SPEAKER: OK, real talk. Making email etiquette
mistakes in the workplace it's not going to
capsize your career, but learning the unspoken rules
of writing professional emails will affect how competent
you are perceived to be in the eyes of your colleagues. And since there are no
standardized training courses for this, in this
video, I'm going to first share the very
real benefits of getting good at emailing in the
workplace, then dive into my top eight tips
for professional email etiquette many of
which I learned the hard way during
my first full time job as a management consultant. So let's get started. Hi, everyone. My name is Jeff, and I'm truly
honored to be able to partner with Harvard Business
Review for this video about a nerdy passion of mine. Email etiquette
in the workplace. Think back to the last time
you received a poorly written email, you might
have had to reread it a few times to
get the main point and the action items
might have been scattered all over the place. Worst case scenario, it led
to an unnecessarily long back and forth email thread that
could have been avoided had the initial email
been properly planned out and therein lies the beauty
of well crafted emails. Not only does it
help you the sender come across as more capable by
showcasing strong communication skills, but also saves
the reader so much of their time by only surfacing
information relevant to them. So without further
ado, my first step is to have a call to
action when appropriate in the email subject line. Most of us are familiar with
a generic action required in subject lines all right? My recommendation is just
take it a step further and include exactly what
you need the recipient to do and the estimated time it
takes for them to do it. For example, instead of
writing action required, feedback for project X, write
five minutes survey feedback for project X instead. This very small trick probably
gave you a lot more context. It's a survey for
project X I can get it done very quickly
in between the two meetings I have. Or if it's not appropriate to
include the estimated time, be specific about
the call to action. For example, instead of
spending estimates for Q4, write Elon to approve
spending estimates for Q4. So Elon knows what's
expected of him even before he opens the email. Step number two, stick
with one email thread for the same topic. I'm going to be honest
I got called out for this by colleague of mine,
but I'm glad she told me. Basically I used to
send out separate emails for the same project
whenever I had a new idea or follow up question. But if you think about it from
the recipient's point of view, they're missing the context
from the original email thread and multiple new
emails on the same topic just clog up their
inboxes unnecessarily. So the general
rule of thumb here is to stick to
the original email chain for any given topic. So everyone can refer
to the same information. Email etiquette
tip number three, explain why you
added in or took out recipients in email threads. There are many situations
you have to add someone in to the email thread
to get their input, or take someone out
to spare their inbox. A professional and
easy way to do this is to add a sentence at
the very top of the email clearly showing who you
added in or took out. I'd like to add parentheses
and italicize the font to separate it from the
actual email body this way the readers know who the new
recipients are immediately. Tip number four, actually
addresses a very big pet peeve of mine, which is when senders
include a lot information up front, but what they're really
trying to get at or ask for is at the very end of the email. To avoid that always include
your main point first, followed by the context. Just compare these two emails. Hi Jane, my name is Jeff and I'm
in the product marketing team. We're preparing a forecast
deck for the big boss and he's looking for the
revenue projection numbers for the secret electric
car that's launching soon. Can I trouble you to
pull that data for me? Compare that with,
Hi Jane, may l please trouble you for
the electric car revenue projection numbers? Context, the product
marketing team is currently preparing a
forecast deck for the big boss and we're hoping to use
the projections to fight for more budget. It would be amazing to get
numbers for 2025 to 2030 in a Google Sheets format. By pushing the
context back, we're giving the other
person the option to read the not so
important part of the email. Oftentimes when we're emailing
someone more senior than us, we feel obligated
to explain why we're emailing right at the
beginning so it doesn't seem like we're bothering them. This is actually
counterproductive because if the person is very
senior they probably just want to know what you're
emailing them about how they can help
deal with it then move on with their own schedules. Tip number five, if
you receive an email with a lot of
disorganized content, summarize the sender's main
points for them in your reply. So if you receive an email from
someone who clearly has not watched this video and sent you
a long wordy convoluted message you have to reread a few times
you want to do two things. Number one, send them
this video, number two, take a few minutes identify
and bucket common themes from their email and
summarize their message in a few sentences before
responding to whatever they're emailing you about. Not only does this help you
confirm your understanding is correct, the other
party will appreciate the extra effort
you took to help them organize their thoughts. Email etiquette tip number six,
hyperlink whatever possible. This is another
pet peeve of mine. If you're sharing a link
with someone over email, you really should take
the extra few seconds to hit Command K on Mac
or Control K on Windows and hyperlink the external
website or wevedio. Not only to this looks so
much cleaner to the recipient than just pasting
the big clunky link, but it also
decreases the chances of you making a mistake
by adding an extra letter or deleting one in
the original URL. Tip number seven,
change default setting to reply instead of reply all. This is honestly the risk
averse side of me talking. The way I think about
it, let's say your reply to an email in a rush and
you do make a mistake, the damage is contained
to that one recipient because your default setting is
a reply to one person instead of reply to all. This is a standard
setting and most if not all of the popular email
clients and you can usually find this in the general
settings section. And email etiquette
tip number eight, change undo send
option to 30 seconds. So you might not know
this, but Murphy's law when it comes to
emailing the workplace, is that you will always
catch your mistakes 10 seconds after the
email is already sent. All jokes aside I'm sure
we've all been there. We send an email we go into the
sent email folder to read it from the other
person's perspective and we realize
something is wrong. Again this is a standard
setting you can play around with in all of the email apps. Instead of the default five
seconds undo send, for example, we continue to 30
seconds for good measure. Please let me and the HPR team
know down the comments below, which one of these
tips was your favorite. Or perhaps which
ones you've already been using all this time. If you'd like to subscribe
to my YouTube channel where I make content on how to
increase productivity at work, feel free to click right
here or search for JEFF SU. See you on the next video,
and In the meantime, [CLICKING] have a great one. [MUSIC PLAYING]
