SSAFA accepts that the use of email is a valuable and necessary business tool. However, incorrect use of this facility can have a negative impact upon employee productivity and the reputation of the business. This policy sets out in a non-exhaustive way some of the key concepts of email use that all SSAFA's people - employees, volunteers, temps, contractors - are expected to abide by. This policy extends upon the basics in the overarching IT Policy.
Reminder: as explained in the IT policy and your contract of employment, emails (and all systems) are continuously monitored. Emails should not be considered private. They might, for example, be accessed after a person ceases employment or surfaced as part of a subject access request. And despite SSAFA's email retention policy being set at one year, there's nothing to stop a recipient screenshotting a response and keeping it for longer.
It is expected that the following to be used as a minimum standards framework for email tone.
- There is no tone in text, therefore it could be expected that a recipient might read an email with a negative tone, simply due to the way the email was written or structured. Similarly, the author of an email might purposefully structure an email with harsh or passive aggressive language to convey a negative tone and maybe goad a response. Both should be avoided by proof reading before sending and asking oneself "how would I react if I were to receive this?"
- A well written email is one where it is difficult to read negativity between the lines, or be interpreted harshly.
- Emails should be written in a way so that they fall somewhere between the informality of a telephone call but the formality of a letter.
- The former might be best suited for internal emails, or messages to frequent contacts.
- The latter might be best for first contact emails or those to external bodies and beneficiaries.
- Please be aware that short emails can be considered brusque or abrasive and should be avoided.
- The use of capital letters can be considered shouting or angry, and read negatively. To emphasis text use colour, highlights, bold and italics.
- Shortening already short words can be considered lazy or disrespectful to the reader. For example, "kind regards" shortened to "KR" should be avoided otherwise unintended negativity might be inferred.
Aim for warm, friendly, professional tone and then spell/grammar check before a final proof read, and it will be difficult to go wrong.
Never say anything that might be considered rude, hateful, disparaging, or simply unkind in an email. Remember, you do not have to email in much the same way as you do not have to tweet emotionally. You always own the choice. Sometimes a constructive phone call or face-to-face meeting is the more productive way.
When SSAFA email is used in a personal context, employees and volunteers are bound by the following.
- The use of your SSAFA branded email address is not prohibited for personal emails but it is discouraged. It is expected that all staff and volunteers will have personal email addresses that can be used for corresponding with friends and family.
- Personal emails should be kept to a minimum.
- Using the SSAFA email address personally must be seen as the same as sending a letter on company branded paper. Therefore risque or NSFW (not suitable for work) content must be avoided.
- It is not appropriate that your bank, utilities providers or online shopping sites use your SSAFA email address and is therefore prohibited.
Email distribution lists/groups (often beginning DL_ in the address book) are provided for logical groupings of people by site and or by directorate/function. They often contain dozens of people and in some cases, hundreds. As such their use must be carefully considered. The following must be met at all times.
- Distribution lists should only be used for business needs.
- Social use of distribution lists is not permitted beyond your specific department, or your directorate when agreed by your director on an email by email basis.
- Leaving drinks and Friday evenings out for example, should be limited to your department or directorate with director approval. Individuals from other areas of the organisation can be added individually where personal relationships are established.
- The social committee should be used for anything wider and they will use the mass mailing system.
- SSAFA actively encourages fundraising both for itself and for other organisations. However, any requests for sponsorship or advertising of a personal fundraising initiative should be sent to named individuals you have a personal relationship with only, or your departmental mail/distribution list. Your director might give you permission to use the directorate mail distribution list on a case by case basis, so please ask first.
- Leaving gift donation emails should be restricted to the department or directorate (with permission from the director) and other named individuals where a working relationship is established.
Essentially, spamming mail lists or expanding them so that all individuals contained in a mail list are added to the TO line in Outlook is prohibited.
The following should be considered the general rules that we expect all of our people to abide by
- If you send and receive a large amount of email, important messages may go unnoticed. You can use a "priority flag" (high importance or low importance) to highlight important messages, but it’s better to reduce overall email volume instead.
- Excessive CC or BCC should be avoided.
- Copying in people, particularly your line manager should be avoided unless they have asked to be included.
- Consider a weekly digest instead of using CC. CCing people repeatedly is regularly considered the washing of ones hand or abdicating responsibility "because someone more senior has now been made aware".
- Avoid sending emails when it would be easier to make a call or speak in person.
- Use Teams chat for casual/quick messages.
- Before sending a message to a large number of people, ask yourself whether they all need to receive it.
- Think twice before using Reply All.
- Emails can be considered contractually committing/binding so take care with the language used when emailing vendors/suppliers/clients.
- Please avoid using your SSAFA email address for signing up to mailing lists as the information you supply is often sold on to other organisations and leads to spam. There will be genuine need for some individuals to subscribe to mailing lists/services but they should be kept to a minimum.
Check for any mail tips (warnings at the top of the screen) are presented before sending
- Messages should be encrypted if they contain (in text or attachment) anything that is considered sensitive, for example, financial or health related. Please search the main SSAFA knowledge base for an article that guides you through this process.
- Subject Access Requests (SARs) can result in your mailbox being searched autonomously and emails extracted that might then be sent to third parties.
- Sensitivity categories can be added to emails by employees in certain directorates. Please search the main SSAFA knowledge base for further guidance articles.