When you telecommute, you no longer get those face-to-face interactions with your peers for quick exchanges of information. The written word is a much harder medium for getting a point across or making yourself clearly understood. Loss of facial expression, body language, and tone of voice make the possibility for misunderstandings grow exponentially. Poor email habits exacerbate this problem.

So telecommuters need to be expert emailers to achieve what they need without those face-to-face interactions.

There are courses and probably books dedicated to email ettiquette. In fact, I have an entire chapter on making the most of email in my book, “How to Avoid Going to Work Without Quitting your Job” (coming summer 2008 - get on my mailing list to make sure you get the introductory discount). But for now, I will cover a few key items that are important when you replace face-to-face conversations with email.

1. Make sure you clearly state what you need and from whom. Without the face-to-face contact it’s easier for people to miss expectations about what you need from them.
2. Copy those people who could benefit from seeing the conversation. You might as well take advantage of this one advantage that email offers which you don’t get in face-to-face conversations!
3. Be explicit - don’t assume people will understand an implication - spell it out.
4. Be careful about how you joke. People can’t tell as easily over email when you’re kidding or being sarcastic.
5. Don’t type in all capitals. It seems like you’re shouting.
6. Use proper grammar and punctuation. I don’t understand why some people drop things like ‘.’ and proper capitalization in emails, or don’t write in complete sentences. Shorthand like this is more acceptable for IM (Instant Messaging) but over email it simply looks unprofessional.
7. Keep it short. People get a lot of emails and don’t have time to read long messages.

This is just a short list, but hits some of the key tips. There’s many more out there. If you find you encounter a lot of misunderstandings when you send emails, or have difficulty getting responses or getting people to take action based on your emails, you might want to consider getting some further training in this area.

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