An Email Policy for Your Employees

3. Sending Emails

3.1 Employees should use their own, password-protected accounts to send emails.

• Passwords should be strictly controlled.

3.2 Encourage the use of emails, rather than phone calls for communications you wish to keep a record of.

3.3 Get employees to use emails for internal communications.

• Unlike a phone call, email can be dealt with at the recipient's convenience.

3.4 Establish standards for outgoing messages.

• Set out what typeface, type size and colour should be used.
• Consider putting a limit on the size of any attachments. Many Internet service providers place restrictions on attachment size (eg 5Mb).

3.5 Have rules for handling confidential information.

• You may want to ban certain types of information from being sent by email. For example, lists of customers and information about new products.
• You might specify that some information can only be sent using encrypted email.

3.6 Explain the potential contractual significance of emails to employees.

An email can be as contractually binding as any other form of communication.

• You may choose not to use email for any contractually significant communications, and insist that all such documents are sent by letter instead.
• Consider including a disclaimer on emails. For example, an extremely simple disclaimer might state: 'This email is confidential, and is intended for the use of the named recipient only. If you have received this message in error, please inform us immediately, and then delete it. Unless it specifically states otherwise, this email does not form part of a contract.'

3.7 Sending too many emails can lead to information overload.

Excessive email, particularly internally, can lead to overwork or a tendency to disregard emails. It can also seem rather impersonal.

• If you send and receive a large amount of email, it becomes far easier for an important message to go unnoticed. Consider adding 'priority flags' to emails to indicate what is and isn't important.
• Avoid sending emails when you would not have sent a letter or memo, or made a telephone call, if email was not available.
• Before sending a message to a large number of people, ask yourself whether they all really need to receive the message.
• Replying to all the other recipients of an email you have received, as well as the sender, is another common problem. Some companies ban use of the reply-to-all feature completely.
• If you have an intranet, cut down on internal emails by posting messages on it instead (see Intranets).

3.8 Explain your policy on storing both sent and received emails.

• Your system may be set up to handle email filing automatically.
• Some companies always print out paper copies to be filed with other documents.
• Stored emails need to be protected from any later editing or unauthorised deletion.
• Back up all email data regularly as part of your normal back-up procedure.
• Inform employees about the permanence of emails. For example, if emails are stored centrally even after employees have deleted them from their own accounts, make them aware of this.
• You must tell employees how emails are monitored (see 6).