'Irrelevant' emails flood workers' inboxes

The speed and ease of emails may actually have caused the mode of communication to become counterproductive, a new study has found.

OnePoll conducted a survey of 1,000 office workers in Great Britain for Salesforce.com and found many employees feel inundated with unnecessary email each day. Results show 70 percent are sent or copied on emails of no interest to them.

Efforts not to miss an employee on an email are the main culprit for sending irrelevant messages, Tim Baker, vice president of EMEA strategy for Salesforce.com, told Computerworld.

"The habit of blasting out emails to a large group of people to ensure that there is no chance of leaving anyone out of a particular message has created a situation where email is now becoming counterproductive", Baker said.

Other factors working against productivity include social media platforms. The study found 46 percent of workers view social media sites during the work day. That number jumps to 56 percent for employees in their 20s.

Yet it is a tight balancing act for managers when filtering the web in an effort to boost productivity. According to eWeek, "data shows about four in 10 workers expect less oversight and more freedom of use on the web while on the job".