Email and smart phones can be stressful. Academics are calling this constant work connection&nbsp;“technostress”. Consequently, many European countries are now offering employees the&nbsp;“right to disconnect”.



The way email is used is complex, it cannot simply be labelled as “good” or “bad” and research shows that&nbsp;personality, the type of work people do and their goals can influence the way they react to email.



Good practice with email use is not just about limiting the amount of emails sent, but improving the quality of communication.



Here are ten tips to reduce the stress of email at work:



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">1. Get the subject line right</h4>



Use clear and actionable subject lines.



The subject line should communicate exactly what the email is about in six to ten words, to allow the recipient to prioritise the email without even opening it. On mobile devices, many people only see the first 30 characters of a subject line. So keep it short. But make it descriptive enough to give an idea of what the email is about from just the subject line.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/health/2018/12/17/burnout-stress-lead-more-companies-to-try-a-four-day-work-week/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Burnout, stress lead more companies to try a four-day work week (opens in a new tab)">Burnout, stress lead more companies to try a four-day work week</a>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">2. Ask yourself: is email the right medium?</h4>



Are you in the same office? Could you go and speak to the person? Could you call? Often these other forms of communication can avoid the inefficient back and forth of emailing.



Instant messaging and video calling platforms like&nbsp;Slack&nbsp;and&nbsp;Skype&nbsp;could be more appropriate for quick internal back and forth messaging. Also, remember that most of the advice below applies to all types of electronic communication.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">3. Don’t email out of office hours</h4>



Research shows&nbsp;that out-of-hours emails make it harder for people to recover from work stress.



Try and influence your company culture by avoiding sending or replying to emails outside your normal working hours.



Management should lead by example and avoid contacting their staff outside of their normal working hours.&nbsp;Some workplaces&nbsp;even switch off email access to employees out of hours. Consider implementing this while keeping a backup phone system for emergency contact only.



New research&nbsp;has also shown that just the expectation of 24-hour contact can negatively affect employee health.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2019/03/02/a-career-secret-weapon-thank-you-notes/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="A Career Secret Weapon: Thank-You Notes (opens in a new tab)">A Career Secret Weapon: Thank-You Notes</a>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">4. Use the delay delivery option</h4>



Some&nbsp;people&nbsp;like integrating their work and family lives and often continue working from home during their off-job time. If you are one of these people, or if you work across time zones, consider using the delay delivery option so your emails do not send until the next working day and do not interfere with other people’s off-job time.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">5. Keep it positive</h4>



Think about the quality of email communication. Not just the quantity. Changes to email use should also focus on the quality of what is being sent and take into consideration the emotional reaction of the recipient.



Research suggests&nbsp;that conflicts are far easier to escalate and messages to be misinterpreted when communicated via email. Therefore, if it is bad news, think back to rule #2: is email the right medium?



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">6. Try ‘no email Friday’</h4>



In order to shift company culture and get people thinking about other methods of communication than email, try a&nbsp;“no email Friday”&nbsp;on the first Friday of every month, or maybe even every week. This is an initiative suggested by experts from the&nbsp;National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work, and is being used by businesses&nbsp;around the globe. Employees are encouraged to arrange face-to-face meetings or pick up the phone – or just get on top of the many emails they already have in their inbox on that day.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/lists/2018/12/18/the-12-biggest-career-crashes-of-2018/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The 12 Biggest Career Crashes Of 2018 (opens in a new tab)">The 12 Biggest Career Crashes Of 2018</a>



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">7. Make your preferences known</h4>



Research has shown&nbsp;that not only too much but also too little email can cause stress due to a mismatch between the communication preferences of different people. Some people may like being emailed and cope much better with high email traffic than other means of communication. For these people, reducing the amount of emails they receive may cause more stress than it alleviates.



