Workplace Bans Email
from the missing-the-point... dept
The CEO of Phones 4u (a UK-based phone retailer), a man who is apparently quite wealthy - but who doesn't use email, has apparently decided that emails are bad and has banned employees from emailing each other. He estimates that this is going to save his staff three hours a day, and will save the company £1 million a month. This is going a bit further than the Liverpool City Council which recently started experimenting with banning internal emails on Wednesdays. However, I think the guy is being a bit delusional here. He seems to assume that email is only used for bad reasons - and is throwing out quite a big baby with a little bit of bath water. Besides, it's unclear how he got the "three hours" number - and whether or not he realizes that those three hours are now going to be spent trying to track down the person you can no longer email (or, simply moved over to instant messaging). There's no denying that sometimes email communications get bogged down - but for many things it is much more efficient. What's important is not completely banning one form of communication, but training employees on what the proper communications channel is for various tasks.
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I would imagine that a phone retailer would probably standardize on phones and voicemail. Hard to attach a spreadsheet by those little dialing menus, but whatever works (or doesn't work) for them.
Jot a note to yourself to check on whether they survive a year.
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Ebenezer Scrooge?
Geez...next thing you know they'll be down to one lump of coal per day as well.
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At the very least this should be a GREAT case study to see the productivity effects of email. Basically, its the benefit of quickly sharing ideas versus SPAM, and time-wasting effects of email.
Actually if he wanted more productivity he'd probably ban the web...
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This is not anything new to me, quite a few big companies where I live hold the same policy.
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