9 Ways to Improve Employee Email Communications

Do you find your business suffering from poor email communications? Is human error rife, miscommunication common, and you keep finding over and over again that problems are arising as a direct result of communication not happening the way it’s supposed to?

Don’t worry, this is a very common problem that many businesses face, but it doesn’t have to be this way. With this in mind, today, we’re going to explore nine powerful ways to develop proper workplace communication skills and improve email communication instantly.

One Message at a Time

When you’re writing 1000-word emails covering a ton of topics, things can get very confusing very quickly. To avoid this, it can be so much better to break things down and write one message at a time, or one message covering one subject at a time. This is to avoid topics crossing over and things becoming miscommunicated very quickly.

You can talk about two maybe three topics at a push, as long as you’re breaking things up, but the more concise and clear you can be, the better. If you have a lot to talk about, and a lot of subjects to cover, it could be worth organising a phone call or video call/meeting instead.

Optimise Your Subject Lines

Subject lines are so important because they dictate the direction an email is going. If you have a super important email and you’ve used no subject line, how is anyone going to know to read it? If you put urgent, then your reader will know they need to look at it now.

Putting a subject line like ‘what do you think about this?” is just far too vague and makes things so complicated if the reader or you want to search for this email later down the line. The more concise you can be, the better.

Be Free of Emotions

When you’re feeling stressed, angry, or tired, writing an important email is something you should probably not be doing. You’re going to do it wrong and make mistakes, and in extreme cases, it may even cost you your job. Remember, it’s nearly impossible to undo sending an email, and once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Be wise when you’re sending an email, and make sure you’re taking time to ensure you’re saying the right thing, sending the message you want to send, and makes communication easier in the best possible way you can that isn’t tainted by emotions.

Copy-reply to Points to be Clear

When you’re replying to certain aspects of an email, it can be so much better to reply by copy and pasting what someone wrote to you, putting in italics or quote marks, and then replying underneath to that particular point. If you’re writing back in big blocky paragraphs, the messages can become muddled up and confusing.

Always Consider the Channel

Sometimes sending an email is not going to be the best way to communicate. Sometimes a phone call, a face-to-face meeting, or a video call is going to be a much better approach, so always think about the message you’re trying to send, the goal of that message, and then the best way to send it.

Only Send Emails When Necessary

When you start sending too many emails to people, they start to tune out, just like if you talk at someone bluntly for hours on end. They’re going to check out. Instead, make sure to incorporate customer testimonials in your emails, when you’re sending an email that you have a purpose to sending it.

Don’t just abuse your privilege and send an email for the sake of it, like if you can’t be bothered to get up and go and see them in person, or you can’t be bothered to make a proper phone call. People will zone out, miss your messages, and this is where mistakes and errors happen.

Use Your Professional Address

When you’re emailing your employers, this should go without saying, but always make sure you’re using your professional work email address. If you’re using your personal address or an embarrassing one like ‘snookiebabe@gmail.com”, it’s not going to go down well.

Consider Your Professional Tone of Voice

It’s easy to start abbreviating things when you’re writing an email, but it’s simply unprofessional, and you end up looking and speaking like a teenager that nobody is going to take seriously. Always make sure you’re as professional as possible in every email you send to your employees. Set your boundaries and stick with them.

Diversity and Inclusion

Finally, we’re going to focus on a point that requires quite a bit of attention, and that’s making sure your employee email efforts are inclusive of everyone you’re emailing, suitable, and have diversity. It’s very easy to send out an email to everyone within your business but bear in mind that you’re sending the same message to lots of different people.

For example, while you may personally email a friendly manager and call them a term such as a ‘darling’, this may be fine if you’re writing to someone who that’s acceptable with within your relationship with them, but it’s not going to be suitable for everyone.

Of course, when you’re in an office environment, this is much easier to know who you’re speaking to in comparison to when you’re simply adding someone’s email address to the sending line. You need to make sure you’re being careful and addressing and speaking to everyone appropriately.

Hand in hand with this, you need to be thinking about certain aspects of emailing such as potential language barriers. With the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working is now more widespread than ever before, and if you’re working with people who speak a different language, or English is not a first language, then you need to ensure your emails are as accessible as possible.

Nowadays, there’s such a huge focus on both diversity of employees in the workplace and making sure all groups of people are included. Whether you’re emailing someone of a minority ethnicity, who is living with a mental disability or condition, or is transgender, for example, you need to ensure your emails are appropriate from start to finish. This includes making sure your emails are inclusive to all genders.

All you need to do is make sure you’re reading through your emails and ensuring they’re not going to offend anyone. When you’re looking at potential problems when messaging to someone with language barriers, it’s more important than ever before to ensure you’re being clear and concise with every single message you send.

Conclusion

If you can focus on these points, you’ll see a massive impact on the success and productivity that surround your emails. Try some out for yourself and be the proof.