Company implements ‘Zero Email’ policy
02/12/2011
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You’ve got mail – not. French IT firm Atos has come up with a bizarre new company policy that bans employees from sending internal emails.
According to CEO Thierry Breton, only 10% of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful and 18% is spam. His solution? Force his company’s 74,000 employees to communicate with each other via instant messaging in a bid to eradicate internal emails in 18 months’ time.
Breton, who was the French finance minister from 2005 to 2007, told the Wall Street Journal that he has not sent any emails since he became CEO of Atos in 2008.
“We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives,” he said in a statement when the policy was announced early this year.
Caroline Crouch, a spokeswoman of the company, also told ABC News that the overall response from employees “has been positive with strong take up of alternative tools”. She added that the company has already reduced the number of internal emails by 20% in six months.
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Latest Comments
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Harriet Stacey on
02 Dec 2011 02:57 PM
Great policy - I love it. I dont know if it is true but I was told last week that there is a state in America that has also banned email at work?
Runa Maitra on
05 Dec 2011 07:25 PM
This is definitely a great idea however, some HR documentation will be incomplete, if email recommendations, approvals etc are not the part of HR transaction/process. Need to learn how such matters are taken care through zero internal email policy.
Shane Savy on
08 Dec 2011 07:27 AM
Interesting concept, though the flow of email in the working environ increases internal communications, whether good or bad. Having staff communicate through different mediums allows for increased and improved knowledge sharing; suffice to say that sometimes word of mouth becomes Chinese whispers. Whereas, an all staff email dispels rumours and allows employees to review its content from time to time to remain focused.
George O'Neil on
15 Dec 2011 05:00 PM
In the "good old days" I would hand write what I wanted to say on a sheet of unbleached paper. Put it in the out tray to be picked up twice a day. A draft was typed and returned to the in tray. I made any corrections and if need be I could ask for 3 copies. That's all I could ask for because you could only put 2 pieces of carbon paper between on the type writter. Now I write a comment like this and it goes to millions of disinterested people.