Email Remains the Dominant Form of Work Communication

Megalith

Megalith

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Results from an Adobe survey have confirmed that email is not going anywhere, particularly in the workplace: 36% of 1,007 respondents say that it remains their preferred method of communication with work colleagues, while new-fangled solutions such as social networks are seeing little to no interest.

Adobe's email survey lands as the company adds new tools and its Sensei artificial intelligence to its Adobe Campaign email marketing suite. AI will be used to pick the best images for email marketing and predict churn. The survey is interesting because it highlights where email usage is headed directionally and how what's deemed a tired communication tool is still effective. The survey is based on 1,007 U.S. respondents who were white collar employees and owned a smartphone.
 
We so want to quit email, but can't.
Says who? Seems like the title of your own article contradicts this statement.

And what the hell are "enterprise" social networks?
 
Email is perfect. If I want a face to face social interaction it won't typically be at work (except under very specific circumstances). I like having a "paper"-trail when someone has asked me to do something. This way, when I deliver what they asked for, and they try to say it's not what they asked for, I can point to exactly what they asked for. (SysAdmin if you hadn't guessed :D )
 
Armenius said:
And what the hell are "enterprise" social networks?
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That's the same thing I thought. The author says right away that 'enterprise social networks are supposed to reinvent how work gets done' and offers zero examples or explanation of they can accomplish that.

Instead of being insightful in any way, this guy just wrote words to charts and stats.
 
I have this issue with my boss who loves phone calls and hates emails. Emails are records that can be shown to have actually happened. A phone call has no record (outside of doing something that later results in a warrant) so he can say whatever he wants, and so can the other person. Several distinct problems on recent jobs have stemmed from supposed phone conversations that were either misunderstood, never communicated to the in field guys, or one of the parties outright lied about. I despise the phone and avoid it at every opportunity I get. Is there a direction change, a request, a disagreement? Let's get it in email, so there's a trail of these decisions and we don't end up getting screwed again.
 
Sonicks said:
That's the same thing I thought. The author says right away that 'enterprise social networks are supposed to reinvent how work gets done' and offers zero examples or explanation of they can accomplish that.

Instead of being insightful in any way, this guy just wrote words to charts and stats.
Click to expand...

Enterprise social network are basically like regular social networks except limited to people in the company and possibly contractors and other companies that work with the company (e.g. extranet).

Things like Facebook Workplace :
https://www.facebook.com/workplace

or
Yammer
https://www.yammer.com/
 
My employer is trying to get us to be more "hip" and "innovative" and they're pushing Yammer like crazy. Yet, for day-to-day, nobody uses it; the postings I see are pie in the sky shit and pointing at outside resources for information. Those all have their place, but make for a poor everyday tool.
 
J3RK said:
Email is perfect. If I want a face to face social interaction it won't typically be at work (except under very specific circumstances). I like having a "paper"-trail when someone has asked me to do something. This way, when I deliver what they asked for, and they try to say it's not what they asked for, I can point to exactly what they asked for. (SysAdmin if you hadn't guessed :D )
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I fully and whole heartedly agree with this message.
 
I need email. For the CYA verifications, as well as a record that I can search to find things. Someone said "X"? Ok, yes, right here they said it.

I don't have time for Yammer or Skype. I check email on my schedule and get to it when I get to it. If you Skype me, you're not getting your shit done any faster.

Email isn't going anywhere. It's a nice, searchable, somewhat private, record keeping communication.
 
Was pushed to use Yammer at my previous job......it was just like Facebook, people posting useless crap.

And current job, they're using Slack.....also useless. I posted some questions on it and no one replied, even going as far as tagging the person the inquiry was supposed to go to. Better to just email the person directly.
 
I'll use Lync/Skype (IM only) when I just need to check something really quick (typically only with other employees that I have a somewhat friendly working relationship with). I ignore IMs from most others if I can. (unless maybe it comes from a controller or something :D ) Luckily the controllers, GMs, etc. don't really like IMs either.
 
I had to set someone straight in skype chat once and wish it had been in email so i could archive it.

(maybe you can archive skype but i couldnt be bothered to look into it)
 
I guess I'm just old school, like the other 34% that prefer face-to-face meetings. If I really need a question answered, I just walk over and camp at their cube. Unlike an email, I'm hard to ignore. :D
 
Retronym said:
I had to set someone straight in skype chat once and wish it had been in email so i could archive it.

