Face-to-Face or e-mail: the medium makes a difference.

Each year some 4 trillion e-mails are sent worldwide from about 600 million electronic mailboxes. In 1995, employees sent three e-mails per day and received five. E-mail usage has jumped more than sixfold, with employees now sending an average of 20 e-mails and receiving 30 each day.

During March and April 2001, Rogen International initiated the first study on the effectiveness of e-mail and face-to-face communication in the work place. The study found that the use of e-mail has grown by more than 600 percent in six years, with executives spending at least two hours per day using this communication tool.

More than 1,400 senior- and middle-level executives participated in the international survey. They said that despite popular myth, e-mail has not reduced the amount of face-to-face communication required at work.

While executives are spending an average 120 minutes a day receiving, checking, preparing and sending e-mails, they are also still spending 130 minutes a day in formal and informal face-to-face meetings.

The message from the research is clear. Business leaders should ensure that they maintain the right balance between face-to-face and e-mail. Keeping e-mail relevant to all employees is the challenge. According to the study, more than 30 percent of e-mails received by employees are not directly relevant to their jobs, and this affects an organization's bottom line.

Taking on board this feedback from executives, Table 1 demonstrates the effect of poor e-mail management on productivity:

The calculations in Table 1 are based on an average compensation cost per employee per year of US$50,000, 225 workdays in a year, and 8 work hours in a day.

E-mail has revolutionized the quick and broad distribution of information. Almost 85 percent of participants in this study agreed that e-mail has improved organizational communication, and e-mail and face-to-face ranked together as preferred channels for general communication. The telephone and written memos/facsimile ranked a distant third and fourth respectively.

This is a clear message to business leaders when they are communicating vital information to employees: Use face-to-face first. Up to 81 percent of respondents prefer to receive good or bad news and other important information face-to-face.

Survey findings clearly show that some business leaders are not selecting the right communication channels for their messages, and, as a result, they are not being persuasive communicators. The research also shows that more than 66 percent of executives believe face-to- face communication skills had declined in their organizations because of the growing use of e-mail.

Greg Crowther is head of strategic communication for the global communication consultancy Rogen International, New York. He led the firm's most recent international study, called Face-to-Face and E-mail: Getting the Balance Right in Business Communication a communication study of executives from all major industry sectors in North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. U.S. firm Goldhaber Research Associates, Amherst, collaborated on the study.