Does it ever feel like Groundhog Day in your email inbox?
Well you are not alone; according to Campaign Monitor, the average office worker receives 120 emails per day. Despite other messaging platforms being on the rise, email still rules in the corporate world. Statista reports that in 2022 306.4 billion emails where sent everyday, and that’s increasing, with 347.3 on average being sent daily in 2023 so far.
In the US, it seems that workforces really are chained to their email, with Adobe reporting that employees spend a staggering 5 hours per day on email! This can ramp up if staff return from time off to an overflowing inbox, as only 24% of employees reported never checking their emails on annual leave (Statista).
So, what about our European counterparts?
A recent study by productivity software DeskTime has compiled data of the email habits of its 11,000 users across 30 European countries. It has found that Europeans are using email on average just under 19 minutes per day. Malta comes in first place with the heaviest users totalling just over 55 minutes per workday, followed by Spaniards with 38 minutes, and in third place Greeks with just under 39 minutes. Austria and Switzerland spent the least amount of time on email per day.
The usage differences between regions is suggested to be due differences within work culture, communication and email habits of employees.
It’s also worth noting that there has been a rise in other methods of communication which have had an impact on workers communication habits. Since the pandemic and remote working came into play, tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams have grown in popularity for internal communication. Microsoft Teams has grown rapidly from 2 million users in 2017 to 270 million in 2022!
Email is still the undisputed king of communication
Although Microsoft Teams has been adopted as a preferable method for inter-office communication and meetings within many organisations, it still doesn’t offer the ability to monitor employee communications or prevent siloed information. It also fails to meet the full requirements for businesses that require lots of external communication or collaboration, especially where an audit trail for compliance is essential, or if sensitive documentation needs to be shared or filed.
Email looks set to continue to be the preference for most businesses, but that doesn't mean employees are doomed to spend their days endlessly sorting emails. An email management solution like Mail Manager means staff can escape their inbox once and for all.
How do workers get off the email hamster wheel?
Mail Manager can remove the pain of email admin boredom and let you get back to the tasks that matter most by taking away those endless tasks that eat up staff productivity.
Download our free guide, ‘Email is killing your productivity’, and see how employees can break free of their inbox chains.
