Dive Brief:

• Teaching employees about proper email etiquette could save the average professional an extra six productive days on the job, corporate trainer Bruce Mayhew writes for The Huffington Post.
• According to Mayhew, "Studies demonstrate the average business professional spends approximately 90% of their time writing and reading business email." 
• If employees save around 15 minutes each day over an average of 1,700 work days annually by being better managers of email, that could give them six 8-hour workdays each year. Handling this tedious task more efficiently is a demonstrable win-win for businesses and employees alike. 

Dive Insight:

In terms of learning efforts, companies need to know if the investment is worth the outcome. ROI is often the first question that comes up when a new idea for training is introduced.

For the most part, productivity levels and restored time are viewed as positive ROI. For employees, having more time for other efforts may seem like a boon to their careers.

There have been some interesting developments regarding email use over the past year. In France, employees can now legally ignore emails sent after work hours, restoring a key elements of work-life balance for many. Remote employees can especially benefit from efficient email practices in this regard.

Better email practices could also help prevent cybersecurity breaches; several scams, including a recent IRS W-2 scam that targeted payroll departments as recently as January, depend on malicious, deceptive emails to lure employees into revealing confidential data.

Statistically, we've seen that company leaders have trouble understanding the relationship between learning and company profits. Thinking in these terms can help create more structured course content and objectives.