Is email killing your team’s performance?

Atos an international information technology services company with annual revenues of EUR 8.5 billion and 74,000 employees in 48 countries thinks so and is planning to ban email for internal communications by 2014[i].

What is email waste costing you?    According to a survey posted in PRNewswire 25% of “email time” is wasted for a total of 15 days per year.   Let’s do the numbers

Total employees X (average annual wage + 15% benefits) X 6% = YIKES!!!
Example:  1200 employees X $30/hour = WAGES WASTED $4,968,000…..in one year

The benefits of secure, private, transparent, “Facebook Style” collaborative tools like, Slack, Yammer, Chatter, Google Plus are virtually endless but here are twenty just to get you started.

1. You create a single positive resource focusing attention on energizing and empowering ideas.
2. Connecting a geographically and organizationally diverse group of Team Members.
3. Team Members are highly motivated to only submit their best ideas.
4. Leaders have a vehicle to nurture Team Member ideas.
5. Everyone is encouraged to participate.
6. The organization benefits from the creativity of the masses.
7. New ideas are generated and/or improved upon by the collaboration.
8. Cultural and departmental biases are ameliorated.
9. Learning is expanded because everyone becomes both a teacher and student.
10. Communications skills are enhanced for everyone in the process.
11. Feedback is immediate, diverse and apolitical.
12. Personal agendas, “lies of omission”, and organizational positioning are all subject to enhanced scrutiny.
13. Leadership is encouraged from every layer of the organization.
14. You create and organizational knowledgebase searchable by keyword and historically accurate.
15. The every prevalent “nobody tells us anything” is replaced by “what have you done to know or contribute?”
16. Alternate career paths may be explored through exposure to other departments, ideas and projects.
17. You enhance the sense of community, inclusion and the opportunity to be a part of something special.
18. You help to reduce personal and organizational biases that can distort sound business reasoning.
19. Privately hosted and managed tools may eliminate the need for BFM FOIA compliance.
20. A community is a far better coach than any one individual.

Collaborative tools are also available in a desktop applications as well as apps for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Android.  You can connect with your Team Members to work together and be more productive. Updates on the people, projects, and files that you care about most are automatically pushed to you, so you always know what’s going on.