The American Management Institute (AMA) and the ePolicy Institute recently conducted an interesting survey of email and instant messaging usage. Here we quote some of the results.
840
- 100 or fewer- 26.4%
- 101–500 -24.8%
- 501–1000- 11.8%
- 1001–2500- 10.2%
- 2501–5000- 7.7%
- More than 5000- 19.1%
Selected Results
Litigation & Regulation. One in five respondents (20%) has had employee email and IM subpoenaed in the course of a lawsuit or regulatory investigation. This shows that many employers remain largely ill-prepared to manage email and instant messaging risks.
Retention & Deletion. The business community’s failure to retain email and IM according to written retention and deletion policies is alarming. Merely 6% of organizations retain and archive business record IM, and only 35% have an email retention policy in placeâ€â€a mere 1% increase over the 34% reported in 2003.
Employee Education. 54% of organizations conduct email policy training vs. 48% in 2003 and 24% in 2001.
Email & IM Policies. Only 79% of employers have implemented a written email policy, versus 75% in 2003 and 81% in 2001. Unfortunately, only 20% have adopted a policy governing IM use and content.
Policy Enforcement & Monitoring. Only 11% of organizations employ IM gateway/management software to monitor, purge, retain and otherwise control IM risks and use. 60% use software to monitor external (incoming and outgoing) email, versus 90% in 2003 and 47% in 2001. But only 27% take advantage of technology tools to monitor internal email conversations that take place between employees versus 19% in 2003.
Policy Violations. Survey respondents report sending and receiving the following types of inappropriate and potentially damaging IM content: attachments (19%); jokes, gossip, rumors, or disparaging remarks (16%); confidential information about the company, a co-worker, or client (9%); sexual, romantic or pornographic content (6%).
Compliance & Employee Discipline. Employers are getting tougher about email policy compliance, with 25% of 2004 respondents terminating an employee for violating email policy, versus 22% in 2003 and 17% in 2001.
Email & Productivity. 10% spend more than half the workday (4-plus hours) on email, vs 8% in 2003. 86% engage in personal email correspondence. 12% report that more than half the email they receive at work is spam.
Reference
https://www.amanet.org/research/pdfs/IM_2004_Summary.pdf
-- Ashish Gupta, Author