Let’s Chat… Email Professionalism!
Welcome back, everyone! I hope that you had a wonderful weekend and are enjoying our welcome into Fall. With a new season comes ample time to reassess progress, adherence to personal or professional goals, or even clean up your space. Stay tuned all season for our best tips and tricks to staying on track through year-end! Today, we’re here to re-engage in a common business theme… email etiquette. How do you engage your receiver while maintaining awareness or being direct while also pleasant? Find out below!
Let’s Chat… Email Etiquette:
- Subject Line: Kindly, get to the point! If the email is urgent, express that in the subject line but use it sparingly so as to make sure that when it is used, it holds value. Maintain awareness of your ability to use tags to tag emails for urgency and priority in other peoples’ inboxes – and layer on your clarity by including “URGENT:” or “RESPONSE NEEDED” if the email has to be resolved before any other!
- Greetings: Depending on your relationship with the recipient, use a greeting. If you do not know the recipient, you should be more formal with your greeting (using an intro like “To whom it may concern…”). Setting the tone of an email through a greeting is a great way to initiate professionalism while maintaining pleasantry. If you have never spoken to the individual you’re corresponding with, this is also a great time to introduce yourself (your role/reports/team you are placed within) to give your reader a better understanding of why you are reaching out.
- Purpose: With everything that we are tasked with throughout the day, it is reasonable to assume that no one wants to spend extra time reading emails that drag on for paragraphs. If you need action by a specific date, make sure to lead with that as open-ended emails can be confusing, and creating a hide and seek of your email ask may lead to an oversight on your receiving party’s end. If your purpose includes a timeline, due date, request on behalf of a specific person on the chain, etc., make sure to bold or italicize that important piece of information to ensure you draw attention.
- Genneral Professsionalism:
- Avoiding Emojis: While including emojis for friendliness may be persuading, we encourage you to remember your audience so that you only do so where it is appropriate and not in front of too large of a receipting crowd!
- Check your CC and BCC! Use these functions where appropriate, and always be mindful of when you are replying to one individual or an entire distribution list!
- Spell and Grammar Check: Grammarly is your best friend! When you are looking over who you are sending to, be sure to check your grammar and spelling. There is nothing worse than sending an email to your boss, just to realize a big spelling error when you hit send.
- Response Timeframe: Even when your inbox is overflowing, it is crucial to be a good teammate, employee, and manager by responding in a timely manner. Set up these expectations early on your team so as to ensure everyone knows the appropriate timeline for getting back to one another. Whether this is a day, 2 days, a week, or even biweekly checks… set these standards so that you have a goal to adhere to!
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