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Email continues to be one of the greatest headaches for IT managers, but some causes of frustration are self-inflicted.

Organisations are encouraging inefficiency, overloading their storage systems and risking compliance fines because they fail to educate employees in the management of email.

A study of the email practices of 260 individuals at different organisations by archiving specialist GFT inbox shows a catalogue of bad habits:

• Over 75% of employees receive no guidance on the archiving or retention of email
• Common compliance and legal guidelines are not being met – more than a third of workers have lost and never found important electronic documents
• User habits are putting unnecessary strain on mail servers and storage capacity – 41% of workers leave files attached to e-mails and just half have an enforced limit on the size of their mailbox
• End-users find archiving complex and laborious.

“These results suggest one of two things: that organisations are still taking a lax approach to the storage of information and the management of e-mail; or that organisations are failing to communicate the rules to their employees and thus failing to control staff use of e-mail and storage of potentially critical information,” says Juergen Oberman, CEO of GFT.

“In today’s corporate compliance culture it’s incredible to think that over half the people asked about email policy either don’t think they have one or don’t know if they do. How can businesses achieve compliance if employees don’t know the rules – or worse, are allowed to break them?”

In addition to compliance concerns, the survey reveals that workers are losing – or simply cannot find – important electronic documents. They are also routinely storing email attachments on personal drives.

Further reading

The zen and the art of email management
How to look after your 'digital health'

Find more stories in the Collaboration & Messaging Briefing Room