Formal Email Policy For Business Process: Benefits, Issues, And Analysis

Write about Formal Email Policy for Business Process.
 

The email has revolutionized the business process all over the world. The organizations conduct most of their business activity through email. The most advantageous about this electronic medium is the speed of sending a message irrespective of the distance between the sender and the receivers. With the growing competition in the world, it is most important to have information and act accordingly. A business email contains information or news related to the business, which enable the employers to communicate with the workers effectively. The purpose of this paper is to research and produce a report on the development of formal email policy of an organization. Firstly it will be discussed why the organization should develop a formal email policy. It will also identify the issues around the email use in an organization. The report will also mention the benefits of a formal email policy. The report will also focus on describing how the policy should be implemented or enforced in the organization. The report will focus on the email policy of a renowned IT company IBM.

There are several reasons for a company to develop email policy. By developing this policy, a company can prevent email threats. It ensures that the employees are conscious about the corporate rules and instructions. This is developed to protect the organization against hacking and confidential leaks and to reduce the legal responsibility (Pardo and Schneider 2014). Any kind of misconduct can be prohibited by an email policy. It helps to avoid legal liability of the company. Email policy is necessary to inform the employees regarding the email etiquette to ensure that the company communicates in a professional manner. The email policy is also required to inform the employees that the higher authority is monitoring their emails. It is necessary to inform the employees that if they send or forward an email that contains any defamatory; offensive and racist contents then the employee and the company will be liable. Email policy is also required to let the users know if any confidential data is shared; or if any one copy and paste any message without permission then the sender and the company will be liable for infringement of copyrights (Wideman 2014).  Hence, it is important for the users of business email id, to know the legal risks associated with the business emails. Since thepolicy for formal emailsare published, it is perceived that the users are well aware of the legal requirements of using that email ID. Hence, knowing the consequences, the formal legal policies prohibit the employee to forward any message without the sender’s consent. The formal email policy also required to be developed to prohibit the employees to use another employee’s official email account. The email policy is also important to develop to make sure that official id is not used for any other purposes.

Need for Formal Email Policy

IBM is one of the largest information technology companies. The product of IBM includes software and hardware for a range of business servers. It has developed microchip; PC etc but it has gained its dominant position through its section of Information & Technology. The company operates all over the world with a huge numbers of employees, around 377,757 as on 2015. Hence, email is an important way of communicating with millions of employees regularly. The company has to deal with several kinds of issues like employee satisfaction and the well-being of the company as well. This IT division of this giant company deals with different clients in assisting them in IT solution. Therefore, it holds lot of confidential data. Hence, it is necessary to develop email policy to make the employees aware of sharing data (IBM 2014). Email policy is also required to develop so that the employees can use it properly as a harmless means of communication. The need for formal email policy is necessary for IBM to make sure that the employers use this electronic tool in an effective; responsible and lawful manner. It is possible that any outsider can send any attachment or link in order to hack for getting information regarding the company. Therefore, formal email policy aware employees about not to click on links if it looks suspicious. It may contain viruses or phishing contents asking for personal financial details. The IBM is concern about its employees. Hence, in order to look after the interest of the employees and to keep them safe from any kind of cyber-crime, it is necessary for IBM to develop a formal email policy(RiskSupport.org.au 2014). The email policy of IBMinforms regarding all legal and safety aspects to the employees or the users; thus employees can avoid risks simply by following the guidelines of this policy. By this way, the employees can IBM can protect the organization from potential danger.

Though email is a quick and cost-effective method of communication, there are significant issues thatcan be arose due to using emails in an organization. Email does not develop any personal connection between the sender and the receivers. Written messages may not convey the actual message to the employees. Sometimes the meanings can be misinterpreted, as the reader of the message cannot see the facial expression of the sender. The humor; sarcasm or strong emotion cannot be conveyed through emails. In addition to this, the using of wrong punctuation; upper case letters; highlight of text may convey wrong messages to the recipients. It is important for a business to develop relationship with the employees or with the coworkers to work as a team. Communicating through business emails is not effective to creating a proper business atmosphere. Another problem related to the business email is that information is overloaded. Too many emails take occupy huge and unnecessary time of the workers. Not only the office time but also the personal time is taken out of their lives. Some business houses have recognized the disadvantages of information overload. Using emails in workplace may waste the time of the employees. Employees can spend unnecessary time in sending personal notes or jokes around the co-workers. Therefore, email causes distraction in work(Martin and Nakayama 2013). Employees get addicted to sending personal emails or in checking emails numerously. Uses of emails in business may cause severe mismanagement in the system. This is when the employees do not read the email. Suppose, the top management has delivered some news or ordered something to do, but due to technical issues, the employees do not receive the email. They will fail to amend the task without knowing what has been conveyed. If the task is urgent, then failing to amend it may cause severe loss to the business. Therefore, disconnection of internet connection may lead to no exchange of news or messages, which may affect the operation of the company. Spam or viruses is a major issue of using business email. The PC’s or the laptop in the workplace can be damaged because of receiving spam or viruses in the emails. This may destroy crucial informational data of the employee (Jackson and Russell 2015). This will hamper their work in progress anddetrimental to the company’s performance. The sensitive information can be shared easily via email, no matter whether it is deliberately or accidentally but the after effect is the same. Using business email might be problematic for the employees, as the upper management monitors the account randomly. Any kind of personal email is accessible by the higher authority, hence contents of business emails do not have privacy. 

