Title: "Companies Shift Internal Communications Strategy, Scale Back Mass E-Mails"
             Pub.: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
             With the overload of e-mail and Internet access, companies have more avenues than ever to communicate with their employees. But a problem arises when the company is trying to inform their workers with important information. It has become difficult for employees to distinguish what is important and relevant to them. Employees are overloaded with mass e-mails that waste their time and have no relevance to them personally.
             As a result, companies have become more selective over the last few years. The more critical news is still sent through mass e-mails, but other information is now available on Intranet database systems, which is only available to employees on their computers at work. Now employees have access to the information that they want, when they want it, as opposed to force-feeding them. Companies are giving more thought to what they send their employees.
             Duke has since stopped publishing its monthly newsletter to employees. It now posts information to its Intranet site as it comes about. Even the articles the utility's communications department writes for employees are getting shorter. Instead of 800-word articles, they are now around 500 words.
             First Union implemented FirstNet, which broadcasts messages from top management via satellite to branches and offices around the country.
             I must admit, this is a great strategy. I think more than half of the time, people think that the greater the technology we have, the more efficient we become. However, I think that we tend to overuse it and end up back at square one searching for a new way to communicate with greater ease.
             While employing hundreds of people, companies should indeed sort through who they send information to checking to see if it is relevant to all employees.
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