English Rewind - 6 Minute English: Work emails

Hello, Catherine here from BBC Learning English.

Just so you know, this programme is from the BBC Learning English archive.

It was originally broadcast in January 2012 on our website.

Enjoy!

This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English dot com.

Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.

— I'm Michelle. — And I'm Neil.

Thanks for joining me, Neil.

Have you got used to being back in the office

after that lovely long Christmas break?

Hm, I'm not sure about that. Just about, I think.

Well, it's always difficult, coming back to work after a holiday,

especially when the first thing you have to do

is spend the morning going through all the work emails that have built up!

Yes, indeed. Going through old work emails is a bore.

Well, today we're talking about a company that aims to ban, or to stop,

all internal emails in the workplace.

It's difficult to imagine office life without internal emails,

but before we get on to that,

come on, Michelle, it must be time for my first quiz question of the year?

OK, if you're ready. Today's question is about spam.

That's the word for annoying junk emails.

Now, we all hate getting spam,

but according to a recent report, which country produces the most spam?

Is it a) India? b) The United States? c) China?

I really have no idea what the answer might be,

so I'm going to guess and for no particular reason,

I'm going to say India.

OK, well, we'll find out the answer at the end of the programme.

Now, for many office workers,

sending and receiving emails to and from fellow employees is just part of the job.

But now a big IT company called Atos

plans to ban all internal emails by the year 2014.

Yes, the company has said that employees are wasting too much time

dealing with internal emails,

and that this has become the natural, lazy way to communicate.

Let's hear from Rob Price, a managing partner at Atos.

Here he's speaking on BBC 5 Live.

First he says email has become the definitive thing people use,

meaning something that's fixed or determined.

But how does he suggest people in the office

could communicate with each other instead?

Email has become the definitive thing that people have used,

they naturally use, they lazily use. Why don't you walk across the office?

Or use instant messaging?

Or use a range of kind of social media?

So there's different things that people can do.

This is about deciding what's the most effective way of communication

and adopting and embedding those within the organisation.

So he suggested a couple of alternative ways to communicate

instead of using emails.

Did you catch them, Neil?

Well, first there was the good, old-fashioned way of communication.

Can you imagine walking across the office to speak to someone?

Amazing. That's always a good one, isn't it, I think?

He also suggested using a range of social media, such as instant messaging.

That's right and he says that it's about deciding

what is the most effective way of communication

and embedding it, or implanting it, within the organisation.

So let's listen to that clip once again.

Email has become the definitive thing that people have used,

they naturally use, they lazily use. Why don't you walk across the office?

Or use instant messaging? Or use a range of kind of social media?

So there's different things that people can do.

This is about deciding what's the most effective way of communication

and adopting and embedding those within the organisation.

So what do you think Neil?

Do you think it's a good idea to get rid of work emails altogether?

I think it's a good thing to try to do.

I'm not sure if it could actually be eliminated completely.

But, you know, go and talk to people, it's better!

I think so too. But, of course, internal emailing can be incredibly useful.

And for many employees, it would be difficult to work without it,

especially as emails can be a good way of keeping records,

or keeping evidence of things that happen.

That's true. But Bob Price from Atos has some more suggestions

on the sort of methods people can use for recordkeeping instead of emails.

Let's listen to this rather fast list of ideas.

Video conferencing, file sharing, live meetings, wikis, collaborations,

bases, knowledge management systems, enterprise social systems.

There's lots of different solutions

and we need to be cognisant of how those are used in the light of an organisation.

Wow. A couple of things he mentioned there were video conferencing,

file sharing and 'bases' – which is short for 'databases'.

So he's got plenty of ideas for the modern office!

So Atos is hoping that by adopting some of these alternative types of communication,

employees will communicate better with each other

and a lot of time will be saved.

Now, time to go back to that quiz question, Neil.

I asked you which country produces the most spam?

The answers were a) India b) The United States, or c) China.

And what was your answer?

I had no idea, and had a complete guess at India.

OK. Well, according to a recent study by security firm Kaspersky,

the answer was indeed a) India. So there you go.

Well, lucky me.

OK, so could you remind us of today's words, please, Neil?

Yes, here they are.

To ban, to ban.

Internal emails, internal emails.

Spam, spam.

Definitive, definitive.

Embedding, embedding.

To get rid of, to get rid of.

Keeping records, keeping records.

Adopting, adopting.

Thanks, Neil, and that's all we've got time for in today's programme,

but please do join us again for more 6 Minute English

at our web address, BBC Learning English dot com.

Thanks for listening. Bye!

Goodbye.

That was 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English dot com.