Bad email etiquette

Chances are, part of your working day involves reading and sending emails. It’s a small task that you might not think too much about, but your email habits might be harming the way others perceive you at work.

You don’t need to craft a Pulitzer-worthy masterpiece every time you send an email, but avoid these bad habits and you might avoid falling out with your colleagues:

Marking everything as urgent

Is it really a matter of urgency that people RSVP to your email about a charity bake sale when month end is coming up? Try to have some perspective when sending emails, something that’s important to you might not be important in the larger context of things. Worst of all, if you’re constantly marking trivial things as urgent then no one will pay attention when you have an urgent email that needs an answer.

USING ALL CAPS!!!!

Using all caps makes it look like you’re shouting at the recipient. It can come across as aggressive or angry, especially if you use multiple exclamation marks.

Replying all

Unless it’s important that everyone is copied in on a response then don’t hit reply all. No one wants hundreds of responses clogging up their inbox from people replying all to that company-wide email.

Sending emails in the middle of the night

Maybe inspiration struck you at 3am, but don’t send an email in the middle of the night. When your colleagues come in the next day (or worse, if you wake them up!) and see the timestamp you’ll come across as an obsessive workaholic. If you’re a manager, then you might be putting pressure on your subordinates to be ‘always on’ without realising it. Write the email but save it in your draft folder to send during working hours.

Sending too many unnecessary emails

Occasionally, a fun email might cheer your co-workers up or break up a slow afternoon. However, sending constant emails full of anecdotes, memes or inspirational quotes can be annoying.

Unusual fonts or backgrounds

Your email needs to be easy to read for the recipients. If you’re using a yellow font on a pale blue background, that’s unlikely to be the case. Stick to black, simple fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman or Calibri in a 10-12-point type.

Not paying attention to tone of voice

If you know someone well then you can usually dispense with the formalities. However, remember that tone of voice doesn’t always come across clearly in emails you could seem rude or curt without meaning to. Always err on the side of caution, using please and thank you and signing off with ‘kind regards’, ‘thanks’ or ‘best’.

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Posted on February 21, 2019