Email is becoming the primary form of firehouse correspondence, yet it is a communication vehicle filled with risky and sometimes less-than-professional practices. Many employees learned how to operate in the e-mail environment as children and teenagers; others were self-taught as adults. If the workplace does not provide specific guidance about expectations for sending workplace-related email, habits developed in a less formal environment emerge, sometimes creating image problems for the sender and the company represented by the sender.
This session will help participants minimize those risks and increase the professionalism of their own messages by offering easy-to-implement suggestions based on current best business practices. By examining topics such as subject lines, formatting, tone, readability, abuse of reply-to-all, spelling, and email manners, participants will learn to communicate internal and external messages coherently, efficiently, and effectively.
Length of Session: 2-3 hours
Resources for attendees:
- Participants receive a handout that can serve as a long-term reference, both for the content covered in class and with a list of resources that allow them to continue building on the lessons learned.
- Sample template for email messages
