Many organisations around the Globe have (or intend to) shed many a job in the face of the current ‘economic crisis’. Whilst for many I think it is a result of harsh economic times for others it unfortunately appears to be a catalyst for action they have been thinking of taking for some time.

One internal resource which seems to have escaped the workings of senior management and many fine highly paid consultants is ‘email’.

There is no doubting the positive impact email has had in terms of speeding up communication in a personal and working environment. What this had inadvertantly done, however, is almost destroyed the notion of face to face communication.

Corporates have madly spruiked the benefits of open plan offices for a few years now. In theory a good concept. Problem is far too many people in this situation hide behind the comfort of email as a way of communicating simple things to their co-workers.

So here is a suggestion to businesses out there.

Make email available for two half an hour periods per day, lets say 8.30-9am and 2.30-3pm. Obviously this does not pertain to customer orders, more general business/personal email use.

Try it for one week.

If there is any downturn in productivity then I apologise and please send everyone back to their computers.

Please give it a go. Really think it just makes sense.