Email is the much-derided fulcrum of corporate communication, and yet despite its inherent popularity, most guides on good email practice tend to focus on how to limit its use as much as possible. Research from the University of Sussex Business School aims to take a deeper look into our unproductive email habits and strives to help us eradicate them.
The key, the researchers found was having a high level of self-belief, which they suggest is crucial in changing habits that have become ingrained. What’s more, it’s far from immediately obvious that our email habits are bad as the triggers are not as obvious as when we have an unhealthy diet or take insufficient exercise.
The researchers recommend a two-prong approach to tackling bad email habits:
- Regular reminders of their plan together with the support for using it
- Clearly defined improvements that should be expected in terms of goals and wellbeing over time
The plan might include things such as turning off email notifications or only checking emails at a certain time each day. This, the authors suggest, would give renewed purpose to email usage.
“It is important for employers and employees to remember there are no universal rules around work-email habits,” they explain. “They are only ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in relation to how they affect an individual’s performance and well-being, so a habit that is good for one employee, may be bad for a colleague.”
“The key is for each employee to consider for themselves if the habits they have developed really help in meeting work and well-being goals. If they don’t, individuals should devise a plan for doing things differently, tell colleagues how they are working to change their habits and then observe whether repeatedly trying-out the new action is helping to meet work and well-being goals.”
Changing habits
Across a 12-month study, the researchers developed and tested a Work-habit Intervention Model (WhIM), with participants from a British charity assigned to either the active intervention group or a control group.
Those in the active group were given action plans on a regular basis over two four-month blocks, with each volunteer agreeing to use the plans. The plan included 23 evidence-based tips that were sent every fortnight, with the tips spread across four categories (sending email, receiving email, managing email, and choosing the appropriate communication mode). Any changes in email usage were then measured after 4-6 weeks.
“Curbing unhelpful work email habits can be very beneficial for employees and by extension employers. Our study found that long-term changes in work-email actions led to improvements in employees’ well-being and reduced negative emotions connected to their work,” the researchers explain.
“We found that employees with more stable personal resources for self-regulation, such as higher self-efficacy were the most likely to override old, unwanted habits, by stating, acknowledging, and sticking to clear intentions and action plans.”
Key findings
- Workers need to regularly engage with rationalized plans of action and state their intention to use these, in order to change work-email habits.
- Organizations should consider training workers to enhance their self-efficacy prior to implementing a work-email habit change intervention.
- Providing regular feedback about the impact of work-email habit change on well-being and goal attainment is likely to make the change sustainable in the long-term.
