for work collaboration and team communication.  International Journal of Business Communication ,  52 (3), 273-293. 

Moreno-Munoz, A., Bellido-Outeirino, F. J., Siano, P., & Gomez-Nieto, M. A. (2016). Mobile social media for smart grids customer engagement: Emerging trends and challenges.  Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews ,  53 , 1611-1616. 

Powell, B. J., Waltz, T. J., Chinman, M. J., Damschroder, L. J., Smith, J. L., Matthieu, M. M., ... & Kirchner, J. E. (2015). A refined compilation of implementation strategies: results from the Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change (ERIC) project.  Implementation Science ,  10 (1), 21. 

Stadlinger, J., &Dewald, A. (2017). A forensic email analysis tool using dynamic visualization — Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law ,  12 (1), 6. 

Stromberg, R. M., Pacyga, J., Knodle, D. W., &Callender, R. L. (2016).  U.S. Patent No. 9,264,846 . Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 

Wang, W. Y., Pauleen, D. J., & Zhang, T. (2016). How social media applications affect B2B communication and improve business performance in SMEs.  Industrial Marketing Management ,  54 , 4-14.