The last 3 clients I’ve worked with in 2018 have been the leadership teams of;

A multi-national company with 20,000 staff in the FMCG industry
A Victorian state government department
An Australia-wide Facilities Management company with 13,000 staff

These leaders calculated the cost of their time spent ‘doing email’ at

$42,636 and 80 days per person per year (= $1.1 million for the 26 who attended)
$50,164 and 95 days per person per year (= $852,000 for the 17 who attended)
$131,923 and 78 per person per year (= $791,000 for the 6 who attended)

As in so many other organisations, these leaders and managers are spending $200, $500 or even $1000 per hour value time on $40 per hour value activity! And much of that time is after hours, eating into their personal/family time and contributing to stress, executive burnout, work-life imbalance and even . . . poor mental health and well-being!

If each organisation was to receive an invoice for the value of the ‘’lost hours” shown above, they would quickly say “No way are we paying this!” But of course, they are paying it. It’s just that they are paying ‘out the back door’ in lost productivity and outcomes, rather than as an ‘up front’ cost.

Surely, with email costing this much in terms of time and money (plus a whole raft of intangible negative impacts), organisations should eliminate using email? For most organisations however, that’s impractical. So, what’s the next best option?

The solution is to train staff (especially at leadership levels) in how to implement proven email management best practices.

It’s like learning how to drive a car. Cars kill or maim thousands of people every year but it’s not the fault of the car. We have learnt that we need to educate or train people in how to use a car appropriately. For example, my son has to spend 120 hours of driver training or experience before he can get a licence to drive a car on his own. How much training does your organisation provide before your people are allowed to start using email?

With the right training, they can quickly and easily learn how to save 25-40% of the time and cost currently spent just ‘doing email’. And with an Email & Internal Communications Protocol and Policy document in place, these best practices can be propagated down through the various levels of the organisation, so that all staff across the organisation are able to restore email to its rightful place as a tool for enhanced productivity, rather than a hindrance to it.

For example, a 25% saving for each of the organisations highlighted above equates to;

$10,659 and 20 days per person
$12,541 and 23 days per person
$32,980 and 19 days per person

Now multiply that by the number of people in your organisation and see the staggering costs that could so easily be saved (and the time/energy spent on higher priorities).

And for sales-oriented teams, it raises a very interesting question - which would yield better outcomes and ROI - sales training or email training?

For an organisation with a salary-to-revenue ratio of say, 1:5 (ie: 20%), each dollar saved can become $5 in revenue. Using the examples above, this means that;

a $10k cost saving becomes $53k in additional revenue per person per year
a $12k cost saving becomes $62k in additional revenue per person per year
a $32k cost saving becomes $165k in additional revenue per person per year

I’m sure your head is now spinning with all these numbers.

If you think the cost of ‘doing email’ in your organisation is just too high right now, why not reach out to me for a chat about some proven ways to make better use of your people’s time, talents and capabilities in 2019? I have good availability in January and reasonable availability in February (which is rapidly filling up with bookings) and look forward to our conversation when you’re ready.

All the best,

Steuart Snooks

Here’s why your organisation should stop using email in 2019!