SPEAKER: OK, real talk.
Making email etiquette mistakes in the workplace
it's not going to capsize your career,
but learning the unspoken rules of writing professional emails
will affect how competent you are perceived to be
in the eyes of your colleagues.
And since there are no standardized training courses
for this, in this video, I'm going
to first share the very real benefits of getting
good at emailing in the workplace, then dive
into my top eight tips for professional email
etiquette many of which I learned
the hard way during my first full time job
as a management consultant.
So let's get started.
Hi, everyone.
My name is Jeff, and I'm truly honored to be able to partner
with Harvard Business Review for this video
about a nerdy passion of mine.
Email etiquette in the workplace.
Think back to the last time you received a poorly written
email, you might have had to reread it
a few times to get the main point
and the action items might have been
scattered all over the place.
Worst case scenario, it led to an unnecessarily long back
and forth email thread that could have been avoided
had the initial email been properly planned out
and therein lies the beauty of well crafted emails.
Not only does it help you the sender
come across as more capable by showcasing strong communication
skills, but also saves the reader so much
of their time by only surfacing information relevant to them.
So without further ado, my first step
is to have a call to action when appropriate
in the email subject line.
Most of us are familiar with a generic action required
in subject lines all right?
My recommendation is just take it a step further
and include exactly what you need the recipient to do
and the estimated time it takes for them to do it.
For example, instead of writing action required,
feedback for project X, write five minutes survey feedback
for project X instead.
This very small trick probably gave you a lot more context.
It's a survey for project X I can
get it done very quickly in between the two
meetings I have.
Or if it's not appropriate to include the estimated time,
be specific about the call to action.
For example, instead of spending estimates for Q4,
write Elon to approve spending estimates for Q4.
So Elon knows what's expected of him
even before he opens the email.
Step number two, stick with one email thread
for the same topic.
I'm going to be honest I got called out
for this by colleague of mine, but I'm glad she told me.
Basically I used to send out separate emails
for the same project whenever I had a new idea
or follow up question.
But if you think about it from the recipient's point of view,
they're missing the context from the original email
thread and multiple new emails on the same topic
just clog up their inboxes unnecessarily.
So the general rule of thumb here
is to stick to the original email
chain for any given topic.
So everyone can refer to the same information.
Email etiquette tip number three,
explain why you added in or took out
recipients in email threads.
There are many situations you have to add someone
in to the email thread to get their input,
or take someone out to spare their inbox.
A professional and easy way to do this
is to add a sentence at the very top of the email
clearly showing who you added in or took out.
I'd like to add parentheses and italicize the font
to separate it from the actual email body this way
the readers know who the new recipients are immediately.
Tip number four, actually addresses a very big pet peeve
of mine, which is when senders include a lot information up
front, but what they're really trying to get at or ask for is
at the very end of the email.
To avoid that always include your main point first,
followed by the context.
Just compare these two emails.
Hi Jane, my name is Jeff and I'm in the product marketing team.
We're preparing a forecast deck for the big boss
and he's looking for the revenue projection numbers
for the secret electric car that's launching soon.
Can I trouble you to pull that data for me?
Compare that with, Hi Jane, may l
please trouble you for the electric car revenue
projection numbers?
Context, the product marketing team
is currently preparing a forecast deck for the big boss
and we're hoping to use the projections to fight
for more budget.
It would be amazing to get numbers for 2025 to 2030
in a Google Sheets format.
By pushing the context back, we're
giving the other person the option
to read the not so important part of the email.
Oftentimes when we're emailing someone more senior than us,
we feel obligated to explain why we're
emailing right at the beginning so it doesn't
seem like we're bothering them.
This is actually counterproductive
because if the person is very senior they probably just want
to know what you're emailing them
about how they can help deal with it then move on
with their own schedules.
Tip number five, if you receive an email
with a lot of disorganized content,
summarize the sender's main points for them in your reply.
So if you receive an email from someone who clearly has not
watched this video and sent you a long wordy convoluted message
you have to reread a few times you want to do two things.
Number one, send them this video, number two,
take a few minutes identify and bucket common themes
from their email and summarize their message
in a few sentences before responding to whatever
they're emailing you about.
Not only does this help you confirm your understanding is
correct, the other party will appreciate
the extra effort you took to help
them organize their thoughts.
Email etiquette tip number six, hyperlink whatever possible.
This is another pet peeve of mine.
If you're sharing a link with someone over email,
you really should take the extra few seconds
to hit Command K on Mac or Control K on Windows
and hyperlink the external website or wevedio.
Not only to this looks so much cleaner to the recipient
than just pasting the big clunky link,
but it also decreases the chances
of you making a mistake by adding an extra letter
or deleting one in the original URL.
Tip number seven, change default setting
to reply instead of reply all.
This is honestly the risk averse side of me talking.
The way I think about it, let's say your reply
to an email in a rush and you do make a mistake,
the damage is contained to that one recipient
because your default setting is a reply to one person instead
of reply to all.
This is a standard setting and most if not
all of the popular email clients and you can usually
find this in the general settings section.
And email etiquette tip number eight,
change undo send option to 30 seconds.
So you might not know this, but Murphy's law
when it comes to emailing the workplace,
is that you will always catch your mistakes
10 seconds after the email is already sent.
All jokes aside I'm sure we've all been there.
We send an email we go into the sent email folder to read it
from the other person's perspective
and we realize something is wrong.
Again this is a standard setting you can play around
with in all of the email apps.
Instead of the default five seconds undo send, for example,
we continue to 30 seconds for good measure.
Please let me and the HPR team know down the comments below,
which one of these tips was your favorite.
Or perhaps which ones you've already
been using all this time.
If you'd like to subscribe to my YouTube channel
where I make content on how to increase productivity at work,
feel free to click right here or search for JEFF SU.
See you on the next video, and In the meantime,
[CLICKING]
have a great one.
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