14 DAY TRIAL // GFT inboxx, a British company specialized in archiving solutions, performed a survey which returned alarming results – over fifty percent of the questioned employees responded that either they didn't have any email policies at work or they didn't have knowledge of them.
The majority of respondents indicated that they had learned on their own that their company implemented security enforcements or some policies regarding email storage. Hereby, over two thirds of the respondents said that they had not been instructed in archiving their electronic mail, or advised on what they should keep after reading and what they should delete.
“These results suggest one of two things: that organizations are still taking a lax approach to the storage of information and the management of e-mail; or, that organizations are failing to communicate the rules to their employees and thus failing to control staff use of e-mail and storage of potentially critical information,” said Juergen Oberman, CEO of GFT inboxx. “In today’s corporate compliance culture it’s incredible to think that over half the people asked about e-mail policy either don’t think they have one or don’t know if they do. How can businesses achieve compliance if employees don’t know the rules – or worse, are allowed to break them?”
Also, although email storage should be limited in order to preserve valuable resources and avoid the overload of the internal network, half of the companies participating in the survey don't do that. As a consequence, 41% of the total employees leave the attachments of their emails in place even if they have already read that email and don't need it in the future.
Things like these can lead to network congestions, which can be responsible for the loss of important documents. As the survey shows, one third of the respondents was confronted with irreparable damage caused by the disappearance of certain files. “Nothing is more valuable to a business than the ability to very quickly and reliably review a given process or project. If information is becoming lost and chains of communication are being broken, it’s impossible for businesses to see the whole picture – and further down the line mistakes are going to be made.” Oberman added.