Ravalier PhD Theis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

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The use of email was one of the most often-cited organisational issues for employees of service 6 and in
order to overcome these issues four feasible implementations were put forward by participants. Results from the
previous stages of research suggested that work colleagues often utilised email as a first method of
communication, and as such a management-led drive toward the use of verbal communication ahead of email is
the first planned intervention. Similarly, it was felt that ‘all staff’ emails which are received by all employees,
rather than the planned recipients from particular departments, were sent too often and thus increasing the
number of emails individuals received on a daily basis. Therefore by setting up targeted email groups for each
different department in the service would easily alleviate this issue. A third method of reducing the number of
emails individuals are forced to act upon throughout the day is by turning off email alerts so that new messages
are not automatically flagged up as soon as they come through. By doing this, with systematic checks for new
important emails every two hours or so, individuals will be able to concentrate more fully on the task that they are
currently performing. The final suggestion put forward refers to times when individuals are away from work for a
period of time and how to help deal with the emails that may amass in their absence. The suggestion was to have
email ‘buddies’ that must be identified before leaving work, with those buddies (colleagues) given access to emails
in order to prioritise or respond to urgent emails.
Results provided evidence that bottom-up communication was often difficult in the organisation, with the
problem exacerbated by employees feeling unable to put forward suggestions or comments to those higher in the
organisational hierarchy. Therefore the proposition of having an anonymous method of putting forward any
creative thoughts and suggestions was placed as an effective method of improving employee to management
communication. A second suggestion reported to increase bottom-up communication was via improved use of