These Bad Email Habits Are Why Your Coworkers Hate You

By May 9, 2017For Talent

Love ’em or hate ’em emails are a vital part of working life. They’re often the most used communication between our colleagues and clients and yet some of us are still woeful at crafting a decent mail. Here’s our shortlist of the most irritating email habits around. How many are you guilty of?

Using ‘reply all’

Group mails are an efficient means for briefing everyone at once. But, before you thank the masses for such an enlightening update, ask yourself: Is it really necessary for me to reply to all 57 people in this group mail? No, didn’t think so.

 

Misleading subject lines

The clickbait approach will only serve to anger your recipients. Always use a simple, direct and relevant subject line.

Sloppy mistakes

It’s frustrating to have to wade through emails with spelling mistakes and grammar errors. Worse still is those messages that have incorrect information. There’s really no excuse for such sloppiness. Proof read your emails and double check your facts before hitting send.

 

CAPS

Don’t use caps to emphasise your point. Practice your indoor email voice or run the risk of an angry response.

Buzzwords and clíches

We send so many emails everyday that it gets pretty formulaic: From the opening “Hope you’re well” to the closing “look forward to hearing from you then” the whole thing can become stale and tedious. Try to make your emails original and on point. Why not add the occasional gif where appropriate?

 

Urgent

There’s few things more irritating than being hit with an “urgent” email just to discover that not only is it not urgent, it’s not even important. Overusing the term shows a lack of respect for your colleague’s time and means that when something is actually urgent they may not believe you.

Have you heard of the boy who cried urgent? He died.

Cc’ing the boss in 

Don’t try to show up your colleagues by cc’ing their superior, only include the boss if they’re crucial to the discussion. It’s the classy thing to do!

  

 


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Author Aoife Geary

Aoife Geary is the Content Editor at Jobbio specialising in the areas of Workplace Culture, Diversity, Startups and Digital Trends. She's partial to a burrito, a bad pun and living way beyond her means.

More posts by Aoife Geary

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