* Readers weigh in on messaging the unmessaged
My recent newsletter on providing e-mail to those who are not traditional e-mail users generated lots of feedback. My thanks to those who responded. Here’s a sampling of the feedback:
* “E-mail is of great benefit to these people as it puts them within reach of company management, puts these departments in touch with each other, keeps employees informed of company events, picnics, policies, corporate news and social club benefits (thus raising morale).”
* “I’ve worked in a manufacturing plant for many years. Many of the factory workers have no desire, perhaps even an aversion to something like e-mail. They come to do their assembly work and then leave. They get paid to make parts, not to read e-mail.”
* “I believe you have forgotten one major disadvantage to providing some workers with e-mail, and that is the cost of training. While I have the utmost respect for all employees within my organization and my industry (manufacturing), I also have to be aware that my industry is one where production costs are compressed as much as possible.”
* “E-mail is for the most part nonproductive and a source of distraction in production, retail and similar hands on types of jobs. Imagine the change in production when a half-hour of each day is spent receiving, interpreting and responding to e-mail for the person putting tires on a truck in an assembly plant. The supervisor of these types of jobs most likely has e-mail capability already, and that is the level where it is best applied.”
* “A large percentage of those who do not currently have e-mail will never be able to make that justification – warehouse and factory workers come to mind immediately. An assembler on a production line would not stop his/her job for 10 seconds to look at a computer screen – in any form.”
* “It’s all very well having a mailbox, but if you don’t have a PC at your station, then you need to leave your post in order to read and answer your messages. This must have some impact on productivity, even if your employer makes convenient ‘public access terminals’ available throughout the workplace (another expense for the employer).”
* “If HR can send newsletters, benefits forms, company holiday schedules, etc., via e-mail, rather than printing them, they stand to save a lot of money.”
