Dealing with the problem of email burnout in accountancy firms

By Wayne Pope, Founder and CTO of award-winning Glasscubes

The average office worker receives 121 emails and sends about 40 every day, according to DMR. It’s even worse for accountants, however, who have to deal with huge amounts of enquiries on a daily basis.

Consequently, they spend their time constantly checking their inbox and responding to emails as and when they come in, often spilling over into their leisure time during the lunch hour and breaks, and even after hours. The end result is that they become simply overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails and eventually burn themselves out.

Email burnout may sound like a manufactured medical term or a convenient excuse for poor motivation or being disengaged. But it’s a very real problem.

In fact, looking at emails is one of the biggest causes for accountants being perpetually stuck in an unhealthy ‘always-on’ culture. Because email is ever-present, with phones set to provide notifications every time one comes in, they can’t switch themselves off, even during days off, holidays and sick or bereavement leave.

Growing problem

It’s a growing problem. Due to the ever-increasing pressure of modern business and customer demands, accountants can soon find themselves swamped with piecemeal communication, resulting in poor productivity and adversely affecting their mental health.

Because they are always on and have to work longer hours than most professions, with little margin for error, stress is much higher for bookkeepers than in other roles, according to research by Caba. As a result, the accuracy of their month-end figures may be compromised because they are struggling to complete the reports on time.

It also has a knock-on negative impact on the workforce and the overall business. Because that individual’s work is suffering, so it’s putting greater strain on the rest of the team that has to pick up the slack, leading to low morale and engagement, and, thus, company results.

Email has been cited as the biggest impediment to productivity, according to Mail Manager, which found that one in four people spent at least one hour a day going through their inbox – equating to almost one day a week just managing emails. And the problem has been exacerbated by the fact that it’s so easy now to move between different devices to access it, meaning that even after leaving the office it can still be read on the phone on the commute home.

Technology has made email the most convenient form of communication. But in actual fact it can also be the most inefficient, with long email chains being needlessly created when the issue could have been resolved quicker over the phone, not to mention that vital data can also get lost in the process.

Preventing burnout

To address the problem, firms need to look at how and why dealing with email damages productivity. Essentially, it’s because it distracts from the main task at hand.

One solution is to limit the number of times that email can be checked during the day, thus reducing the many hours spent trawling through them. It will also ensure that the time spent addressing them is done more productively because the period they have available to do so is restricted.

An alternative is to block off time to complete essential jobs and turn off notifications and access to emails during that period. That means the worker is fully focused on the task and will, thus, do it more effectively.

Workload acceleration tools

A key enabler to working more effectively is the use of workload acceleration tools. By implementing these within a firm’s systems and processes, they can streamline the workflow by automating it to ensure that they are receiving the information and material they need from their clients, eliminating any unnecessary distractions.

These secure online workspaces focus communication on the required data, files and tasks to be completed. That ensures clients follow a clear set of instructions for the timely submission of documents necessary for the report to be filed and that nothing is missed.

Alerts can also be set to notify the worker when submissions are complete, while real-time reporting enables progress to be monitored more effectively, doing away with the need to constantly check for emails. All of this allows accountants to make better use of their time and concentrate on the billable work.

The less time spent scrolling through emails, the better the outcome is for all concerned. The firm has a much more productive employee, whose well-being is preserved and who is fully focused on the task at hand.

About Author:

Wayne Pope, Founder and CTO of award-winning Glasscubes, which specialises in enabling companies to collaborate with people inside or outside their organisation, using a rich set of tools from client portals, online workspaces, intranets and information gathering. Glasscubes helps well over 50,000 users in more than 100 countries to maximise their workforce’s potential through an online secure system.