How much time do you spend dealing with spam? Most people would actually dramatically underestimate the impact junk email has on them. Even though spam has finally fallen below 50% of all email that we received for the first time in over a decade, it is still a serious problem and can negatively affect productivity for most individuals.
Back in 2008, PC World found that if each employee spent just 16 seconds every day deleting the average of 21 spam emails they received, it would cost $712 (US) per employee every single year to deal with spam.
That didn’t account for those who open these junk messages.
Some people are tempted by the cleverly written subject lines in these messages. There have been reports of entire computer systems, intranet systems, being brought down because somebody opened a virus or basically invited it into the system because it advertised a new job opportunity and they were tired of the one they had.
Those employees most likely had to look for work very quickly, so perhaps they got their wish in the long run, but it came at a hefty price.
Evaluating your own productivity.
Every employee, from the high level executives down to lower level associates, should constantly evaluate their own productivity to determine what could be having a negative impact and costing the company money in the long run. Staying organized is the key to productivity, and everycloudtech.com offers some great inside tips to help with that.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether a person is hourly or salary, their productivity can be negatively impacted by a wide range of things, from spending too much time on Facebook or texting family or friends, checking the weather or latest news, or dealing with spam.
If you get an average of 15 or 20 spam messages every day, whether or not they slip past the spam filter in place, you will have to delete them eventually. That takes time. If you open just one and spend 1 to 2 minutes looking through it before determining whether it’s something you actually wanted or not, begin multiplying that every single day. You suddenly have hours upon hours of time being wasted with spam.
What can you do about this?
For yourself or employees, get the best spam filters money can buy. There are many out there, so be sure to look for those that have great reviews and can minimize the number of spam messages getting through to your inbox by up to 99%.
Next, you want to make sure you dedicate your work email address for just work-related purposes. Do not sign up for any mailing lists. If you are signed up currently, unsubscribe to everything.
This may take some time at first to do, but you will have less distractions and spend less time dealing with spam email in the future as a result.
There is essentially no way to completely eliminate spam, even with the best spam filter, but if you take appropriate measures to limit just how much junk mail gets through, you will maintain your high productivity levels and reduce the risk of losing valuable time in the future.
