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Business email pitfalls to avoid
To be honest, I don’t know that anyone teaches new hires how to write emails. They get a desktop or laptop computer, an email address, a chair and a desk and are asked to start working.
Last week’s article regarding a communication snafu seems to have triggered a few readers, who, like me, get irked by poor communication. Take Tom, who shared his experience and was happy for me to publish the same here:
“I’ve just read today’s article, and wow, you nailed it. The advent of the Internet and social media (including short message services) has completely changed how we communicate, and not always for the better. “Sospeter’s” case is a perfect example. But honestly, there’s an even worse form I see often in the corporate world, especially from junior colleagues. It usually looks like this:
And “the below” turns out to be a long email thread with multiple attachments, sometimes even parallel threads, with no summary and no indication of what action is required. For those of us who prefer crisp, clear communication, it is really frustrating!”
The least important and most unpleasant task for Tom’s insanely busy day job is attempting to decipher and unravel long, unwieldy emails from juniors trying to a) Cover their backsides, b) Seek assistance to enable them to cover their future backsides, or c) Giddily illuminate a very exposed colleague’s backside.
But first, let me put on my mature professional hat here and say that we must extend grace to junior colleagues.
To be honest, I don’t know that anyone teaches new hires how to write emails. They get a desktop or laptop computer, an email address, a chair and a desk and are asked to start working.
There is likely a presumption that a new employee’s Form Two English class session on how to write a formal letter covered basic business communication etiquette.
Consequently, many employees are set up to fail through an omission in induction. On behalf of Tom, here are a few bits of completely unsolicited advice for young employees.
Subject heading is not a suggestion: The purpose of the subject is to allow your recipient to know fairly quickly what your email is about.
We can’t be using “Purchase of new laptops” as the subject heading for a client issue that has blown up in your face because you were too lazy to start a new email thread and just hit reply to the last correspondence we shared.
Three things are likely to happen when your recipient sees your email.
Firstly, they will skip over it as the topic has been discussed to the Nth degree already.
Secondly, they are even more bored out of their skull from receiving incessant emails from you, so they have set a filter in their email programme to push your emails to the “Reopen in January 2026” email folder.
Thirdly, since you have insisted on using all caps to write all your subject headings and, in email etiquette, using all caps is equivalent to shouting, seeing PURCHASE OF NEW LAPTOPS once again will only irk your recipient, who is looking to have a peaceful day.
One Swipe—That’s It: Your email should not extend beyond one swipe if being read on a mobile device. No one has time to read a dissertation on what the issue is. Your subject heading already said “Unhappy Client: Erroneous Interest Calculation”.
The body of your email then states the name of the client, the issue, when it arose and your proposed resolution.
Details such as the miscalculations can be attached, and a reference made to the attachment. If your recipient has to scroll down more than once, you’ve lost them. Why? Because they’re reading your email, having found 100+ other emails in their inboxes, and they have to decide which ones require action now, and which ones are for sweeping into the “Reopen in January 2026” folder.
Help your recipient to help you by making your email easy to understand and action.
Reply all–at your peril: I once worked in an organisation that requested the IT Help Desk to disable this setting entirely. Why? Because someone from Human Resources would send an update regarding the annual staff retreat.
Jane from Client Services would reply to all and ask, “Where is it going to be?” when the blasted location was on line five of the email.
HR would then reply all to the reply all since they were not sure whether Jane was uniquely email blind or everyone else didn’t quite get it either. Jane would then reply all to the reply all to the reply all and say “thank you” when she only meant for HR to get it.
1800 emails and a catatonic email server later, the CEO of the organisation picked up the phone and asked, on behalf of every bored skull in the organisation, to ban Jane’s reply all privileges, in fact, heck, ban reply all for everyone while they were at it.
The benefit of this reply-to-all war was that, consequently, every email writer had to be very deliberate about who was in their recipient list before deciding to include them.
Have a communicative week ahead, my friends!
The writer is a corporate governance specialist and a former banker.
X: @carolmusyoka
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