Professional Email Writing Skills: 4 Reasons They Matter
Did you know that a typical office worker receives around 121 emails a day? That’s a mountain of reading material! The problem is that professional email writing skills are often overlooked in the workplace. Not everyone knows proper email etiquette for business or how to create a compelling, effective business correspondence. With the amount of customers, co-workers, and vendors you talk to, getting the right message across to everyone is crucial.
Why is effective email communication important?
Effective email communication is a valuable clerical skill that can enhance company operations, given how many important discussions in today’s digital workplace happen over email. You want employees who can strategically deliver bad news, respond to irate customers, or handle heated discussions over email. Poorly worded emails can cause misunderstandings and even conflicts that hurt your organization’s productivity and reputation.
Here are several reasons effectively written emails are essential.
1. Avoid misunderstandings
A poorly written email can cause confusion. Suppose you’re a project lead. You email your teammates regarding their role for a new account but fail to elaborate on important details. You also forget to mention the deadline or designate tasks for each member. The project contributors are unlikely to understand the urgency of their work and what their responsibilities are. As a result, the project’s success is on the line.
Ideally, you encourage your employees or co-workers to hone their writing skills to reduce misunderstandings and ensure productive group efforts.
2. Increase workplace productivity and efficiency
Receiving an email with well-written instructions, clear milestones, and realistic deadlines is extremely helpful for productivity. It’s better to explain all the necessary details at the beginning so that the contributors don’t have to clarify information down the line.
This approach prevents the back-and-forth between team members because everyone knows their responsibilities. Then, they can immediately start their tasks and quickly advance the project.
For example, you’d want to share complete notes after a meeting. Well-written summaries include a breakdown of the discussion, tasks per team member, and deadlines for completion.
3. Promote trust and credibility
Your employees’ emails collectively speak of your company’s professionalism and credibility. For this reason, client-facing workers who craft easy-to-understand, empathic, and pleasant emails are valuable to your organization. They help your clients feel more confident and comfortable about trusting you. Typos, informal speech, or rude phrasing could detract from that.
Remind your employees to be friendly, helpful, and comprehensive when dealing with clients over email. Tone is critical in written communication since the other person can’t see the sender’s facial expressions, gestures, and other non-verbal cues.
4. Keep a virtual paper trail
Emails help keep records of meeting minutes, customer information, or project details more efficiently than printed documents; you can simply pull up old email conversations to recall important information. They can also trace communication histories to help with accountability via a search function that makes it easy to locate specific discussions.
How to Promote Email Etiquette in the Workplace
To enable your workforce to improve email etiquette, below are some methods you can try.
1. Assess everyone’s email writing skills
Before investing in a series of lessons on how to correctly write emails, first try to see what your team’s skills are. Other members may already excel in email communication, but some may need training.
Look for pain points or gaps in their knowledge of professional email etiquette that you want to improve or address. To remove the subjectivity, use data-driven tools when assessing someone’s written communication abilities.
One example is a basic employment skills test. These types of assessments include sections that determine if job applicants can read and understand information quickly, know correct grammar and spelling, and pay close attention to details.
A typing test is also helpful. Typing tests for hiring assess people’s ability to type quickly without errors, so you can see how quickly they can draft business emails. Nothing slows down productivity more than an employee who must “hunt and peck” on a keyboard.
2. Discuss the rules of professional email writing
After you benchmark everyone’s skills, you can talk about email writing in more detail. Discuss the dos and don’ts, emphasize the importance of tone, and provide tips on how to craft easy-to-understand emails. Also, encourage them to ask questions if they find something confusing.
Depending on the results of the email writing skills gap analysis, you can schedule a hands-on workshop or send out a quick newsletter as a refresher. Use the method that best suits your workforce.
Also, remind your employees that there are instances when an even simple email isn’t the best option. Some discussions are better held in person or over the phone. What they can do is document these conversations by sending meeting minutes over email to everyone involved in the matter.
3. Use a grammar checker
No one’s perfect, and even the most experienced professional may slip up from time to time. A typo can slip in if someone’s busy answering dozens of emails within a day. Fortunately, you can invest in grammar checkers to prevent these mistakes from falling through the cracks.
Apps or websites can help check grammar and tone, allowing your employees to write emails quicker while keeping them professional and neat.
Professional Email Writing: From Confusion to Clarity
Effective email communication isn’t just words on a screen; it’s the cornerstone of clarity, efficiency, and trust when engaging with colleagues or customers. Being clear and concise with messages helps reduce misunderstandings and keeps everyone on the same page.
If you’d like to boost these skills in the workplace, EmployTest offers several pre-employment assessment tests that include typing tests and basic skills tests, to help you identify those critical gaps.
Contact EmployTest for more information, or take a free sample test to start investing in your workforce’s capabilities.