* Readers in favor of providing e-mail to everyone
Last week’s newsletter on whether or not organizations should provide e-mail to all of their workers generated a significant number of responses. In this newsletter, we’ll focus on the responses of those who believe all workers should have e-mail.
Here are some highlights:
* “The way we approach the efficiency problem with part-timers is that we expect our people to be 75% efficient. If they work eight hours, we expect six of that to be directly billable to a customer project. The other 25% is for reading e-mail, surfing the Web, research, telling jokes, etc. For the full-timers, we don’t track that 25%. For the part-time people, we have them enter it into our time-tracking tool.”
* “I say let them have it. The time management, or rather micromanagement, war is long lost. No e-mail in an effort to peak productivity? We must first ban cell phones at work to accomplish that goal. That prospect is far too retro.”
* “The major objection – as I understand it – to granting use of e-mail to certain kinds of employees is that they’re likely to make inappropriate use of company e-mail. I take the view that the higher-ranking, salaried employees are as prone to make inappropriate use of e-mail as are the hourly paid workers below them in the company hierarchy. [Since our] company has some vision of itself as fulfilling a mission to which all of its employees are dedicated, there may be no choice but to provide e-mail – as just one of the tools for pursuing that mission – to all employees.”
* “My reaction is that if you have a computer on your desk, you will have e-mail. There is too much information that is exchanged regarding day-to-day business that flows too easily through e-mail not to make it available to everyone who uses a computer.”
Most of the responses we received were actually against providing e-mail to everyone – although there are strong opinions on both sides – and we’ll get to those next time. Thank you to everyone who commented on the newsletter.
