April 2022
Contents
|
MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
CC or Not CC:
Why That Unwanted Email IS a Problem
By:
David Schneiderman
CIO / Managing Partner
&
Harrison Parham
Marketing Specialist
You may find yourself grinding your working momentum to a halt as you attempt to decipher an email you received, only to find that you were CC'd on an email that has led you down the road to nowhere.
Why Are you being copied on a multitude of needless emails; and how do you tell someone to stop sending you those emails without creating hostility or getting left out of important emails?
Differing understanding of email etiquette can cause frustration but will often remain unaddressed. This causes the decision to CC, Reply, Reply All, or let the conversation end, up to interpretation.
You May Ask Yourself: Is This Full Productivity Stop a Problem?
Short answer is: YES
According to a study conducted by Adobe, workers spend an average of 3.1 hours checking their email a day. While this may differ by industry, limiting distractions [an average of 77 a week, or a distraction every 31 minutes (Mopria, 2021)] is pertinent to getting productive work done.
According to a study conducted by UC Irvine: after a task-switching notification, it takes up to 23 minutes to get back to the original task.
An Average 9 hr Workday
Considering these findings, getting more than 8 uninterrupted minutes of work is a statistical anomaly. We can assume that these stats can be more extreme for those with more direct reports within an organization. Letting the days go by with distractions holding you down is bad for business.
Realign Your Productivity: How to Solve the Problem of Needless Emails
-
Address the Sender
-
Create a System
-
Provide Organizational Training
1. Speak directly with those who often send unnecessary CCs and discuss their reasoning for the emails.
2. Create a simple process such as requiring a summary or specified desired action within their copied emails. Explain that this simple process can expedite the solving of important issues.
3. Provide organizational training about the differences between BCC, CC, Reply, and Reply All can get everyone on the same page.
Review and Resource:
CC (Carbon Copy)
This simply sends a copy of an email to the recipient, same as the “To” column. All recipients will be able to see who is CC’d (Carbon Copied).
When to Use:
CC should ALWAYS be treated similarly to having a quick in-person conversation: Start with a summary and need and provide more information as needed. Use CC when a full conversation is requested, and a summary will not suffice.
Why Not to Use:
You wouldn’t playback the audio of a conversation to give someone information, so why do it via text emails? Forcing the recipient into unwanted notifications and leading them to decipher a conversation with great attention will often lead to problems getting solved slowly or incorrectly (if at all).
BCC (Blind Carbon Copy)
This sends a copy of an email chain thus far, but without other recipients seeing the contact. When BCC’d the recipient will not be included in Reply All or Reply follow-ups.
When to Use:
This is useful when emailing many contacts at once, or when you need a verifiable source to have documentation of a conversation. When sending a mass email. using BCC can prevent people from gathering private email addresses.
Reply All
This is the most misused tool. The “Reply All” button sends your reply to everyone in the originating email.
When to Use:
Often, “Reply All” feels like a safe option to “loop in” all parties but often results in more inbox clutter than anything. Consider each recipient of a reply all, and if the information is for them, necessary, or already implied. When in doubt, revert to “Reply” and add necessary recipients.
Reply
The most used tool (at least it should be). This simply replies to the sender. Any other receiver of the originating email will not receive a message when you click “Reply.”
When to Use:
When in doubt (respectfully) KEEP IT TO YOURSELF and click “Reply.” You can always put more recipients in the “To” column. If you forgot someone, you can update them later. This is not intended to cause a lack of communication, but will prevent others from unneeded notifications.
Why Not to Use:
Some recipients within the email may not be authorized to view the information. Additionally, some information in your reply may not be relevant to everyone in the conversation.
Why Not to Use:
When you want the recipient to see who is receiving the email, BCC is not the correct tool.
Why Not to Use:
When your reply does contain any important information (e.g. "Thank You")
Assuming that members of your organization know the nuances of email etiquette can result in frustrating uses that go unresolved (You know what they say about assuming…). When in doubt, politely ask the offender to explain their reasoning or to change the behavior.
A confusing or unnecessary email can seem like a minimal issue, but on a large scale will cause an institutional productivity loss.
So remember, CCing an unsuspecting coworker on a confusing email chain can do this to their productivity:
Recruiting for Diversity & Inclusion
with Shelby Evans, CDR
By: Harrison Parham
Marketing Specialist
Featuring:
Shelby Evans, CDR
Talent Acquisition Specialist
With our introduction of Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), our Talent Acquisition Specialist Shelby Evans recently became a Certified Diversity Recruiter via the Certified Diversity and Inclusion Training: AIRS. I chatted with Shelby about this process and the tools she gained to help businesses.
Can you tell me a little bit about the AIRS Certified Diversity & Inclusion Training and why you decided to go through the process?
As someone in charge of recruitment for an expansive range of clients, I felt that Diversity and Inclusion training is valuable because:
-
If a recruiter understands and can meet the needs of individuals who have a diverse background, they can create a positive interview and hiring process.
-
Companies need to keep in mind that diversity and inclusion within their culture start with the people they HIRE.
-
Hiring people from all different backgrounds is important because everyone will have unique skills that they can provide to help to enhance a business.
As a Talent Acquisition Specialist, I wanted to expand my recruiting skills and knowledge by going through the Certified Diversity and Inclusion Recruiter course with AIRS. The CDR course provided me with tools, resources, and strategies to help improve my diversity recruiting methods. My biggest takeaways from the training were the education on biases, Boolean Search Strings, hiring with disabilities, certain candidate sourcing websites and tactics, and digital inclusion of a diversity statement.
You mentioned that Bias was one of the key elements of the training, can you elaborate on what you learned?
Bias within the recruiting realm has to do with how you post jobs, review resumes, assessments you may send to candidates and the interview process, and how you may have unconscious bias within those acquisitional steps.
About posting jobs: addressing biased language, for example, gender-biased terms or ability-biased terms is important to sourcing a diverse group of candidates.
Job site algorithms will decode job descriptions that include gender-specific language to then show certain people who... (Read More)
Hello, I’m Nancy!
I have been with Vida HR three years this July, as a Payroll Specialist. I have been in the payroll field for 25+ years and I still love it! My PI profile is Operator, which means I am a patient and conscientious team player. I find I am also methodical and very steady which is especially helpful and needed for payroll processing.
A little about me:
I was born and raised in Ohio, where I met my husband. We have been married for 23 years and have 4 (!) cats. We love to travel, experience new things, and do a lot of hiking. We have lived in Ohio, Puerto Rico, and of course Colorado which we love.