Email and messaging (Inclusive Communication)

Owned by Lucy Orange
Last updated: 01 Aug, 2023
3 min read

A lot of the communication we do at work is through online platforms. The university uses Gmail for emails, and a lot of staff members, particularly in PSS, use Slack for instant messaging.

Please familiarise yourself with the Faculty of Sciences guidance on email and Slack, which you can also access the guidance in a Google document format if this is more accessible for you. Please also refer to the further guidance at the bottom of the page.

If there is anything you would like to see included in this page, please let Lucy know at environment-hr@york.ac.uk.


General tips

  • Respect people's pronouns. Some people choose to display these in their email signature. If in doubt, use gender neutral terms.
  • Respect people's names. If you are not sure, copy and paste their name to ensure you are spelling it correctly.
  • Write... then re-write! If you feel yourself writing a disrespectful/rude email, take a break and come back to it to edit or start again.


Departmental-specific guidance

Embed a link within a concise string of text instead of using its URL as the link text. This will help a screen reader user to find the accessible link leads - otherwise their screen reader will read every single character of the URL!


You should use an accessible hyperlink whenever you send a link.
 Want a quick way to insert a link? Highlight the link text in your email/document and press CTRL + K, then insert the link!


Emailing group email addresses

Writing an email to the all staff group (environment-staff-group@york.ac.uk)?  Please consider these few things before sending:

  1. Does this need to be a separate email? Messages of congratulations or updates that aren't urgent should be added to the newsletter to avoid email traffic. You could also consider asking Roland to include it in his Monday morning message.
  2. Can you narrow down who you are sending the email to? Check the list of all our group email addresses to see if there's a better email to use. You can also ask Annabel/Chloe at environment-pa@york.ac.uk for a list of emails within a staffing group (academic/T&S/research/PSS/technical).
  3. Remember to BCC group email addresses. This helps prevent response emails that go to everyone.

Please do your part to prevent unnecessary email traffic! 

Faculty of Sciences Agreement on Email and Slack Practices



Google and Slack Guidance


Gmail

Gmail guidance

Gmail link

Slack

(Please log in to see this content, or visit the Slack wiki page)

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Your UoY's Slack account link

DEG Slack channels

  • env-allstaff - for all staff messages
  • env-coffeebreak - for non-work related messages to all staff

Useful UoY Slack channels

  • #job-vacancies - all the latest job opportunities are posted here as soon as they are made live
  • #recycle-chat - for staff members to swap/give away/collect unwanted items.
  • #remote-working - a place for staff to share best practice about remote working.
  • #announcements - for workspace-wide announcements.
  • #slack-talk - for helpful updates about Slack and to ask questions.
  • #it-hints-and-tips - for general IT queries (note this is peer to peer advice, not monitored by IT Services).
  • #local-information - for updates on traffic, transport, weather etc.
  • #digital accessibility - for sharing best practice about digital accessibility.
  • #any-questions - for staff members to openly ask work-related questions.
  • #artandcraft - for sharing your arts and crafts projects or to ask related questions.
  • #social-general-chat - a "tea break" space for members of UoY.
  • #staff-autism-space - for anyone connected to Autism.
  • #development-chat - an open channel for development and programming discussion.
  • #staff-mental-health-wellbeing-network - a platform to share ideas and best practice, as well as networking.


Looking for more channels? Go to Slack and hover over "Channels" in the main left hand side menu, theres a + that comes up, click that and then choose "Browse channels" and you can then see everything that's available to you.