GFI email survey

 

GFI Software survey: email remains the dominant tool for workplace communication

 67% of users respond to a work email within 60 minutes, and 92% within 24 hours.

 PRAGUE – January 25, 2016 – GFI Software, a provider of security solutions for enterprise networks, confirmed that according to its survey among small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Europe, email remains the most important tool for workplace communication – ahead of phone calls, face-to-face meetings and social networks. 84% of employees consider email indispensable, but they are bothered by spam, unnecessary cc: copies, the threat of virus infection and large attachments.

The importance of email for work activities is also demonstrated by the fact that half of employees respond to a received work email with a question within 30 minutes on average, two-thirds respond within 1 hour, and only 6% of employees respond after a week. The survey also confirmed that work emails have become an integral part of private life – three-quarters of respondents check their work mailbox even on weekends, more than half do so while on holiday, and a quarter also use their work email addresses for private purposes.

Key findings from the survey (see attached infographic):

• For 43.8% of employees in SMB companies, email is the priority method of workplace communication; 29.2% prefer face-to-face meetings, 23.4% prefer phone calls, and only 3.6% prefer chatting via social networks;
• What employees dislike most about email is spam (37.2%), unnecessary “for your information” emails (27.4%), phishing (23.8%), malware (22.6%) and large attachments (18.6%).
• 24.8% of users respond to a received work email within 15 minutes on average, 49.4% within 30 minutes and 67.4% within one hour. 92% of users respond within 24 hours at the latest;
• 74.2% of employees check their work mailbox on weekends, 54.3% while on holiday and 39.3% after 11 p.m. 25.6% of users use their work mailbox for private purposes;
• Only 23% of employees archive their old emails; the rest manually sort them into specific folders or do not sort them at all.

 

“Despite the rapid growth of interaction on social networks, this survey confirms the dominant position of email communication in working life,” said Zdeněk Bínek, responsible for sales of GFI Software solutions in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “However, it also highlights the threats associated with current trends of using private devices for work purposes (BYOD), or conversely, work devices for private purposes. SMB companies in particular should consider tools to eliminate attacks on corporate networks via email and email archiving solutions. An attack on corporate IT infrastructure or the loss of important emails can critically disrupt the operation of the entire company.”

Setting realistic boundaries between employees’ work and private lives is important in every company. The growing use of tablets, smartphones and wearable electronics brings greater employee availability and productivity, but at the same time requires more sophisticated IT infrastructure security. The balance between both requirements can be achieved with GFI MailEssentials, which provides security for enterprise mail servers and protection against spam and malware, and GFI Archiver, which enables the archiving of emails, files and calendars, their better management and compliance with legal requirements. Learn more about both solutions at http://gfi-software.cz/gfi-mailessentials/ and http://gfi-software.cz/gfi-mailarchiver/.