WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mimecast®, a leading supplier of cloud-based email security, continuity and archiving, today announced the results from the second part of its international research project aimed at uncovering how email is used by employees in companies across the globe. The second installment focused on how attitudes to work email use are evolving and the differing ways in which employers are managing this core communication channel.
The research found that 79% of all employees send work emails from their personal email accounts, with 1 in 5 saying they do this on a regular basis. Awareness of the security risks this behavior poses does not act as a deterrent: 71% of people questioned recognize that there is an additional risk in sending work documents outside the corporate email environment, but 47% of these same respondents feel it is acceptable to send work emails and documents to personal email accounts anyway.
The most important conclusion that can be drawn from the report is that IT departments worldwide are fighting a losing battle in seeking to constrain employees’ behavior through policy alone. Today’s information workers, or “Generation Gmail,” want to be able to use email as flexibly in the workplace as they can in their personal lives. When employees are unable to work the way they want to using corporate technology, they are willing to work around these issues by using personal email accounts.
These findings suggest that a new approach is needed in order to empower employees while protecting corporate intellectual property and ensuring regulatory compliance.
Despite the limitations imposed by corporate IT being a major driver for employees to use personal accounts, the research suggests that moving from a “controlling” to an “empowering” environment will not by itself be enough. Only 40% of respondents said that they would be less likely to use their personal email account for work purposes if they had an unlimited work mailbox, a figure that should seemingly be higher if the mailbox size concern was alleviated. This shows that a technological solution is also needed to ensure compliant email behavior and reduce the need to work around the limitations of corporate email.
Additional key findings of the research included:
- 66% of employees responded that email is their favorite means of communication.
- When asked what the reasons were to use personal accounts for work purposes, 71% responded that it was to work on documents remotely, 21% said it was to send files too big for their company mailbox; 18% wanted to take documents with them when they left a company; and 9% simply didn’t want to carry their laptop home.
- Only half of email workers (54%) say that their company has an email policy, 29% say there is no email policy and 1 in 6 (17%) don't even know.
- At companies where email policies exist, 42% of these policies cover email management and only 30% include issues relating to email retention. Most policies are related to the appropriate use of email (88%) in the business.
- 4 in 10 (40%) of corporate email users think that their organization’s email policy could be better communicated.
- When asked to rank their biggest frustrations with work email, 39 % of respondents said managing mailbox contents to keep it within certain limits; 25% were frustrated about messages saying their mailbox was full; 17% felt the inability to send/receive messages when over a size limit was frustrating; 15% were frustrated that they had to send emails to personal accounts; and 6% were frustrated by having to use tools like YouSendIt to send large files.
“Email policies need to evolve to reflect both the high level of sophistication amongst users and the changing communications landscape within companies,” said Peter Bauer, CEO and co-founder of Mimecast. “Although individuals are seemingly aware of the risks of sending work documents outside the corporate email environment, this awareness is not translating into safer behavior. A significant portion of this group still believes that sending work documents to personal email accounts is acceptable. Getting employees to care about this risk is only part of the solution; employers must take responsibility for closing this disconnect through a holistic effort encompassing email systems, policy and culture. The most progressive companies will be those whose email systems and policies support the needs of both the business and its employees.”
“Generation Gmail: Is Business Email at Risk?”
Mimecast recently hosted an online discussion looking at this research in greater depth. To hear the debate, which was chaired by Mimecast’s Chief Scientist, Nathaniel Borenstein, and featured Mimecast’s Director of Communities and Content, Justin Pirie, and the CEO of First Base Technologies ISACA, Peter Wood, please follow the link below: http://mediazone.brighttalk.com/event/infosecurity/79cc30c735-4820-intro
Report Available for Download
Mimecast commissioned Loudhouse, an independent marketing research consultancy, to conduct this survey on how attitudes to corporate email use are evolving and how progressive employers are managing this core communication channel. The research comprised a total of more than 2,400 online interviews with corporate email users worldwide. A copy of the full Generation Gmail Report is now available for download at: www.mimecast.com/GenerationGmail.
About Mimecast
Mimecast (www.mimecast.com) delivers SaaS-based enterprise email management including security, continuity and archiving. By unifying disparate and fragmented email environments into one holistic solution that is always available from the cloud, Mimecast minimizes risk and reduces cost and complexity, while providing total end-to-end control of email. Founded in the United Kingdom in 2003, Mimecast serves approximately 3,500 customers worldwide and has offices in Europe, North America, Africa and the Channel Islands.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=6640697&lang=en