Quick Links Sending Sensitive Files Without Encryption Hitting "Reply All" to a Mass Email Forgetting That Your Company Emails Aren't Private Failing To Use the BCC Function Using Your Work Email for Personal Stuff Ignoring the Legal Fine Print in Work Emails
Whether you've used email a lot in your personal life, or if your first encounter with emails is in the workplace, you need to take special care with this fundamental web communication format, or you could find yourself in hot water!
Sending Sensitive Files Without Encryption
Email, in its most basic form, has no encryption. So, anyone who intercepts the data of an email as it zips through the series of tubes that make up the net can be read as a plain text file. Modern email services should be encrypted for the most part, and this is the responsibility of your employer, but even so, it's a good habit to manually encrypt file attachments in emails if they contain sensitive or otherwise privileged information.
This is usually no harder than putting all the files in an encrypted ZIP archive, which is easy to do with apps like WinZip. You can then send the recipient the ZIP's password through a different channel, such as a phone call, or you might have a password you've agreed upon prior to sending the mail.
Hitting "Reply All" to a Mass Email
When you get an email as part of a company-wide announcement, or you otherwise see a large number of email addresses in the CC (Carbon Copy) field of the mail you've received, then you want to be very careful if you feel like replying. If you hit the "reply all" button, you'll copy in every person on the list.
Not only does this annoy all of those people, it can also generate a huge amount of traffic on your email server, especially if more than a few people have done the same thing. It's simply safer to create a new email addressed directly to the person or people you want to speak with.
Lacking this basic form of email etiquette won't give your new employer the best impression of you, so think twice before hitting that button!
Forgetting That Your Company Emails Aren't Private
Always assume that any communication you do using a company device or a company app or account is being logged, stored, and can be pulled and reviewed at any time.
We all have bad days, but the last thing you should do is vent, or otherwise say inappropriate things in a company email. Even if you think it's only between yourself and another colleague.
The best thing to do is speak with that person in private, or use your own device and your own private end-to-end encrypted messaging app. Even then, the only truly private conversation is the one you have with yourself, since the person you're talking to can easily screenshot your conversation to use against you later.
Failing To Use the BCC Function
There are two types of CC function, and the one you should use most of the time is Bcc (Blind Carbon Copy). The Bcc function lets you send one email to multiple people, without letting the recipients see the other people on the list. Unless the people on the list already know each other, and you want a public conversation between a handful of team members, then it's usually safer to use Bcc.
If you're sending a mass email to clients or customers, you absolutely must Bcc the email, or you risk creating a serious privacy breach that can get you in plenty of trouble.
It's easy to do as well. In Gmail, for example, you just have to click the little "Bcc" button, and it works the same in the latest version of Microsoft Outlook.
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It's far better to use Bcc by mistake than plain old CC, so you have been warned!
Using Your Work Email for Personal Stuff
You have your own email, so don't use your company email for personal stuff like communicating with your doctor, lawyer, friends, or signing up for online accounts. Not only will it be a hassle when you change jobs, you're using company resources for personal use -- which is generally a no-no! Also, once again, your company emails are not private!
Ignoring the Legal Fine Print in Work Emails
You may have noticed that there's some fine print at the bottom of every email you send from your company account. This is the company's legal policy for emails, which you need to abide by, and also outlines that the content of the email is company property.
Every company may have slightly different boilerplate here, but either way, you should take the time to carefully read what that fine print says. Even more importantly, you should take a few minutes and read the company email policy document, because if not you may inadvertently violate that policy, at which point you'll have no excuse.
Even though companies are making use of apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams for communication these days, email is likely to stay a key part of how information moves around the business, and so you would be doing yourself a huge favor by making sure you use that company's email according to the rules.