New e-mail policy

Below are the guide lines we will use to communicate through our company e-mail system. These rules will increase productivity and reduce time sorting through e-mail that does not affect your area of the company.
• Be brief and Professional; stick to the facts of what your trying to communicate, keep the bottom line up front and be respectful we are all on the same team.
• Courtesy Copy and Reply all too only those needed; ensure you only send your e-mail to people with whom the message is intended for. Reply all can cause problems with personnel getting the wrong information.
• Attachment size will be limited; Large attachment clog up e-mail inbox and slow down the performance of the net work.
• All attachments will be screened by antivirus before opened; software viruses are a great risk to our company network and no one wants to be the one to crash our communication system.
• No forwarding of chain e-mail; chain e-mail can be counterproductive and offensive your fellow employees.
• Spell out all words before using Acronyms; Not everyone is familiar with all acronyms so the first time you use an acronym spell the words out then put the acronym next to it in parentheses.
• No writing in all CAPs; No shouting within your e-mail. This refers back to being professional and courteous to your fellow employees.
• Use spell check; This will not always work to correct all misspelled words and bad grammar, but will cut down on the majority of problems we will have.
• Do not share the company address book; other e-mail address kept in the company are for official use only and are not to be shared or used outside the company work space. Sharing a coworker’s e-mail address for solicitation is a violation of their privacy.
• Do not share company information without side sources; Do not send e-mails containing secure work related information to your personal e-mail address outside of the company network. This could compromise future business and relationships with other companies.
• No nasty grams; E-mail is not an appropriate for mat to argue with a fellow employee, nor is it a professional way to communicate improvements that need to be made in an employee work performance. All disagreements need to be settled through meetings and anything dealing with an employees work performance both negative and positive need to be done face to face in a professional setting.
These rules can be added to or take from in the future, we just have to have supporting information on why to add a new rule or take away one that I have put in place.

Very Respectfully

Summary
I choose these basic rules as a start point with the policy. I did not feel the entire policy should be laid out in the email so I broke down the rules in bullets and included a brief how and why along with the bullet. I also left room for input from everyone not just the people that have been with the company for years, but those new employees that can bring fresh new ideas from other places.
I based the majority of this off of problems I saw while in the military with the miss use of e-mail and the things we put in to place to help train and correct those problems. I always tried to include the senior leadership in the creation and finalizing of policy which will require them to take ownership of and enforce. We also wanted input from junior members and new arrivals that bring in ideas from outside organization. This can be useful in answering question that have already been asked and solved in other companies.
I use material in reference to arguing through e-mail refer to as flaming by G.J. Christensen (Christensen, G.J. (2003). Professional E-mail Needs Attention). This explains that you should never put anything in an e-mail that you would not want on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. These actions also cause conflict within the work place that can cause lack of support later and effect productivity of the company as a whole.
The rest of the ideas for the rules D.G. Jerz E-Mail: Ten Tips for Writing It Effectively. Within this were broke down details from keeping the bottom line of the message up front in the first paragraph. To the fact of answering all of the questions in the e-mail in a timely manner (Jerz, D.G. (2000). E-Mail: Ten Tips for Writing It Effectively).
In all these rules create a guide line for a more efficient, professional work environment that includes employee input.
References
Christensen, G.J. (2003). Professional E-mail Needs Attendion. Accessed from: http://www.csun.edu/~vcecn006/email.html
Jerz, D.G. (2000). E-Mail: Ten Tips for Writing It Effectively. Accessed from: jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/e-text/e-mail.htm