Question

Case: You were hired six weeks ago as the Director of Corporate Communications at Flashy Wear Limited, a trendy clothing company. Last week, you received an email from the company's CEO, Jane Complain. In the email, she complains about the employees' approach to e-mail communication. In a nutshell, the employees at Flashy Wear have been abusing their e-mail, and wasting time and money by writing unclear emails, or some emails that are too informal or that have a very negative tone. Some are too short and leave out needed details, so there are long exchanges asking for needed information. Her biggest complaint is about long, rambling emails where it's hard to tell what the point even was! Ms. Blitzen has also noticed infractions like forwarded chain mail messages. pirated movies and other video clips, and even sports pools that encouraged gambling at work. Ms. Complain wants you to write a memo to the staff letting them how to appropriately use e-mail and what is inappropriate. She wants you to be sure to include that work e-mail is for business only. Also, employees must be told that the company reserves the right to monitor all messages. No personal pictures (or videos, for that matter!). And the employees should not be using e-mail to be saying anything about personnel matters either such as performance reviews and salaries. As for how to use email correctly, the end of Ms. Complain's message to you goes like this: "I don't want the email to be all negative - I know there are lots of tips for writing good business e-mails you can add. Please add some suggestions you think are appropriate for us. After all, you are the communication expert here - that's why we hired you. I am deeply concerned about the lack of respect for e-mail and for people's work time spent trying to understand what people have written here at Flash Wear, and I hope your communication will rectify the situation." Your task: Write an email outlining Ms. Complain's concerns and explaining guidelines on what to do, and what not to do in work emails, for all staff. You need to be careful not to sound too negative or pushy, since you just started your job recently and you don't know all the employees personally yet. You do want to make sure the information is clear and detailed enough for all the employees to apply it themselves, though, as this is an important issue for legal, ethical, and business efficiency reasons. Also, you are still on probation, so you want to CC: Ms. Complain and show her you know your stuff - both your email writing tips and the email you write are going to have to be good!

Answer 1

CC: Jane Complain

Sub- Guidelines relating to proper email use

To all staff,

Let me introduce myself, I am the new director of communications here at Flashy wear. It has come to my attention that the email facility which is provided for official business communication is not being used properly by some employees. The official email facility is provided in order to facilitate important functions, hence using this facility improperly, carelessly, or for personal reasons is harmful to the efficiency of official communication.

The main purpose of setting up the company email system was to facilitate proper working of the company. Hence it is crucial that all official emails contain a positive and neutral tone, so to maintain proper ethics and stay on point. Also the emails should contain the necessary information which is required and nothing more, it is important to note that email should facilitate business activities hence emails should contain necessary; to the point information.

To ensure that the email system is being used properly and to its best potential, the company reserves the right to monitor all messages, so please do not use this facility for any inappropriate or personal communication including confidential matters like performance reviews and salaries. This is done to improve efficiency across all company departments.

Let me give you some tips for conducive email communication:

1. Be frank and to the point.

2. Use a positive tone in the email.

3. Ensure that you have achieved the purpose for writing the email.

4. Be efficient, properly utilize your time and avoid wasting time on unnecessary information.

5. Be formal, use proper pronunciation and avoid slang language, this is an official business channel and should be treated as such.

Finally, thank you for patiently reading this message, it is my hope that we can use this experience to build a stronger foundation and improve our deficiencies, and together we can help Flashy Wear achieve greater heights.

-X

Director of corporate communication,

Flashy wear Limited.