So consider people’s individual differences and make yours known. Add your preferred contact preferences to your email signature whether it is email, text or instant messages or a phone call.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">8. Consider a holiday ‘bounce back’</h4>



Having a backlog of emails that builds up over the week appears to be one of the&nbsp;most commonly mentioned sources of technostress&nbsp;for workers. Think about setting up a system where emails are bounced back to the sender when someone is on holiday, with an alternative contact email for urgent requests. This would let you come back to a manageable inbox.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">9. Have a separate work phone</h4>



Make this the only mobile device you can access work emails on, which gives you the freedom to switch it off after work hours. Also consider turning off email&nbsp;“push”&nbsp;(this is where your email server sends each new email to your phone when it arrives at the server) and instead choose a regular schedule (such as once per hour) for emails to be delivered to your phone (this also increases battery life).



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">10. Avoid late night screen time</h4>



Research suggests&nbsp;that late night smart phone use reduces our ability to get to sleep and also leads to constant thoughts and stress about work. This in turn reduces your sleep quality. Make the bed a phone-free zone to improve your&nbsp;sleep hygiene.



<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113670/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important">



-The Conversation



-Ricardo Twumasi; Lecturer in Organisational Psychology, University of Manchester



-Cary Cooper; 50th Anniversary Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health, University of Manchester



&#8211;Lina Siegl; PhD Researcher, University of Manchester

GettyImages-1004712242

10 Rules Of Email That Will Reduce Your Stress Levels

Have you ever been a victim of fraud or identity theft, where some of your personal documents were stolen and the data used fraudulently? Today, with online shopping and social media being a way of life, you cannot afford to be complacent about protecting your financial information. In today’s ‘virtual’ world, we are much more vulnerable than ever and must be more vigilant in safeguarding our finances. Here are some tips to minimize the risk or damage of this happening to you.
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Are your sensitive documents kept securely,
Where are your certificates and other important documents? Are they lying around in unlocked drawers or are they locked away securely in a fireproof safe? Apart from securing the physical documents, scan and secure them electronically.
It is not enough to just casually discard old financial statements; they can become prime target for thieves. Invest in a paper shredder; a personal one for home use is not very expensive and with this you can effectively destroy documents rather than simply tearing them up.
Secure your devices
Are your smartphone, laptop or other devices password protected? If your password or PIN is compromised, this could lead to devastating losses should someone gain access to your financial information. Do not share your passwords or PINs with anyone. If you think you might forget them and absolutely need to write them down, then store them securely and change them periodically using different passwords for different accounts or devices. Set strong passwords; be creative with your choice and avoid easy-to-guess passwords such as birthdays and names of family members.
In addition, secure your devices with a firewall and security software packages that have anti-virus and anti-spam features. If you are technologically challenged, get an IT specialist or a tech savvy friend that you trust to help you download and install this.
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What’s in your wallet or handbag? Sensitive documents should be kept securely in a bank deposit or a home safe, particularly those with your name and address on them. Make a photocopy of your current cards, driver’s license, and any important documents; these copies will come in handy if you need to cancel quickly or need to order replacements. Have your bank emergency numbers handy so that you can make those calls if you need to.
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Beware of scams
Your bank and other legitimate companies will never request for sensitive information such as bank details, passwords and PINs by telephone or email; these are usually fraudsters attempting to defraud you. Contact your bank directly and report such incidents.
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Do you use public computers?
Avoid using public computers for sensitive transactions as your information could be compromised. If you do use a public computer, be sure to clear your history before you log out completely, otherwise other users can intercept your information. Free wireless internet hotspots are often not at all secure. Use secure websites for your online shopping. The address will usually start with ‘https’ and there should be a key or closed padlock in the status bar. Shop only with trusted retailers.
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What are you sharing on social media?
Do you share personal information on social media, such as your address or telephone number?  It seems so natural to put seemingly innocent information about yourself and your family out there but it makes it possible for fraudsters to authenticate your identity. Geo-tagged photos inform people of exactly where you are; this could expose you and your family to crime.
Even if you put all these measures in place, there is no guarantee that your financial information will be completely secure. However, by protecting yourself, you limit access to sensitive information and protect your personal finances from fraud.
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For more personal finance tips, follow Money Matters With Nimi on Twitter: @MMWITHNIMI and Facebook: MoneyMattersWithNimi

IS YOUR INFORMATION SECURE?

