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Professional Email Etiquettes – The Importance of “To”

Dilip — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 19:13:45 +0000

Emails!!! In this century, people, office and organizations are connected through mails. This is the century where mails are preferred much more than a verbal conversation. Why? Because these mails can later be used as a proof of the conversation.

The days of the office memo are gone. You do not sign on those circulars that the office boys circulate in departments seeking the signature of everybody reading it. Today it is the electronic signature that is important and it is a valid enough evidence that you have read a circular.

This is a series that I am starting today on professional email etiquettes. This series would cover everything that is important when you write a professional email – the what, how and when of email writing.

In the first article here, we will be discussing about the importance of addressing the right person in the “To” field.

If you peep into your inbox right now, you will find quite a few mails which were actually ones that were to be actioned by you, yet you were nowhere in the “To” field of the email. There would also be certain other emails where you were one of the many who were addressed in the “To” field, but you had nothing to do with it and it was just for your information.

The Importance of the “To” field -

The “To” address field has a lot of importance. It is indeed the electronic signature that we discussed a while ago in one of the paragraphs above. When you mark a mail to a person, he is supposed to be the intended recipient of the mail. He is the one who is to action on the email, if the email had an actionable item in it. He is the one who virtually electronically signs the email, accepting that he has received the mail and that he will action on it, unless he explicitly writes back saying that he disagrees to the actions.

This importance of the “To” box is often forgotten. Emails that you receive are blindly forwarded to others without even checking on who is the person to act on the email.

The person who you think has to definitely and compulsorily read the email has to be marked in the “To” box. It is only he or, they if there is a group of people who should be there in the “To” box. The rest of the people who, you think should be kept in the loop and who should also know about such a mail being sent by you are the ones who should be marked in the “Cc” or, “Bcc” boxes.

Always bear in mind that the person receiving the mail will only give as much importance to it as is required and he will decide this on the basis of the field that his name is appearing on.

A lot of extremely important activities and updates miss the actual intended recipients just because the email sender did not bother to focus on the “To” field.

It would be extremely unprofessional on your part if, you miss the name of the intended recipient from the “To” box. Hence the first lesson in professional emailing is to carefully identify the people who should be marked on the mail in the “To” field and the ones who the mail is to be marked as a carbon copy.

The Impact of using Social Networking Sites at Workplace

Dilip — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:06:50 +0000

Social Networking…Does that term sound familiar? No question of an unfamiliarity, right?

If you are still not aware of what a social networking site is, then let me tell you that everything starting from Facebook, LinkedIn to Twitter can be called a social networking site. These are basically sites that help you network with other people and build a network.

How often have you been using a social networking site at your workplace?

Social Networking sites have become a menace to any workplace. But if you are an employee, I am sure that this statement would have created a frown on your face. My intention is not to do that, rather it is just to initiate a discussion around the topic.

Is Social Networking impacting work?

Social Networking is no more just a medium of interacting with your friends or, family members. It has gone far beyond that. Take for instance, LinkedIn. It has become a medium of connecting with people professionally. Over the past year or, so I have been able to connect to quite a few HR personnel and Talent Acquisition team members and I have received a few private message from some of these connections for job openings that they were responsible for filling up.

LinkedIn has a lot of features that help recruitment personnel make decisions. Because of the fact that this is a professional social networking website, people are more inclined to showing off their professional qualification and experience. Add to this the fact that there are a lot of people who vet the profiles and recommend them on the basis of their previous experiences. All of this gives the option of carefully scrutinizing these profiles before recruiters approach the prospective candidates.

But, does this license such social networking websites to be used at workplaces?

Social networking websites are not usually included in the list of prohibited websites in most organizations, which gives me an impression that such organizations do not have a problem with their employees accessing such websites. Whatever the approach of the organizations, the impact of using such websites on the routine work at job, is huge and undeniable.

It has been observed that employees spent a lot of time, at the cost of their work on networking. This not only impacts productivity to a great extent but also impacts the service that an employee provides in the course of his work at office. Efficiency and quality of work is all impacted.

Facebook and such other websites have a lot of positives and is a way of life these days. But should it be done at the cost of work? My opinion might be different from that of yours. Whatever your opinion is, it is always welcome. Let them come in the form of comments to this post.

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The Tobacco-free Revolution

Dilip — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:00:45 +0000

The BPO and Call center culture has brought about quite a lot of changes – some positive and some negative. Though critics and well-wishers are right in saying that there the changes are more of negative, especially in India, there would be no denying the fact that there a lot of changes that are positive as well.

One such welcome change was the tobacco-free revolution that brought about a change in the smoking habits of quite a few BPO employees. Smoking had become a fashion statement for these employees working in BPOs, majority of them youth. What started as a reason to stay awake in the night shifts that, they had to work in, soon became an addiction that was difficult to get rid off.

I have been witness to my friend and colleagues in my organization becoming chain smokers. No sooner has one cigarette finished, that they light another one. Then they would blame the entire habit on the night shifts and the work pressure. I would often wonder as to how smoking relieved somebody of the work pressure. Nevertheless, smokers felt so.

In just about a few days, a small cigarette shop popped up outside the office premises and business boomed for him. Who cares even if it is at the cost of somebody’s life.

Then came the tobacco-free revolution and banners popped up everywhere urging people to quite smoking and that smoking within office premises was banned. The otherwise official smoking zone in the organization turned into a garden and employees had to walk a bit of distance to go outside the office premises to smoke. Soon people felt the pain to walk outside the premises, though some of them still had the motivation to do it. The others, started to quit smoking slowly and cited various other reasons for it.