e-mail etiquette Policy

[Sylv3r]

Dear all

 

I have cobbled together the attached document for use with all of our staff within school. I'd be interested to hear your views / changes.

 

Feel free to use in your own establishment if you think its a good starting point.

e-mail etiquette.doc

[vikpaw]

Line 2: omitted 'to' - 'we need to implement'

LIne 4: change then to than

Line 5: perhaps reword to minimise the liability rather than protect

 

The last point is in a different font.

 

Add - communication is 90% non-verbal, think about what the reader cannot infer from your body language, facial expression, tone etc. [ there is a real world stat to this effect, google for it.]

 

Add - Don't forget how an email looks is controlled by the reader not the author so keep styling to a minimum.

 

I would maybe want to re-order the points so that the most important are at the top, e.g. 'use cc sparingly' is v.important to us here! Also, try and change the points so that the concise descriptor is bolder/bigger and to the left so could be read as a list without reading the whole paragraph. Also that way they might heed more of it as it seems quite long, though rightly so.

 

Actually, i'd be tempted to make another version, perhaps as a poster, where the paragraph of explanation is just short sharp statements, such that all rules fit on one page. The policy needs to be as it's worded, but a shorter simpler version is more likely to be taken notice of.

Edited November 15, 2009 by vikpaw
change line numbers!

[t_h]

I agree with the above. As a policy document it is fine but I think it would definitely be complimented with a poster highlighting the main points. Also agree with bumping the more important (imo) points onto page 1.

[GrumbleDook]

Part of me wants to give an example of what is a good signature. You have already stated about being concise, to the point, include relevant information ... but I can see people having massive signature with funky text. I wish FirstClass was a bit nicer about forcing a proper .sig but it doesn't.

 

Suggest that the signature includes the user's correct contact details that are relevant to all recipients of the email, after all ... you would not want the user to stick their mobile number in there if they regularly send emails to parents and students, but you would want them to include things like position and the school telephone number.

 

You might want to point to the user guides on FirstClass for how to set signatures too.

 

Good draft though.