3 Stress

32 members of staff feel that emails are a major cause of stress. The most common reasons for this are:

- being copied into emails which do not concern them (given by 30 members of staff)

- unclear wording (given by 23 members of staff)

- overuse of the ‘urgent’ icon (given by 14 members of staff)

32 members of staff think that the problem will get worse in the future.

3. You need to pick out some of the most important figures in order to present them at a staff meeting. Scan the text and complete the notes below with the correct number of staff in each gap (1-7).

Writing

Reports usually end with a conclusion which gives the most important points about the figures and some recommendations about what the company should do.

1. Look at the sentences (1-4) below, which draw conclusions from the report. Underline the correct alternative in italics for each.

1. A majority/minority of staff members said they received too many emails.

2. This is always/often/never because messages are copied to them unnecessarily.

3. Although most/not many staff know how to create folders, most of them/few of them can use often aspects of the software such as the voting buttons.

4. A majority/minority of staff members felt that emails were a major source of stress.