For most businesspeople the word ‘metadata’ means little. They should know. Simply put, metadata is embedded in every SMS and email and carries the telltale story of your business. This is the word from intelligence expert, Morne Walters, who has spent 15 years stopping snoopers.
Imagine you are a big-time CEO: you’ve gone into a private meeting to close a deal; you pitch a price; you leave. The first thing you do is get on the phone and tell somebody about how it went. But what you don’t know is that the person you are calling has had his phone tapped.
It seems like it’s a story out of a movie but it’s becoming an everyday reality. Walters sits comfortably across the table sipping a cappuccino in Johannesburg. He’s a world away from James Bond, coming from a small town in the Free State, South Africa, and says he prefers the shadows to the limelight. What he does carry is three cellphones that have military-grade protection. Spying in business is on the rise, warns Walters.
Pieter Roux agrees. Roux who has spent two decades encrypting codes for cell phone companies says with more people using smart technology, ignorance is one of the leading reasons why viruses are on the up.
“People still think phones are used only for phone calls, a misconception. It’s more likely there will be security breaches on your android than on your computer because of the nature to think that you are immune on your cell,” says Roux.
Andrew McHenry, another sage with two decades in the IT business, says spying is the talk of programmers. So much so, that they believe everyone moving their data into cloud storage could spell danger. He has seen a rise in products designed to stop hackers like protected SIM cards and $60,000 HTC cell phones, sold to government security offices.
Roux believes the cost of protection will prove too much for consumers. The solution lies in software development, where apps can be screened for viruses. While there is an increase in espionage, Roux thinks many hackers have not yet tapped into the industry.
“Most hackers are not willing to spend the effort decoding something. It is far more common to receive a spoof email, than to have someone who wants to eavesdrop on your calls. It’s easier for fraudsters to scam people with false websites, it is more the trend. We have seen an increase in the one in a million being gullible enough to respond to an email than on phones.”
Most businesspeople cannot take the chance, says Walters.
“While your intentions are genuine, this is industrial espionage, industrial thievery. People get the upper hand. Companies can lose billions of dollars this way. If you and I tender for a deal, and you know that I am going to tender for a million dollars, you can come in at $990,000. Information is used to get ahead of the game,” says Walters.
In September last year, Walters came up with a smart device application to protect classified government installations—he thought he could do the same for business. Five months later, Seecrypt, a-state-of-the-art military-grade encryption app, was born, technology straight from the battlefield to the board room.
“Understanding security means you have to think like a thief. To protect people in privacy, you have to understand how people can access information,” says Walters.
The app works by dialling subscribed clients on a private internet network line. Behind the scenes of an easy-to-use interface, when you make a call the program generates a key by sampling audio noise and a random set of numbers. The key, which has a length of a number to the power of 667, is then re-encrypted a second time before being sent.
Interestingly, it was the Edward Snowden case that made this system popular.
Snowden is the former American intelligence analyst, who exposed American and British government mass surveillance programs to the world; secret programs that had been collecting metadata from millions of internet and cellphone conversations across the globe. His disclosure is said to have ranked among the most significant security breaches in American history.
The news broke when Walters was flying to Johannesburg from the Middle East. By the time he had landed in South Africa, the phone was ringing; including a call from a royal family.
“It was surreal. It was one article from one newspaper and people kept asking how true it was. If you go back to that night it was launched. It was so outrageous that people didn’t believe it at first. By the following Thursday, it was all over,” he says.
Since April, Walters has seen a 400% growth in subscriptions from owners of tens of thousands of phones, laptops and landlines being secured from Nairobi to Washington D.C.
“When we say to people someone is listening to your calls or reading your messages we were told that we were being paranoid. Well the evidence speaks volumes. The reality is that what has been shown in the media has been just the tip of the iceberg. Every country in the world does it. The time has arrived for corporate companies to protect their data,” he says
Walters gathered a number of what he calls ‘sages in the intelligence business’—some poached from the US secret services, the UK ministry of defense and the African Defense Force. Walters now has a team of developers, averaging 25 years of age, fueled by bottomless coffee and containers of jelly beans.
They run a tight operation, working around the clock broken by the odd siesta on a couch. Walters is an entrepreneur, who is likely to make millions out of paranoia, eavesdropping and the fall of Snowden.

Tag: Email

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