Why should I provide e-mail mailboxes for my staff?

PeopleWonderful. Mimi loves answering questions like this, because they get at the root of what it means to integrate the Internet into your organization. And that, of course, is her obsession. For tiny outfits of one or two people, Mimi agrees that it is acceptable to have a single ‘official’ yahoo mailbox, or even to simply take advantage of the existing yahoo-type mailboxes everybody seems to have these days. As your org evolves, however, and you get more people involved, Mimi recommends getting everyone on your team a dedicated official mailbox that they use only for official business. Why? Because it helps to separates work from pleasure, and contributes to creating a professional, flexible and reliable organization. Read on!

Separate work from pleasure

Yes, we all do it. We keep in touch with family and friends through the Internet, even from the workplace. There’s nothing wrong with this practice - it keeps us happy and connected with those dear to us. But it is sometimes tricky to keep the distractions of personal e-mail out of your work schedule. Allowing your staff to maintain two mailboxes, one for official business and one for personal use, makes this possible. Your staff can make checking their yahoo mailbox a reward for completing a task. A proud mother could decide to check it only at certain times of the day when she knows her daughter is likely to be writing to her from university in Dakar. A good use of personal mailboxes is also subscribing to e-mail networks, newsletters and social networking websites that otherwise would clutter your official mailbox.

Professionalism

What’s more professional? Festus@batswanarights.org or af4lvrs49@yahoo.com? You got it! The first one makes a distinctly more professional impression. Batswanarights.org is like an official letterhead, whereas yahoo.com is more like an airline or hotel postcard, though this effect can be minimized if the name is more professional, like mimikabissa@yahoo.com. Having an official business mailbox also improves our behavior. We will write more professional emails knowing it is on official letterhead and includes a professional, meaningful signature at bottom containing official contact details. Mimi discussed professional e-mail in a previous Gong Gong: http://www.kabissa.org/mimi/professional_e-mails.html

Reliability and Continuity

What happens when an employee can't get to their email for some reason? Or suddenly has to leave your organization? Having an official mailbox means that it is still possible to make use of the mailbox even when the employee is unavailable. While I wouldn't want to give my colleague my personal gmail or yahoo login details while I'm away at a conference, there is no reason for me not to give them my official mailbox password (I can always change it later). She can then watch my inbox for me while I’m away, or I can ask her to look for a specific document or phone number tucked away in my saved mail folders. When I leave the organization, my mailbox can be deleted and an automatic autoreply configured with a forwarding address.

Kabissa hosting services

As a Kabissa member, your organization is eligible for domain hosting on Kabissa - this includes your own domain name on the Internet (ie. batswanarights.org) which you can use for both e-mail and your website. A control panel is provided to set up and manage mailboxes and other features. Our free subdomain (ie. batswanarights.kabissa.org) includes three free mailboxes! Our Standard and Power accounts include more mailboxes for larger organizations. For more details, write to us at hosting or see http://www.kabissa.org/internet_services_overview.html

Feeling experimental? Set up Google mail on your Kabissa domain!

Google is trying out an interesting new service called Google Apps for your Domain which you can use in conjunction with your Kabissa hosting account. Google is driven by advertising, but is otherwise free and offers an impressive range of tools and disk space per mailbox - all on your own, existing, domain name! If you are interested in this, write to us at support and we will help you set it up. More details about the service available here: https://www.google.com/a/