E-mail: Help or Hindrance?
- Published: November 16, 2009, By Yolanda Simonsis
Received a press release from NFI Research delivering the results from a survey it distributed on the value of e-mail. Can you identify with any of the findings? Here's what NFI reported:
Forty-five percent of business leaders spend three or more hours daily using e-mail. Thirty-seven percent spend one to two hours while 19% spend less than an hour. The majority (63%) of executives and managers use both a computer and a mobile device for e-mail. Three percent of business leaders use just a phone and 34% just use a computer.
Overall, senior executives and managers spend a similar amount of time on their e-mail. Forty percent of executives spend three or more hours on e-mail compared to 51% of managers.
The larger the company the more time spent on e-mail. Sixty percent of those working in large companies spend three or more hours on their e-mail compared to 38% of those working in small companies. Two times more of those who work at large companies than small spend more than four hours on e-mail.
On a typical weekday, just 3% of those working in large companies spend less than an hour on e-mail compared to 28% of those in small companies.
In a similar survey NFI conducted in 2005, 7% of business leaders spent more than four hours on e-mail compared to 21% today.
Summary (survey results below):
On a typical weekday, how much time do you spend sending/receiving/reading/writing e-mail?
Less than 15 minutes 0.0%
16-30 minutes 2.5%
31-60 minutes 16.1%
1-2 hours 36.6%
3-4 hours 24.2%
More than 4 hours 20.5%
How do you access your e-mail?
Computer 34.2%
Phone/mobile device 3.1%
Both 62.7%
Perhaps the best part of the research was the section providing “select responses”:
• “Couldn't do without email. What used to be a laborious task of writing a letter is now accomplished in just a second. One drawback is that emails tend to be curt and direct.”
• “E-mail is crippling our services and effectiveness. Many in our management team believe that e-mail is a direct threat to our future competitiveness and survival.”
• “Email is the great disruptor. We must learn to ignore it, and then attackit 2-3 times per day at set intervals. Otherwise we lose focus on our most important priorities.”
NFI is interested in tapping the minds and opinions of other senior executives and managers, so if you want to participate in other suveys, go to: http://nfiresearch.com/index.php?option=com_artforms&formid=1&Itemid=59
