Emails Can Haunt You by Suzanne Scheideker Cook
“The tongue weighs practically nothing but so few people can hold it.” – African Proverb
By now, you may have realized that some topics are the focus of more than one blog post. This is because we know these topics all too easily can make or break you in your career. They include but are not limited to the inability to follow through, lack of attention to details, and poorly written communication which includes emails and texts.
I am often surprised at the inappropriateness of internal and external email communications written by employees at all levels of an organization. You can put yourself in harm’s way as well as others in your company by sending out ill-advised emails. Remember the following when you are writing business email:.
Business emails (and texts) are discoverable in a court of law. They also can be used in organizations’ internal discipline proceedings. In addition, behind closed doors when promotions and/or bonuses are being discussed, your ability or inability to communicate professionally both orally and in writing may have a big impact on whether you get your promotion and/or bonus.
Please remember that emails should never include sensitive and or confidential information which includes but is not limited to:
Proprietary information (your company’s or a clients);
Personnel actions such as counseling, disciplining, hiring, or firing an employee(s);
Gossip about a subordinate, peer, and/or supervisor.
Remember that once you have put it in black and white and hit the “send” button, you lose control of who and where your email is sent.
Emails are not text messages. In most instances, now emails have replaced the hard copies of business communication such as letters or memorandums. Due to this, the same rules apply to writing business emails as they do for writing a formal letter or memorandum. This means business emails must have:
A salutation;
A subject line;
The body of the letter or memorandum;
A complimentary close; and
Your contact information.
Your business emails should meet the three “C’s” of writing which are being concise, clear, and correct. In Diana’s blog post, “It’s Okay to Backspace”, she discusses many of the critical elements of a professional email such as tone, grammar, and confusing being direct with being rude. It would be worthwhile for you to reread Diana’s post on this subject.
There are many wonderful tools to help check our spelling, grammar, and inclusiveness. However, these do not replace proofreading your emails. These tools may not pick up accidentally misspelling a word such as “pubic” instead of “public.” It is incredibly embarrassing to be the writer of a departmental memo that has the subject line, “Department of Pubic Works.” (It’s also hard to live down.)
When you are writing a business email (or text,) please also consider the following:
Do not use slang, contractions, or abbreviations.
Avoid using all capital letters, underline, bold, and italics. (One of my general managers used to call these “disaster fonts”.)
Use humor sparingly (if at all.)
Shun the use of emojis.
Your personal challenge this time is to review your business emails that you have sent to others within and outside of your company and use the criterion above to evaluate each of your emails. What score would your emails get?
