Just like English is seen as the universal language, email is treated as the universal language for all online communications.

But is email really the messaging messiah we have cracked it up to be? In this article we highlight the risks involved in becoming excessively reliant on company email for internal communication. 

Did you know that the Average office worker receives 121 emails a day and sends out 40 business emails a day? LIfewire.

For the majority of office workers, it's part of our daily routine; login, check our emails, complete a task, take a sip of coffee and repeat. As for the remote worker, the company email can seem like the only link back to HQ civilisation and one of few communication methods at their disposal (providing they have a company email set up!).

Like most of our habitual routines we tend not to notice the cracks until something goes wrong. What would the impact be on your business if email access was lost? 

To a lot of businesses the loss of email could be seen as detrimental to productivity. However, email could be severely harming your employees productivity. According to UK research from Developing People Globally only 14% of emails are crucial to work activity, yet emails chew up 50% of the average workers' time in one way or another. We're all guilty of falling in to bad habits with email, and sometimes just like swearing or biting our nails...It just happens! 

It's true that much of the information we share via email could/should be delivered via another method. How many times have you sent an email to someone when you could have picked up the phone or taken the short journey to speak face to face?

How much time and energy have you spent interpreting ambiguous emails or crafting a polite response to someone who has simply, got the wrong end of the stick? 

Did you know? UK businesses would be £750 million better off each year if only they could help employees manage their time more effectively. Developing People Globally

Email is a major factor and a massive time waster when it comes to managing time more effectively. With the estimated wastage cost being predicted at £1.5 billion a year. 

In the next section we have highlighted five top reasons you may want to challenge your use of email for internal communication.

1. A Digital Avalanche – Emails are useful in that anything and everything with your name in the message box will be settled in one big pot... but when you consider the volume of emails people are likely to get in the working day, it feels as though you have to sift through an ocean's worth of mail. From the personal messages to the work-based messages to the seemingly endless spam... you find yourself struggling to find the time to sort through it all!

2. Nine to Five Doesn't Apply – For some people, email operates a lot like Facebook; you can only go for so long without checking, without itching that scratch. And if you're one of those people who always tries to make yourself available at one's beck and call, then the working day doesn't end when you clock out for the night. In fact, a study by the Chartered Institute of Personal Development found that 40% of people check their work email five times a day...outside of office hours. You become so accustomed to the stream of sending and receiving, you end up losing that much-needed off-switch.

3. Work Email= The Invisible Barrier – Not every employee has a work email. Some of them are more likely to defer to the Google Gods and rely on gmail to send and receive all mail... which means that those who don't have a work-related email are likely to miss out on all relevant updates. This can be particularly aggravating for remote workers whose work email is their only point of contact. Ideally, you want a platform that ensures all workers have swift access to... lest they be left out of the loop.

4. The Universally Mixed Message – It can feel so great to have a single message, with so many names attached, knowing that they can all receive that message instantly with the single click of a button... but it is never that simple. There are some portions of the message that may have a great relevance to some people and not so much to others, which means you run a fairly real risk of confusing the workers operates on different wavelength. And that's not even getting into the niggling little doubt you may have left off certain names unintentionally...

5. Non-Media Savvy – We live in an age of Facebook, GIFs, video, interactivity. Today's technology allows us to take a common message and add a bit of spice to it so it's never 'just' a message, which is always handy if you want to grab someone's attention and practically pull them into the context... but email doesn't often offer much opportunities for innovative communicators to be innovative.

 Of course, email does have many saving graces, and if used correctly, can serve a business and a person well. Our point is simple. Email isn't suitable for ALL forms of internal communication. An email tends to lead to more emails, more meetings, more conversations which sometimes can create more issues than they solve.

Workforce demographics are changing and so has the way we communicate in our life outside of work. There are a number of new innovative technologies coming to the fore, the way in which we can now communicate has very few limitations, company email or intranet are no longer the best tools for the job. By utilising other advancing communication options you can stay ahead of your competition and reap the rewards that come with communication clarity. 

A communication platform such as an employee app can make communication much easier. They also help to enhance the employee experience, supports the employer brand, and are of practical use throughout the employee life cycle. From onboarding to engagement and recognition, apps can be a much more inclusive method compared to email, or intranet.  

An employee app is the perfect way to communicate with all employees across the business no matter where they're based. Many large businesses across the globe are turning their hand to employee apps to connect their widespread workforces.

An employee app you can help keep your teams up to date with the latest company news and information.  From within the App you can keep everyone informed and encourage employees to share their experiences, but that's just scratching the surface of its capabilities.

Just A Few Great features of Workvine's employee app: 

Customised Homepage – Customise and personalise the employee’s navigation to relevant content and channels.

Media – Upload all forms of media to make the app experience more versatile and fun. Use videos to teach employees new skills or pictures to give the app a more social aspect.

Groups –  Reach out to different sections of your workforce and send targeting content specifically to your employees easily with our comprehensive settings, restrict who sees what with one easy click.

Push Notifications – Have changed internal communications forever! This enables immediate responses and receipt of valuable information possible anytime, anywhere.

Forms- Host all your important documentation in one centralised place, save time and increase your efficiency.

Surveys-  Survey employees in a few taps with pulse surveys. Easily and quickly capture the mood of your business and track employee happiness over a period of time. 

Employee Directory - capture and store all relevant information about employees such as contact data, job title, job-specific skills, and further training. 

• How AD Construction implemented an employee app to enhance communication.  
• How Intelligent Office humanised corporate communication. 
• Peaks and Plains- Ploughing ahead with cutting-edge communication.