(maybe you can archive skype but i couldnt be bothered to look into it)
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If it's Skype for Business, and you're an Exchange-using organization, (federated if they're external to the company) then the transcripts will automatically show up in your "Conversation History" Outlook folder. Otherwise, I think it may keep a log in an Application Data folder or something like that. I'm not sure if it purges it over time though.
 
PaulP said:
I guess I'm just old school, like the other 34% that prefer face-to-face meetings. If I really need a question answered, I just walk over and camp at their cube. Unlike an email, I'm hard to ignore. :D
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I like a meeting if there's something several people need to discuss that's actually worth discussing. Early project planning stages to get something specced goes much more smoothly in a meeting. Once people know what needs to be done though, I'd prefer to work rather than waste time in meetings. I absolutely HATE phones though. The only person I ever want to hear on my phone is my wife, my kids, or maybe a friend or family member I haven't spoken to in a long time. Otherwise, don't call me. :D
 
I didn't mind slack. It's similar to email in that you have logs of everything but it's more a team chat. The benefits for me where that file attachments are centrally hosted and that you can see what other people are doing on the same task (follow a conversation) without always being a part of it. If you send a lot of emails with a lot of people cc'd than I think slack isn't too bad. If you mostly just email one person directly then it's just a middleman.

Cisco Spark and Microsoft Teams are similar to slack as well. I don't think they are meant to be social networks though, that was more yammer (which I barely used). Spark and Teams are ok. I feel like Spark is a little more mature than teams but it's my understanding Microsoft has big plans for teams so that may change. (But it's microsoft... so it may not....)

Skype for Business saves all your chat's into outlook (As others have said). It's pretty handy but not always better than something like slack. Skype for Business and Cisco Spark make it really easy to record conference and voice calls though, so if you have a decent sized meeting or anything you think you'll need to reference later you can always record it. Particularly with desktop sharing/presentations the recording feature is pretty useful.

FYI: I've used Skype for business daily since it was Lync 2010. Overall I've been very happy with it, but I find the collaboration elements of slack/spark/teams for async (like email) communications was better than instant messaging with skype. The group calls/presentations/video calls etc are where Skype for business really shine. But both Skype for business and Spark suffer in that larger conference calls always seem to have at least one user who can't seem to join properly, or get their audio working, etc. It's normally user error but after 8 years of using these it still happens all the time. It's bluetooth, or it's headsets, or vpn, or whatever but it's unfortunately a persistent problem. Fortunately you can get desk phones that are a good match for less technical users.
 
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lollerwaffle said:
My employer is trying to get us to be more "hip" and "innovative" and they're pushing Yammer like crazy. Yet, for day-to-day, nobody uses it; the postings I see are pie in the sky shit and pointing at outside resources for information. Those all have their place, but make for a poor everyday tool.
Click to expand...

My company is doing the same shit. I'm ignoring these dumb Yammer shits.
 
Armenius said:
We so want to quit email, but can't.
Says who? Seems like the title of your own article contradicts this statement.

And what the hell are "enterprise" social networks?
Click to expand...

In my case, enterprise social networks exist so our CEO can post about everything he does, and everybody gets to comment. Anyone below the CEO is unable to post their own updates.
 
Slack is used where I work. It seems we mostly post animated gifs for majority of channels I'm in. Probably 20% is work questions and other 80% is nonwork related stuff. It seems like every 3years we switch from one chat/IM application to another hip chat/IM. Email is still king. As mentioned by others, it's a way to document conversations and requests. I know for our HR team, they rely on email history for followups/conversations we had with subordinates in case you have go go down the performance improvement or firing direction.
 
Phone call, might remember it. Stopped in the hallway, might remember it. Social Media - what's that? Send me an email - even if I do forget, there is a verifiable record we both can check. Plus emails are pretty well figured out for legal retention purposes. Other stuff not so much. Do you need to keep Skype transcripts? Social Media of the Month records? If so, how long? How much?
 
I've been trying to get my division to decide on an official retention policy for email and docs here since I started. They just won't do it. They all know it's a good idea, but none of them are willing to sign off on it, because they're all afraid to make a radical change from "just keep everything". I've told them how much of a liability that is, but...
 
