Staff need face-to-face interaction

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Firms might wish to hire a building consultancy firm in light of the potential impact email can have on employee productivity.

Face-to-face interaction is a key element in efficient office design, it has been suggested.

Ben Camm-Jones, news editor for Web User magazine, explains that requiring employees to use email for all communication is not an effective way of running a company.

"Often emails are sent between co-workers sitting a matter of yards from each other, which is unnecessary," he observes.

"But the major problem is that some people don't know when to use email and when to use the telephone."

Organisations looking to strike the correct balance between email, telephone and face-to-face communication might wish to hire a building consultancy to help address their infrastructure.

Doing so could prove profitable in light of research from communications consultant Expert Messaging.

The firm found that 72 per cent of workers spend at least an hour of their day dealing with emails.

Nearly two-fifths of respondents (39 per cent) admitted to wasting two or more hours of productivity on email.

Source: ask-re The Property People LLP