The use of email messaging in the workplace has grown rapidly in recent years and is more than just a simple communication system.  Email has become a central element of the way work is conducted in organisations where computers are used and has become a part of working habitat. 

Email has become an integral part of the communication structure within organisations, and has matured to become a network utility and an expected corporate-wide service that people need to do their jobs.  

Click here to see a rich picture of the problem of email communication in the workplace.

Employees are increasingly being interrupted by email messages which can affect the quality of work, employee productivity and more detrimentally cause message fatigue. 

There is a clear need for organisations to change the communication practices for the majority of their employees to avoid the negative effects of electronic communication. The organisation must make better use of email communication and increase employee effectiveness.

The ease of use, popularity and acceptability of email has accelerated the mass adoption of email communication to be spread throughout the digital business world.  It has been estimated that globally there are over 1,200 million business email accounts and that each user sends on average 34 emails a day. (BrightMail, 2004). 

The International Data Corporation (IDC) has predicted that 35 billion emails per day will be sent globally during 2005 – IDC’s ‘Email Usage Forecast & Analysis Report’ further estimates that Western Europe has been estimated to send 1.6 trillion emails in 2005.

As shown in the rich picture, there are many conflicts between the law, internet service providers, organisations,  computer resources, company management and the employees.  All these conflicts must be addressed through careful planning, consultation and agreed policy setting between management and the end users.

To add to this complexity, UK law is a minefield for organisations as shown in Law section of this web site.