Email stresses out workers

gallery

Email is stressing out workers, who feel compelled to check it constantly and reply immediately, according to a study by the universities of Glasgow and Paisley.

Over a third of 177 people surveyed said they were stressed by the volume of emails they received and pressure to reply quickly, and another 28 per cent view messages as a source of pressure. Some 38 per cent claimed to be relaxed about their inbox, and said they did not reply for a day or sometimes as long as a week.

But while half participants claimed to check their email just once an hour, and another 35 per cent said they check once every 15 minutes, the study found otherwise. Monitoring software installed on their machines showed employees typically switch from an application to their email client as often as 30 or 40 times an hour, for just a second or even a minute.

One of the report's authors, Dr Karen Renaud, from the University of Glasgow's Computing Science department, said email has gotten out of hand. "Email is the thing that now causes us the most problems in our working lives. It's an amazing tool, but it's got out of hand," she said. "Email harries you. You want to know what's in there, especially if it's from a family member or friends, or your boss, so you break off what you are doing to read the email."

Dr Renaud said employees should check email just a few times a day to help cut back on stress and stay productive.

"The problem is that when you go back to what you were doing, you've lost your chain of thought and, of course, you are less productive," she added. "People's brains get tired from breaking off from something every few minutes to check emails. The more distracted you are by distractions, including email, then you are going to be more tired and less productive."

And according to email management firm Waterford Technologies, such an inefficient use of email is costing UK businesses, as employees spend an average two hours a day on their messages - working out to 11 working weeks a year for each worker.

"Despite the major cost to an organisation, few, if any, organisations have defined high-quality processes for creating, managing and controlling email. As a result, most are witnessing huge increase in email volumes with employees spending more time away from productive activities," said Malcolm Etchells, EMEA managing director of Waterford Technologies. "Productivity gains come from better insight into the patterns that cause waste within the company. This involves eliminating non-work related emails and enabling employees to become more efficient at creating, managing and thinking about emails."

Email to a friend

Print this page