J3RK said:
If it's Skype for Business, and you're an Exchange-using organization, (federated if they're external to the company) then the transcripts will automatically show up in your "Conversation History" Outlook folder. Otherwise, I think it may keep a log in an Application Data folder or something like that. I'm not sure if it purges it over time though.
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The latter is probably up to your admins configuration. My previous employer used it configured not to save anything once you closed the window.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I need email. For the CYA verifications, as well as a record that I can search to find things. Someone said "X"? Ok, yes, right here they said it.

I don't have time for Yammer or Skype. I check email on my schedule and get to it when I get to it. If you Skype me, you're not getting your shit done any faster.

Email isn't going anywhere. It's a nice, searchable, somewhat private, record keeping communication.
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Makes sense since it was also the first killer app for the masses. Sold many more computers than did spreadsheet software for businesses.
 
I think it might be time to put my "Inter-office Telegraph System" plans into effect. Thanks for reminding me with the "STOP." :D
 
PaulP said:
I guess I'm just old school, like the other 34% that prefer face-to-face meetings. If I really need a question answered, I just walk over and camp at their cube. Unlike an email, I'm hard to ignore. :D
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People that do this, I make it a point to get to their job at the last possible moment. If you want me to fix something for you, showing up at my desk and bothering me is the last way to go about it.
 
We use Slack, but I don't believe we have the fancy version that holds messages indefinitely (only keeps around 10,000 or so).

So, email still used heavily for CYA and history.
 
We use email and Slack (free version) at work. Email is nice as I can search it and don't feel pressured to respond instantly. When I'm getting Slack messages, there seems to be an expectation that I need to answer people right away. I find it very distracting.
Since we are using the free version, we are also limited to 10000 messages at a time. I warned people not to post important stuff to Slack - guess what, they did and its buried unless we pay for the service. Given our tight budget, no chance we can afford it. I wouldn't be too heart broken if it went away from my place of employment.
The other problem I have with it - about half the people stopped using it. It was kind of half ass deployed. "Here is a tool - you should use it. Also, tell people we are using it so we are cool." (Then boss doesn't use it for the last few months. Face palm)
 
One thing that is nice about E-Mail is that it has already been around for a while, and will almost certainly continue to be around a long time into the future.

Nothing is a bigger waste of time than a business getting caught up in what is perceived to be the new fad in workplace communication - only for that fad to get replaced by yet another fad a few years later in an endless cycle of hype and bullshit.
 
I'm surprised nobody mentioned using instant messaging at work? Wow, I use instant messaging like 90% of the time, and the rest would be email.

When working on network outages, its easier to talk in chat window with like 8 other people at a time, rather than a conference call. Also have to deal with a lot of "indians" that don't speak engrish very well. So chat is good for that too.
 
I work in a laboratory and our boss would never allow chat because he would think everyone would just sit on it gossiping all day and not working, which most would. Social media apps at work would be the same thing. Since I am constantly moving around the lab, best way to get me right a way would be to page and have me call you. Email I check a few times a day when I actually make it to my desk, but I prefer as much as possible to go through email for the above mentioned CYA aspect. Memories are never accurate enough nor do they always sync, so better to sum things up in a group wide email right after a meeting to keep everyone on the same page.

Cellphones aren't even allow on the lab floor so people don't just sit and chat all day, plus any distraction can be a safety problem.
 
Lync chat (i.e. IM) can suck a nut. I'm perpetually on DND (Do Not Disturb) because assholes will try to circumvent our procedures, which were put in place to efficiently log and track issues, by using fucking IM. I wish I could paint emails with that same broad stroke, but at the very least we have response SLAs tied to emails.
 
MavericK said:
We use Slack, but I don't believe we have the fancy version that holds messages indefinitely (only keeps around 10,000 or so).

So, email still used heavily for CYA and history.
Click to expand...

AFAIK the free version still stores messages eternally; it just doesn't let you have access to them.
 
Skype for Business is regarded at my organization as a tool designed by the NSA to try and provoke corporate murder sprees....its a fucking CIA mind-game tool, waterboarding by IM, monitored by HR. It ruined Microsoft Office Communicator so badly that many times we just hop on our phones and go right to IM solutions that way. Anyone stuck using this POS (the freezing, the having to click twice to bring a window into focus so you can type on it, even tho the cursor is already blinking inside the window, the mother fucking can't-see-more-than-one-line-of-typed-text shit.....), we stand as one.

Anyone who doesn't have to use this, consider yourself lucky, it truly is a downgrade in nearly every conceivable way over the old standby Office Communicator, which actually just worked.
 
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