What do we do with email?: A guide for Internal Communicators

There was a time when email was our only digital communications channel. Oh, what would we give, as internal communicators, to return to the simplicity of a single digital communications channel! This is not to say we want to forego the undoubted attraction of the more modern and effective digital channels. We just want to reduce the complexity of multi-channel communications to the days when email was it.

When email was the only digital channel available for mass communication with employees, it became the channel for senior executives to provide largely one-way communications with employees. Today, digital communication platforms have become significantly richer. Enterprise Social Networks (ESN), intranets, teaming platforms are all potentially “competitor” channels to email. A 2017 Deloitte study found 77% of executives believed email is no longer a viable tool for effective communication. Yet email has not gone away. SWOOP Analytics’ M365 Benchmarking found email was by far the channel employees spent most time on.

Like manual drive cars and vinyl records, email just refuses to go away! But what practice adaptations are required when sharing the internal communication channels within the modern digital workplace?

Why email still matters

There are a number of reasons why email still matters as an internal communications channel amongst potentially competing internal channels: 

·        It’s easy to send a broadcast message to employees who have an email address.

·        Everyone knows how to use email.

·        Email is reliable, traceable, storable and easily searchable.

·        Emails from corporate accounts are seen as authoritative.

·        Email has become the ‘one stop shop’ for all notifications from other digital channels. 

The limitations of email are well publicised and the reason why competing digital channels have gained increasing popularity. The ubiquity of email can be its main drawback: 

·        Email overload can easily lead to messages being missed

·        Email is the biggest target for spam or even illegal access

·        As an internal communications channel, the communication can appear impersonal e.g. all company emails

·        Seen largely as a one-way communication channel. Email discussions are seen as awkward and ineffective as a people-to-people channel.

·        Some organisations do not provide email accounts to their frontline workers. 

We therefore still need email, but we also need other, richer channels. How should email practices and their analytics be employed as email evolves from being one, more so than the only, digital communication channel? 

Co-existing digital channels

SWOOP Analytics’ M365 benchmarking studies have explored the asynchronous and synchronous digital communication habits of Microsoft’s 365 office suite. The results for email vs Chat, vs discussions vs Meetings have identified some interesting patterns.

While email is an asynchronous communication channel, we found that email usage was correlated with the more synchronous channels of digital meetings and chat. In contrast, the users of the richer content and discussion channels like Viva Engage (formerly Yammer), Microsoft Teams channels, OneDrive and SharePoint users were less likely to rely on email for internal communications. 

What this means for internal communications and the workplace is a growing segment of employees who are largely asynchronous workers; either remote or hybrid, who may be less reachable via email. While still a minority, their preference for richer content and online discussions positions them as the employees most likely to act as active brokers of corporate messages to “harder to reach” hybrid and remote workers. 

Another growing segment of “email allergic” employees, that can only grow, are the Millennials and Gen Z employees. A 2021 study showed 56% of Millennials and 67% of Gen Zs “rarely” or “never” use email to talk to friends and family; 31% of these young consumers also claim to have more than 1,000 unread emails. This generation of younger workers are unlikely to prioritise email for work, if there are other more familiar channels available to them. 

The Gallagher report on internal communication trends for 2023, reporting on significant trends, from their survey of some 2,300 internal communication specialists, found that: 

“Informal collaboration tools were rated the best

— from chat tools to text messages, one-to-ones,

informal get-togethers and brown bag sessions”. 

That said, email was still used by 92% of IC respondents, the highest for any channel. So, email is still perceived to play a key role in the communications mix. But just what should the role of email now be? 

The evolving role of email within an omnichannel communications strategy

Multi-channel communication identifies the different communication channels through which employees can be reached. While email may, for many, be the most common channel, we now have many other digital channels like ESNs, chat, virtual meetings, digital broadcasts and employee surveys. Internal communication specialists are now juggling how best to use these multiple channels. 

