Managers complain of email overload

Managers risk drowning in email as it becomes the by-product of a communications system that may also be hampering efficient knowledge sharing, according to a Mori report.

A survey of 200 UK managers and directors from the legal, marketing and financial service sectors found that a quarter send more than 30 emails a day, with a further 40 per cent sending between 11 and 30. The market researcher also found that more than half of directors receive more than 20 messages a day.

Despite a third saying that they receive much of their decision making information via email, a quarter worry about security. That figure rises to a third of IT and telecoms professionals.

The study, commissioned by US collaborative software specialist Intraspect, found that large organisations are firmly wedded to online communications, routinely using email for distributing information.

A 1997 worldwide survey of 1300 managers by Reuters, entitled Dying For Information?, found that 62 per cent felt that their personal relationships had suffered as a result of information overload.

Some 80 per cent saw the rapid rise of electronic communications within companies and with customers as a prime cause of information glut, and 43 per cent claimed they had fallen ill as a result of stress from information overload.

Intraspect markets an email hub, which it claims allows users to post relevant information in a virtual workspace accessible through a web browser.

"Email is a great point-to-point solution," explained Simon Reynolds, Intraspect's European marketing director. "But you run into trouble when you're trying to work with many people on a project, or with people outside your company."

Global PR firm Hill & Knowlton built its extranets using Intraspect software, linking 1700 employees and clients.

Sarah Curnow, knowledge manager at the company's London office, said: "I spend a vast proportion of my day categorising and sorting emails, and I get so much rubbish. This system allows you to choose what is useful. I would like it to replace email eventually."

First published in Computing

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