Blunder prevention: For employees who’ve regretted sending an e-mail
October 9, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: Fun stuff on the Web, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
As an HR pro, perhaps you’ve heard this from employees, “I wish I hadn’t sent that e-mail.”
For people who’ve expressed that regret, now there’s help.
Gmail has introduced something called Mail Goggles. It’s a check to make sure someone really wants to send that e-mail they’ve just drafted.
The message that pops up when Goggles is enabled says, “It’s that time of day. Gmail aims to help you in many ways. Are you sure you want to send this? Answer some simple math problems to verify.”
Goggles’ default setting makes it active only late night on weekends — apparently aimed more at personal e-mails than workplace ones. However, anyone can adjust when it’s active, in case more impulsive e-mailing occurs between the hours of 9 and 5.
You can find out more about Mail Goggles here.
Have any of your employees sent e-mails they wish they hadn’t?
Tags: e-mail, gmail, Mail Goggles
October 10th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Groupwise has an “unsend” button that will reacall any email that has not yet been opened by the recipient. I used it several times when I forgot to “attach” something… I sure miss that button in Lotus Notes….
October 10th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I checked Outlook to see if it has this feature. Here are the instructions for Outlook. I ASSUME other programs are less complex, and the receipient does not have to be logged in. Can anyone verify this ?
You can recall or replace a message only if its recipient is logged on and using Microsoft Outlook and has not read the message or moved it from their Inbox.
In Mail, in the Navigation Pane (Navigation Pane: The column on the left side of the Outlook window that includes panes such as Shortcuts or Mail and the shortcuts or folders within each pane. Click a folder to show the items in the folder.), click Sent Items.
Open the message you want to recall or replace.
In the message window, on the Actions menu, click Recall This Message.
Note This command does not appear unless you are using an Exchange e-mail account.
Thanks.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
The “Recall” and “Replace” features of Microsoft Outlook only work if the mail recipient opens the recall or replace e-mail first. If the original e-mail is opened first, the feature will fail.