Costly Enterprise Junk Mail

While I was reading a weekly staff news letter I thought: what is the productivity lost if all staff actually read this and all the other news letters and corporate emails each year?

I did the calculation: 13000 staff; 3300 words worth reading per week; 200 words per minute; 8 hours a day; and an average pay of $AU250/day.

If all staff read the corporate junk mail, it would costs $AU5.4M each year!

But not everyone reads them and some just skim them. So if only 50% were actually read, and if only half of those were completely read on average then it adds up to $AU1.4M — still a large number.

I also read from one source that the average reader only comprehends 60% of what they read. So why do we bother if only 15% of the information is getting through?

So, tell management to keep it small and publish less often.

But we all send vast quantities of emails and we craft huge project plans and reports and strategies and requirements specifications and business cases and ... so keep it short for all our sakes.

Was that too long?