Issues for Using Email

In spite of several drawbacks of using business emails, the uses is not restricted or prohibited by the company, rather the significance of using business email is growing its importance day by day. The major reason behind this is that the speed of this communication tool. Email can be sent and received instantly. The information is disseminated very fast. Through email, single message can be reached to number of employees of an organization. anyone from the hierarchy can send message to the employees and any employee can communicate to the higher authority of a company. Therefore, emails help to bridge the gap between the workers and the management. Moreover, by communicating with the employees, the managers or the director of a company can get feedback on the service provided to the customers or regarding the work culture they are getting or about any grievances against the management or co-workers (Icaew.com 2014). Through email, an employee can share confidential information relevant to the management. The business is not operating in the single city or in a single country. It may have operations globally. Hence, it is not possible to communicate verbally with all employees around the world. Therefore, through email information can be shared with everyone. Business email is not only used for communicating with the management and workers; it also help to communicate easily with the customers of the company. Through email, a business can target its audiences. The sales department of the company can approach to the consumer through emails. In addition to this, the customer can also send their feedbacks or requirement or any kind of complaints to the company’s official email id. They can solve their problem by interacting through emails with the customer support team (Kalia, Nezhad, Bartoliniand and Singh 2013).  The business email is sent free of cost and creating email account does not charge any costs. It just requires internet access. Email keeps record permanently. Therefore, if some data is lost, which was once came through email; it can be retrieved easily. Moreover, the messages and replies are also remained saved in email, which can be required for any future references.

Email policy of an organization can be enforced or implemented by providing training to the users. Employees should be trained regularly. The company’s management should help the users by informing about the effective emails. It must also be mentioned that the offensive comment or jokes can be harmful for them. The use distress to them employees are made understood that offensive remarks can be abusive to other people that might cause distress to them (Davis 2015). Through training, they are informed that they should not click on unknown links asking personal details. The formal email policy can also be implemented by dealing with the prompt and necessary action when any employee complains about offensive mail. The internal procedures of the company should allow investigation regarding the complaints. The policy can be implemented by engaging he employees themselves in detecting the inappropriate content of email (Paczkowski, Parsel, and Rajagopal 2015). By implementing the email policy in the companies, the legal cost of the company can be reduced. The supervisor should arrange meeting within 10 days of hearing complaint. Moreover, by monitoring the email, it can be ensured that no policies are being breached. Email policies can be enforced by blocking the unwanted messages or contents from email. The wrong pattern of using business email can be lessen and email policy can be followed properly. By penalizing the employee who misuses the business email, the policy can be strictly enforced. The organization can includeemployees’ suggestion while making an email policy. They can also take legal advice while formulating the policy. Moreover, the policy should be applied to each level of hierarchy by making same rule for everyone (Cornwalls.com.au. 2010). Moreover, the company should revise the email policywhen necessary andwith any changes that might impact the liability of the company.

Conclusion

In the above discussion, the report has been made regarding the formal email policy in an organization.The report has discussed the why its is necessary for IBM to develop formal email policy. In this report it has discussed the benefits of using business email in an organization. The problem related to using email for business purpose has also been taken into consideration. This report has also discussed the ways in which the formal email policy can be enforced or implemented properly. It has been identified that using of business email hassignificant importance; however, there are some major loopholes. To make aware of the risks associate with the use of email in business, the formal email policy should be developed. By training and taking instant action, the email policy can be enforced properly in an organization. 

References

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Davis, J.B., 2015. What to Consider When Handling Company Vs. Private Email. policy.

ibm.com. (2014).IBM Acceptable Internet use policy for IBM services - United States. [online] Available at: https://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/imc/html/aup1.html [Accessed 4 Jun. 2016].

Icaew.com. (2014).An email policy for your employees. [online] Available at: https://www.icaew.com/~/media/corporate/files/library/collections/online%20resources/briefings/directors%20briefings/hr36empo.ashx [Accessed 3 Jun. 2016].

Jackson, T. and Russell, E., 2015. Four email problems that even titans of tech haven't resolved. The Conversation.

Kalia, A., Nezhad, H.R.M., Bartolini, C. and Singh, M., 2013. Identifying business tasks and commitments from email and chat conversations. Technical Report HPL-2013-4, HP Laboratories.

Martin, J.N. and Nakayama, T.K., 2013. Experiencing intercultural communication.McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Paczkowski, L.W., Parsel, W.M. and Rajagopal, A., Sprint Communications Company LP, 2015. Trusted policy and charging enforcement function. U.S. Patent 9,066,230.

Pardo, R. and Schneider, G., 2014. A formal privacy policy framework for social networks. In Software Engineering and Formal Methods (pp. 378-392). Springer International Publishing.

RiskSupport.org.au. (2014).Developing an Email Usage Policy. [online] Available at: https://risksupport.org.au/resources/Documents/Developing%20an%20Email%20Usage%20Policy%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf [Accessed 4 Jun. 2016].

Wideman, R.B., , 2014. Messaging Policy Controlled Email De-Duplication. Quantum Corporation. U.S. Patent Application 14/515,705.