27 Nov 2008

Staff over-reliant on electronic communication, expert says

The widespread use of email as an electronic tool of communication can have a negative effect on business operations, an expert has suggested.

According to Ben Camm-Jones, news editor at Web-User magazine, some staff no longer recognise when it is best to use email or when it is more in their interests to turn to the telephone.

Many firms now use hosted services and unified communications solutions to communicate with fellow workers, branches and customers.

But Mr Camm-Jones suggested that it is important that firms do not neglect the importance of traditional forms of communication.

He argued that workplaces would benefit if staff only checked their email every couple of hours and refrained from communicating with workers situated only a matter of yards away.

"This would rely on workers understanding the importance of phone calls and face-to-face communication and using these methods in place of email where appropriate," Mr Camm-Jones said.

Email was shown to have overtaken telephony as the most common form of communication in the workplace in an industry study by Dimension Data, which was conducted by Datamonitor and published in August 2007.