BURCHAM: Practicing good email etiquette

Even with all of the methods available to us for communication, email continues to be one of the most popular ways in the workplace to reach out to others. Although email has been around since 1971, it became more common in the 1990’s. It has been estimated that around 376.4 billion emails were sent DAILY in 2025. With all of these emails we send and receive, there are bound to be some good rules of thumb when creating, sending, and responding to these messages.

Among many articles that I found on email etiquette in the workplace, I found one from the website of the original queen of etiquette, Emily Post, about this very topic. Here are some tips for professional emails:

Always respond

Junk mail and forwards are one thing, but you should always respond to a real message, whether it’s to invite you to a meeting or a party or a hello from an old friend. Make it a goal to respond.

For professional emails from contacts you’re working with, the goal should be within 24 business hours. You’ll be able to let other contacts sit for a few days or maybe even a week or two, depending on the contact and their reason for reaching out.

For times when you don’t know the person reaching out to you, the reply time will coincide with your overall priorities at work. This doesn’t mean you should leave people with no response. Try to find and carve out time in your schedule to handle emails that you’ve put on the back burner.

For sales emails, it’s up to you whether to respond or to find a way to remove yourself from the list.

The subject line is your friend

Don’t keep your readers in suspense. When generating a new email, use the Subject line to alert the receiver to the subject matter of your message. You’re likely to get a faster response.

Addresses ad-nauseum

Utilize the BCC feature to hide addresses when contacts don’t know each other, and you don’t have permission to share contact information. Remember too that long To and CC fields will result in recipients having to scroll past a long list of addresses to get to the message. Annoying, and super annoying when you’re on a mobile device.

Fire your rapid-fire responses

Avoid firing off your first response to an email that’s got you hot and bothered. Let yourself simmer down—overnight if necessary—and re-read it when you’ve calmed down. Then, decide to edit or delete.

If you need to, get a second opinion on your email from a trusted source. We know our intention with the words we choose and the tone we’d express them with, but others don’t. When emailing, they have only the text on the screen to work from to decipher our tone.

Slow down, speak clearly and with consideration and respect, and you’ll likely communicate well even when things are frustrating.

Watch your language

While email culture has its own shorthand, and today, it’s more common to see the use of exclamation marks, all caps, and even emojis, it’s still best to always reread your messages for grammatical or spelling errors, and ensure that your recipient will understand any abbreviations or text speak.

Know what’s okay and what’s not

In a business setting, be sure all email traffic is of the “Safe for Work” variety. NSFW (Not Safe For Work) material can be cause for dismissal; it’s that serious. While there’s a lot of fun joke emailing that can go around plenty of professional workspaces, it’s best to really know and think about your audience and your participation in it.

Keep your involvement safe for work, and you’ll likely be in good standing. A good guide is to stick to tier-one topics of conversation: the weather, pop culture, common interests, and hobbies like cooking, sports, or the arts. Avoiding tier-two topics (religion, politics, finances, sex, and relationships) is a smart idea.

Avoid spam

Be sure you can use your work email address for personal emails before signing up for your favorite stores, brands, and content generators.

These signups usually generate a lot of marketing emails and might not be appropriate for work. You may end up having to sort through on work time to get to your clients’ or colleagues’ emails.

Keep it professional

We know, in an article about business emailing tips, this sounds a bit obvious. But you might be surprised at how often people stay on their business email account, either when dishing about something personal with a friend at work, or when emailing people in their personal life from their work email account.

Keep it separate when possible, and always keep it professional when using email at work.

Selectively send

Only the most relevant work-related messages should be sent to “all” recipients. Private messages should never be sent this way, nor messages that only apply to a few recipients.

The same is true for “Reply All”: Only reply to all when everyone on the list needs to know your answer. Otherwise, reply to the sender.

Address updates

If you are leaving your job, be sure that your email account is closed and that incoming messages get forwarded to the appropriate person. Also, be sure to let everyone know your new email address.

I tend to get frustrated when others do not follow these rules, so I wanted to share these tips and also refresh my memory on proper email etiquette. Now, if I could only manage my incoming emails – but that is another article for another day!

Source: Emily Post Etiquette. Top Ten Email Manners. https://emilypost.com/advice/top-ten-email-manners   

For more information on University of Illinois Unit 19 programming and to read more helpful articles, visit our website at https://extension.illinois.edu/ccdms, call us at (217) 345-7034, or contact Cheri Burcham at [email protected]. Also, visit the Family Files Blog at https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/family-files.

Cheri Burcham, University of Illinois Extension

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Cheri Burcham is responsible for family life programming in the counties of Coles, Cumberland, Douglas, Moultrie, Shelby and other parts of east central Illinois as needed. Cheri’s emphasis is on healthy lifestyles throughout the life span which include family relationships, communication, caregiving, stress management and human development including early childhood and healthy aging. Her passion is to help people to be their best selves and to promote a healthier, independent older population.

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