Following consumer digital experience, we have omnichannel channel communications, which now place the individual at the heart of the communications process:

In the consumer world, information providers have employed nearly forensic levels of analysis to identify if you are a prospect for their (usually selling) messages. While this might be overkill for internal communications, the principles are the same; using digital analytics, complemented by surveys and focus groups, to guide omnichannel personalisation. 

The starting point is auditing existing channels to find out where employees are spending their time. SWOOP Analytics for M365 provides such an analysis, which can be segmented by organisational business unit, location and more.

A screenshot of SWOOP Analytics for M365 showing the time spent on each platform.

Once we have identified where employees are spending their time, we can further drill down to identify their communication habits within each channel.

For example, email benchmarking studies have identified that average open rates across all industries is around 65% with only 10% clicking though enclosed links. However, these numbers do not reflect the variability across industries. For example, industries with an abundance of frontline workers have open rates as low as 50%. Modern digital workplaces are using richer media to gain employee attention e.g. images, video, but unless the email is opened and clicked through to the rich content, then the email has not been successful. For frontline workers, mobile employee apps and chat messaging are likely to gain far stronger engagement than email. 

Despite the rise of competing digital channels, email is still a primary communication channel. Email is still best suited for official broadcasts and announcements. Increasingly though, information designed for communicating more complex messages, for example a new hybrid working policy, would no longer rely on email. Some messages may even seek active discussion and feedback. The role of email may then be simply to direct employees to other channels like the ESN, intranet or even an invite to a “town hall” meeting with the executive. Benchmarking has shown that event invites have average open rates of around 80% with 30% clickthroughs.

Newsletters are another popular content type that should be moving away from email to the intranet or even ESN to take advantage of the richer media types. SWOOP Analytics’ SharePoint intranet benchmarking has identified that the intranet is the preferred home for newsletter content. However, we have also seen a growing trend toward distributed news creation. Localised news is seen as another personalisation/omnichannel initiative. To invite stronger employee engagement with localised news we have observed some organisations now moving news sources onto their ESN from their intranet. Aggreko, a multi-national energy solutions company has chosen to centre its news feeds on employee stories, written by the employees themselves. 

The enduring challenge with the omnichannel approach is to make it manageable for internal communications staff. With multiple channels and multiple data sources and multiple analytics sets, the task of keeping on top of it all can daunting. What will be needed is an integrated omni-channel analytics approach? 

What does all of this mean for email and email analytics?

Coming from a prior situation where email was the only digital communication channel, internal communications are now required to set some new expectations. We suggest these guidelines:

1.      Email should still be the “go to” channel for straight forward official announcements/broadcasts.

2.      Email should no longer be the place for richer content messaging e.g. new policies, newsletters, change programs.

3.      Expect a majority of emails will be to alert staff to content in other channels. The rich content stored on other channels, like videos, may be rendered inside the email though.

4.      Segmentation should still be used, but limited to employee directory attributes e.g. business unit, location.

5.      Open rates and clickthrough rates should remain the main two success measures. Email analytics might also be used to identify the timing of emails to maximise these metrics.

The above recommendations may not bode well for companies who are looking for email to be the preferred authoring platform for internal communicators. In the above scenario, email analytics requirements will be simpler, while the demand for analytics on the other channels will increase with their growing importance.

The evolution of email

From a prior position of being the only digital internal communication channel, email is now evolving towards a more focussed role within the modern digital workplace infrastructure. The use of email for internal interpersonal communication in general is reducing, in favour of a growing number of alternative channels. 

The internal communications function, however, is still the facilitator of top-down messaging, and therefore email will still play an important role. Crafting official communiques from the executive delivered through email will still be measured through open rates. Email will, however, be increasingly used to direct employees to other digital channels. Click through rates for such emails will then become critical.  

Multiple channels and a growing demand for increased personalisation will present some big challenges for internal communicators. The internal communications function is well placed to facilitate this evolution, with the aid of integrated multi-channel analytics. Beyond top down “communications”, internal communications aspiration should now also encompass “Internal Conversations”.